One of my favorite quotes comes from Martin Luther, when he was trying to teach through the book of Ecclesiastes, and after finding himself struggling to lecture on it declared, “Solomon the preacher is giving me a hard time, as though he begrudged anyone lecturing on him.”1 I don’t know a pastor who hasn’t felt that at some point in his teaching or preaching ministry. There have been several occasions where I’ve thought in the midst of sermon preparation that maybe this text just wasn’t meant to be preached because I was having such a hard time figuring out exactly how to preach the text faithfully.
On the other hand, some texts you come to, and not only do you see the message of the text clearly, but it is thrilling to your soul. Two weeks ago, more than once, for example, I found myself standing in Tom’s office, sharing with him how powerful 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 was ministering to my soul. In fact, I told him that my only fear heading into last Sunday is that I would somehow get in the way or fail to communicate the power of this text as it had ministered in my own soul.
Other texts fall somewhere in the middle, maybe where you see how the text works or the logic of the argument in the text, but you don’t find yourself immediately thrilled while looking at the text. Preaching about a text that argues for justification by faith alone, as we did through the book of Galatians more immediately thrills your soul to think about preaching than a text that focuses on why we shouldn’t steal, for example.
Well, when I first began to work through our text this morning, 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, I felt like the text fit into this third camp. That is, the message of the text wasn’t necessarily hard to see. In the text, Paul is clearly telling the Corinthians not to be divided. However, I found myself initially lacking an overwhelming sense of excitement. I didn’t run into Tom’s office and say, “Man, I am excited to get to warn us against division this week.” However, the more I worked through the text and the more I thought about the implications of this text the more I found myself getting excited, not only about preaching the text but about what message I believe the Lord gives to us as a church by directing us to this text this morning.
Let me explain. A few weeks ago, we finished a nearly fifteen year run of preaching through the whole Bible. Of course, some books we had worked through by preaching in broader strokes, as we saw the broader structures of a book. Most of the time, the books we approached that way were longer Old Testament books. So, for example, we worked through Ezekiel in 7 messages, while the book is forty-eight chapters long. Yet, even then, I found myself thinking that the first five sermons (covering chapters 1-32 of Ezekiel) were all going to be about divine judgment. But on most occasions, when we came to a New Testament book, we’d slow down and take smaller chunks, as we did when we took fifteen sermons to work our way through the six chapters that make up the book of Galatians.
Well, one New Testament book I did preach along its larger structural lines was 1 Corinthians. We worked through this book the first time in March and April of 2003, covering the sixteen chapters that make up this book in only eight messages. In fact, the first section I took up in that sermon series was 1 Corinthians 1-4. By that I don’t mean verses 1-4 of chapter 1, but chapters 1-4. And I think you can see the reason why if you’ve read the book as a whole. In our text this morning (1:10-17), we have the theme of divisions, and of some following Paul or Apollos or Cephas, and the note in v. 17 that we preach the cross, themes that we see throughout these first four chapters as a whole. The rest of chapter 1 and chapter 2 continue the theme of the power of the gospel, while chapters 3-4 return to divisions, even mentioning repeatedly Paul, Apollos, and on occasion Peter. So, I wanted to return to this book and look at the smaller sections without these larger structures, like we’re doing with 1:10-17 this morning.
But there’s another motivating factor in looking at this book as well. As the other pastors and I have talked, with the upcoming Sunday school class in the fall in which we’ll consider the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the church, we’ve thought of greater need for us to focus more specifically on the issue of the Spirit and spiritual gifts. And as we spoke about that, we realized that our longing to look at that issue more specifically fits perfectly with preaching through this book, which focuses on that specifically in chapters 12-14. Therefore, I think this is exactly where we need to be as a church, studying through this book of 1 Corinthians.
