Week 44 1 Corinthians
In the first couple of chapters of Acts the church seemed to be so nice. The Ideal Church. But before long it started to look more like a Real Church (in search of the Ideal).
Same thing shows up right away in first Corinthians. Paul starts talking about quarrelling and disagreement in the church. The conflict was over ‘who’s pack do you belong to?’ It looked something like this:
Some Corinthians were loyal to Paul;
Some Corinthians were loyal to Apollos;
Some Corinthians were loyal to Peter;
Some Corinthians were loyal to Christ.
Segregated along party lines the church was perfectly positioned for an internal squabble.
This sounds like a totally contemporary situation.
For example:
I know a guy who went on a kind-of enlightenment-seeking pilgrimage to a big influential powerful aggressive church in California.
I know a guy who went on a kind-of enlightenment-seeking pilgrimage to a big influential powerful aggressive church in Australia.
If Guy #1 is now a California loyalist and Guy #2 is now an Australia loyalist they have a great opportunity to start sniping away at each other.
But Paul’s advice to Corinth then and Guy #1 – Guy #2 now would be: stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so there won’t be divisions in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.
It’s a great, great bit of advice.
And it’s way, way easier to say than do.
Note: quote from I Corinthians 1:10 (NLT)