Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
Is Christ Divided?
1 Corinthians 1:10-17
10 Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment. · WEB
The report from Chloe's household names four parties, and Paul answers with three questions that expose what a party spirit implicitly claims.
Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you 1 Corinthians 1:10.
The first problem in the letter is faction, and the appeal is made through the name of our Lord — the authority invoked is not Paul's. Divisions renders a word for a tear or a rip; the church has not yet split, but the fabric is parting. And the remedy is described positively as being perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment, a word used elsewhere of mending nets and setting bones. Paul is asking for repair, not for the suppression of disagreement.
For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are from Chloe's household, that there are contentions among you 1 Corinthians 1:11.
He names his source. There is no anonymous accusation and no pretense that he happens to have heard: people from a particular household told him, and he says so, which is what an honest confrontation looks like.
Each one of you says, "I follow Paul," "I follow Apollos," "I follow Cephas," and, "I follow Christ" 1 Corinthians 1:12.
Four slogans. Apollos was the eloquent Alexandrian who had worked in Corinth after Paul Acts 18:24 Acts 19:1; Cephas is Peter. Nothing suggests any of the three encouraged a party — Paul treats Apollos as a colleague throughout 1 Corinthians 3:6 1 Corinthians 16:12. The factions were the Corinthians' own construction, built out of preferences for men who were not competing.
Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul? 1 Corinthians 1:13.
Three questions, and each exposes something a party spirit implies without saying. To divide the church is to speak as though Christ himself could be parceled out. To attach oneself to a teacher's name is to behave as though that teacher had died for you. To make baptism a badge of allegiance to a man is to mistake whose name was invoked over you. The absurdity is the argument — nobody in Corinth believed any of these things, and their conduct asserted all three.
I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius 1 Corinthians 1:14.
Then a passage that is almost comic in its honesty. He is glad he baptized so few — so that no one should say that I had baptized you into my own name — then remembers Stephanas, and adds a parenthesis admitting he cannot recall whether there were others 1 Corinthians 1:16. A man building a following keeps that list carefully. Paul cannot remember it, and the lapse is his point: Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Good News — not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ wouldn't be made void 1 Corinthians 1:17. The last clause turns the whole subject. Faction over eloquent teachers is not a matter of taste; it empties the cross, and that is what the next paragraph is about.
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