Let me then show you why this makes me thrilled as I consider this text of 1 Corinthians 1:10-17. If this is where the Lord wants us to be at this moment – studying, learning from, and applying the truths spelled out in this book of 1 Corinthians – and if our text this morning focuses on gospel unity and fighting against divisions in the church, then it stands to reason that the Lord wants us to know even greater unity in the gospel than we already know. And one reason this excites me is because I really love the gospel unity the Lord has already established here in this church. I love the fact that your response to the preaching of a gospel-saturated, gospel-exalting text like we looked at last week in 1:1-9 is sheer delight. I love it that holding up the gospel draws rejoicing in your hearts and binds us together as we hold the gospel up to one another and then love one another more for holding the gospel up before us. I love the way the gospel unites and continues to unite this community. It is right. It is good. In fact, it is by our love for one another in the gospel that those outside of the Lord will know we are his disciples.
Therefore, when I look at this text the Lord has laid before us in our continual study of his Word, it excites me to think that he wants us to know and experience even greater unity as a community of believers in the gospel. That is exciting to me. That thrills my soul. Therefore, I come to this text and the texts that are going to deal with this similar theme all the way through the end of chapter 4, with excitement.
So, I know that’s a long introductory note, but when you consider that it relates to what we’re going to look at all the way through the end of chapter 4, it’s not that bad, is it? But I do want to dive into the text before us this morning and start here. And I want to deal with it in terms of asking three questions of the text: 1) What was the Corinthians’ problem? 2) What was Paul’s solution to their problem? and 3) What happens when a people apply the solution provided by Paul in this text?
Now, if you look at the text, it seems the answer is clear. Their problem is that there were divisions and divisive quarreling in the church at Corinth. Paul begins the text by appealing to them to agree and have no divisions among them, but rather they need to be united in the same mind and judgment. That is, Paul wants them to be united in that they think the same way, speak the same way, and have the same judgment. This is not simply being the same – like every instrument in a band being the same. That’d be boring, wouldn’t it? Rather, Paul delights in diversity, but he wants there to be a united agreement in what they say and think and judge good. Now, exactly what he wants them to think and say together, being on the same page, we’ll see in a bit.
But before Paul outlines the nature of how he wants them to think and speak, he dives into the problem. He writes in verse 11-12, “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarrelling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ.’”
This probably means that Chloe was some sort of a business owner that practiced in trade, most likely between Ephesus (where Paul is when he corresponds with the Thessalonians) and Corinth. And some of her workers were probably Christians who went down to Corinth and gathered with the believers there. However, as they’d done so, they noticed a lot of quarreling, and bickering, and divisiveness as the people tried to divide over which teacher they followed. And these believers brought word back to Paul.
But how were they dividing behind each of these men? We can say with certainty that it wasn’t some kind of theological division. After all, we know that these men all preached and believed the same thing. And we can also argue that each of these men were promoting division somehow by promoting themselves over another. That simply wouldn’t have happened.
Perhaps we have some clues in a few places. For one, Paul will alter say in our text, “I think God that I baptized none of you [except for a few] so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name” (vv. 14-15). That is, they were identifying with each of these men as being their guy of sorts. And perhaps we have another clue later on in the book when Paul writes in 3:21-22, “So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Thus, it seems they were boasting in men, holding them up, and identifying themselves in line of these men.
It might be something like this. We know that Apollos was a bold and eloquent speaker because Acts 18:24-26 tells us that Apollos “was an eloquent man” and “fervent in spirit.” So, my guess is that Apollos would have been a fantastic preacher to listen to. So, maybe you had some people in Corinth saying, “I tell who I am about – Apollos. You know, he understands that the key to Christian ministry is proclamation. We proclaim the gospel. God has spoken and given us his word. And if you’re going to think and speak God’s words after him, then you need to realize that what you say and how you say it is important. I’m of the school of Apollos.” And then another chimes in and says, “Well, Paul’s not an eloquent speaker [after all, he himself declared that in v. 17], but that’s what I like about him. He’s a regular guy, a genuine, real, man. That’s what we need to be humble, salt of the earth kind of people. To be other than that is to miss what is most basic to Christian living.” And another said something like that about Peter. And probably another self-righteous group heard their talk about these men and their gifts and said, “Are you guys kidding me? We don’t need to follow men or be taught by men. We have Christ.”
