Divisions in the Church 1:10-4:21

Paul began his letter with greetings and Christian salutation. He thanked God for His gift to the Corinthians in the present and the future. Paul was overwhelmed by the good things he saw in Corinth. He was not overtaken by the problems and weaknesses of the church that he had just heard rather he first thanked God by seeing the positive side of the church. After thanksgiving, Paul points out that something was wrong in the church. Firstly, he warns them of the danger of division among them. Paul heard through some from the house of Chloe that there were divisions in the church, each group boasting about a human leader Vs. 10-12. So, he urged the Corinthian Christians to stop their quarrelling and be united.

Paul identifies four parties in the church at Corinth. Some called themselves Paul's party. Others formed the Apollos party. The third group claimed to belong to Cephas and the fourth group claimed to belong to Christ. It is to be noted that the great figures of the church whose are named here, Paul, Cephas and Apollos, had nothing to do with these divisions. There were no dissensions between them. Without their knowledge and without their consent their names had been appropriated by these Corinthian factions. Let us briefly study these parties and see if we can find out what they were standing for.

First, there were those who claimed to belong to Paul. This party was probably made up of the circle of the first converts many of whom might have been led to the Lord and baptized by Paul himself. This was a source of personal pride for them, as if they were a little more securely saved because Paul had been involved. But Paul deeply regretted his name being associated with any faction. He rebuked them saying 'I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus, Gaius and the house hold of Stephens, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. Paul was never in favour of such divisions which were based on famous or outstanding personality. William Barclay has said this was mainly a gentile party. Paul had always preached the gospel of Christian freedom and the end of the Law. It is most likely that this party was attempting to turn liberty in to license and using their new found Christianity as an excuse to do as they liked. They had forgotten that they were saved, not to be free to sin, but to be free not to sin.

Second, there was a party who claimed to belong to Apollos. Apollos was a new convert from Alexandria. The city historically was the centre of what is known as the allegorically method of interpretation of the scriptures. Apollos himself was an eloquent man and well versed in the Scripture. He could preach very well cf. Acts. 18:24. In the beginning he had some doctrinal problem but after Aquila and Priscilla straightened him out, he had no problem. When Paul left Corinth, it was Apollos who went there and ministered in Corinth. He faithfully carried out his ministry there, Acts. 18:24-28; 19:1. People were thus, impressed with his ministry, his intellectual ability and preaching style.

Third was the Cephas party. Cephas was the Jewish form of Peter's name. Those who belonged to this party were most likely Jews. They perhaps went to an extreme of legalistic and Pharisaic interpretation of Christian life and doctrine. They sought to teach that a man must still observe the Jewish law. They adopted Peter's name because he had an image of strictness especially concerning the Jewish Law. Peter had never visited Corinth but his name was well known in Christian circles. Perhaps Paul had told them of his argument with Peter in Antioch when he had to reprimand Peter to his face for not taking a stand against the Judaizers Gal 2:11-14. Not only did this group in Corinth feel incline to take Peter's side on this, but the name of the leader of the original twelve apostles added to the status of their party.

There was the fourth group which claimed to belong to Christ. This may be understood in two ways. One, there was absolutely no punctuation in Greek manuscripts and space whatever between the words. This may well not describe a party at all. It may be the comment of Paul himself. Perhaps we ought to punctuate like this: "I am of Paul; I am of Apollos; I am of Cephas-but 1 belong to Christ." It may well be that this is Paul's own comment on the whole wretched situation. Second, if that is not so and this does describe a party, they must have been a small and rigid sect who claimed that they were the only true Christians. Their real fault was not in saying that they belonged to Christ, but in acting as if Christ belonged to them. Perhaps they were proud of being the follower of Jesus Christ himself and not any human leader. They were the exclusivists, intolerant and self-righteous group. They not only made a mistake of considering themselves super Christians but they disregarded the leadership of Paul, Peter and Apollos.

Reasons for the divisions and Paul's arguments:

The total effect of the four parties in the church was a serious church split. Let us try to find out the underlying reasons of such divisions in the church. A) The basic and foremost reason that Paul points out is their carnality 3:3-4. Although they were believers their behaviour was not like that of saved people. They had jealousy and quarrelling among them because they were worldly. They behaved like an immature child. B) The existing practice of following the prominent leaders in the pagan world in the time of 1 Corinthians. All the mystery religions and philosophical schools had their own cult leaders. They had huge number of followers. Each leader would prove his competence by eloquence and by defeating the arguments of other leaders. So, to be a cult leader one must have eloquence and capacity to outshine others in argument. Many cults also practiced baptism or a kind of initiation ceremony. The baptism or initiation given by their cult leader was considered a matter of pride. This enables us to understand why Paul downplayed the importance of baptism. Paul was not opposed to baptism but he was opposed to making baptism a matter of pride because it had been given by a particular leader.

Paul's argument is that person is not to be given too much importance on the basis of his personality. The mistake people make is they emphasize on the person rather than the message of Christ and his cross. This is why Paul says people should not take pride in been baptized by him for he was not sent to by Jesus to baptize, but to preach the gospel 1: 13-17. Paul's mission was not to couch the gospel in the language of the trained orator, who had studied the techniques of influencing people by persuasive arguments. Paul reminds the Corinthians that when he was among them, he did not try to impress them with any great show of learning. He preached plain gospel without trying to make it attractive to any one class of people. Hence, we can conclude Paul's argument by saying 'the baptizer is not important but the message of cross is what is important. The church belongs to Christ, not to any individual. Paul not only disregards such party spirit in the church, he rebukes them for involving his name in one of the parties.

Paul's second argument is about the human wisdom and divine wisdom. Paul refers to eloquent or words of human wisdom' in 1:17 and this leads him into a long discussion of human and divine wisdom 1:18-2:16. Greeks gave much importance to human wisdom, philosophical arguments, debate and eloquence. For them to accept Jesus as a sign of wisdom and one to be worshipped was considered as to be foolish. Jesus never even opened his mouth before Pilate. How could anyone accept him as an exponent of wisdom and also as a leader? According to the Greeks, a leader should outshine with wit, eloquence and debate. Paul points out that the whole idea of salvation from sin through the death of Christ on the cross appears foolish to the average person, but to the believer it shows God's power (V.18). Wisdom is not found in personal achievement but in what God has done in Christ. Through Christ God has put the believer right with himself. It is him alone that the believer boasts. Paul thus, argues that no man should take pride in human wisdom nor they should be attracted by the leaders who possess worldly wisdom. The point Paul is trying to stress here is that in any case; the church should not be divided on the basis of ability, wisdom or personality of a person.

Our churches are full of divisions, parties and groups. We have old denominations and new ones. We have congregations splitting off from the main denominations, congregations splitting into two or three parties. We have revival Bishops and conferences and organizations. 

We have quarrels over properties, appointments, positions, elections, funds, anything over which one can quarrel. We have court cases. And even we have none of these things; we often find it hard to get along with other members of the congregation. Many people form new organizations for no other reason than the difficulty they have had in relationships with other church members.

What is the cause of our divisions? And what is the solution? Paul takes us to the heart of the problem in this passage, because he goes to the underlying causes and applies principles which are as valid today as at that time.

Students are expected to try and identify causes of divisions in their own churches and apply Paul's principles to solve the problem of division and party spirit which hinders the unity and overall growth of the church. What steps can be taken to strengthen the unity of the church. Be specific when you state causes of divisions and the solutions/suggestions to the problem of divisions and disunity.