And all of them were sinning. All of them were sinning because they were attempting to identify themselves in some vicarious way with someone else and their gifts so that they could exalt themselves. They were Apollos men or Paul men or Peter men because by identifying with these men, they felt it exalted them. And that aim of self-exaltation was sinful.
We see this kind of thing in the university and in the seminary all the time. People become of the so and so school of preaching, or the so and so way of doing theology, or the so and so method of counseling, and we identify ourselves by others gifts and strategies, not in order to rejoice in their gifts and abilities but in order to make ourselves look better. So, you walk around campus, following a certain professor as one of his boys, and you look at others thinking, “That’s right,” and they look at you, enviously thinking, “Man, I hate him and wish I were in his shoes.”
It’s like being able to say, “I’m of the school of preaching like Aaron O’Kelley does preaching” somehow exalts you above your brothers. It doesn’t. And it has nothing to do with Aaron O’Kelley, who is an extremely gifted preacher and teacher. It doesn’t exalt you for saying that because the Lord didn’t give the gift of Aaron O’Kelley to the church so that you could try to identify yourself with him in a way to get some kind of vicarious ego boost,2 as one scholar has labeled it.
And it seems others, saying, “I follow Christ” were sinning as well because instead of rejoicing in and thanking God for these men as gifts to the church, they self-righteously distanced themselves as if they needed no one. This is the guy who says, “No, I haven’t read any theology books. I don’t need to. I have the Bible, and I believe the Bible.” Well, that’s great, brother, and we have the Bible too. But God himself gave teachers to the church in order that they might help us understand the Bible, so your stance is one of pride and arrogance as well.
So, they were sinning because they were identifying with other gifted men, not in order to celebrate or thank God for these men’s God-given gifts, but to try to elevate themselves above others by identifying themselves with these gifted brothers. And others, it seems, were sinning by rejecting these men all together as gifts from Christ in order to elevate themselves above their brothers. So, this brings us to our second question:
Paul’s solution was to focus them on what they have in Christ and his redeeming work. You see, there’s something they were missing that made this divisive action even more misguided than we’ve already seen. What they missed is that they didn’t have to settle for identifying Paul or Apollos or Cephas as their unique focus or source of identification because they didn’t have to choose one or the other. They could lay claim to all of them because they had Christ, and each of these men, at their best, are only showing us different aspects of Christ’s glory. Why not say, “I thank God for how Paul reminds me of Christ’s humility and Apollos of the clarity with which Christ speaks and Peter of his willingness to lead”? After all, each of these men are only part of the body of Christ, which collectively reflects the glory of Christ in the world.
You see, this is no doubt one reason why Paul asks them in the next phrase, “Is Christ divided?” (v. 13). Perhaps Paul asks this because they’re divided, they’re the body of Christ, and so he shows them the absurdity of being divided when they’re to reflect one who is himself undivided. But I think it better to see it this way. Paul wants them to realize that Christ is not divided in the sense that you don’t have to choose to identify with one aspect of Christ, represented in one of his servants. Rather, as Paul writes in 3:21, “So let us not boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas . . . all are yours.” Don’t settle for one. You have all because these men are merely gifts from Christ, and you have Christ.
By asking “Is Christ divided?” Paul takes their eyes off of these men and puts them on Christ, who is theirs, and as he continues to ask them questions, he focuses them on the redeeming work that Christ has done for them.
After asking, “Is Christ divided?” Paul asks two other questions, namely, “Was Paul crucified for you?” and “Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (v. 13). By asking these questions, he of course shows that he isn’t on board, even with the Paul followers. He shows this even more clearly when, in verses 14-16, he points out that he only baptized a few of them and that made him happy so that not many could claim they were baptized in Paul’s name or had some kind of greater standing because they were baptized by Paul. But the other thing he does is he focuses them on what was their greatest need and who met it.
You see, when Paul asks if he was baptized for them or crucified for them, he reminds them that what they truly needed to be made whole was for Christ to die for them and be raised for them. Of course, when Paul speaks of Christ crucified or, later, the cross of Christ, he means all of Christ’s saving work. And I say, “What they truly needed to be made whole” I use that phrase “be made whole” intentionally. Normally, we might say to be forgiven, or redeemed, or the like, but “be made whole,” is a biblical image of salvation as well, and that’s what these Corinthians were seeking. They were seeking to fill their insecurity by trying to exalt themselves through identifying with a gifted brother, when Christ had already been crucified with them and they’d been baptized in the name of Christ at their profession so that they had already been made whole.
This is what Paul wants them to see. He wants them to focus on Christ and on his redeeming work. That’s why he writes in verse 17, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” He wants them to remember how the gospel, how the cross, powerfully worked in their lives to make them right with God. This is the kind of thinking and judgment Paul has in mind back in verse 10 when he says he wants them to be of the same mind and of the same judgment. He wants them to realize that they have Christ and they have been made right, made whole, because of Christ’s redeeming work of living, dying, and being raised for them.
And this brings us to our third question:
Why does Paul write all of this? Obviously, he doesn’t want them to be divided, like they were. Obviously he wants them to know more unity. But why dive into Christ’s work and the gospel and the power of the cross. One reason is because when each of us realizes that we have Christ himself and that we have been made right, whole, and acceptable to God through the redeeming work of his Son, it helps us put those around us in their rightful place.
What I mean by that is that it helps us, on the one hand, not to exalt a man as if merely identifying with him exalts us. That makes too much of man, placing him in a role that belongs to Christ alone. That’s what they were doing by saying, “I am of Paul,” but Paul wasn’t crucified for them, Christ was. So, it helps us see that our greatest need is greater than anything a mere man could do for us. We needed Christ, the God-man, to live, die, and be raised for us.
And on the other hand, it helps us to rightly appreciate and give thanks for the gifts that other men and women are in our lives as servants of God. You see, when you fail to see that you have Christ and are accepted by God because of Christ’s redeeming work for you, then it is natural for us to feel threatened by others’ gifts, abilities, and successes. This is why someone might say, “Man, Mark Dever really benefitted me on thinking about what a healthy church needs to look like,” and you respond, “We don’t need Mark Dever; we have the Bible,” that stems from an insecurity you feel that feels threatened by other’s gifts or blessings or abilities. And I think everyone knows what I’m talking about here. Why does one ever feel threatened in that situation? It’s because we’re envious or feel lacking ourselves. That is, we’re insecure. But the gospel gives security by reminding us that we’re accepted by God. Whose acceptance then do you need? It reminds us that we have Christ, of whom any man, no matter how gifted he is, is a mere servant. So, if you know that, then you need not feel threatened by another’s blessings or gifts, you can thank God.
And when some prestigious brother joins the church down the street instead of ours, we need not be discouraged. That’s the response of someone who misses that they have Christ and because of Christ’s work have been approved of by God. We can rejoice that the church down the street is getting such a brother. Gospel security actually helps us put man in his rightful place – which means both not in the exalted place that only Christ should hold but also as those who are gifts from Christ to his church in whom we should rejoice.
The result of Paul’s solution to point them to Christ and his gospel is that they will know a unity that is only found in a people who know and believe the gospel and find security in it. A church in which the members do not know gospel security will be a church which is always tending toward divisions. And a church in which the members know gospel security in a church which will know a unity that is only found in the gospel. It is a unity that is beautiful. It is a unity we love. It is a unity that attracts outsiders, who’ll say, “I want to be part of that unity.” That’s how the Lord has designed the church.
Therefore, this morning, let us come to the table, as one people, unified because of the gospel. Let us remember that we have all of Christ and that we have been made right with God through Christ’s redeeming work for us. And let that lead us to joyfully sing of his love. Amen.