Factions Infect The Church | Sermon 09/01/2024

Factions, Divisions, and the Call to Unity in 1 Corinthians

All right, if you would, please open your Bibles with me to the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter one. First Corinthians, chapter one. We're gonna be in verses 10 through 17 today. First Corinthians, chapter one, verses 10 through 17.

And the title of the sermon today, church, is Factions Infect the Church. Factions Infect the Church. So starting in verse 10 of first Corinthians, chapter one, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true God.

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you.

Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in the cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.

Thus ends the reading of God's holy and magnificent word. Let's pray once more as we approach the word of God today. Lord, I know without a doubt, especially with what Paul just said, that it's not the cleverness of speech.

Lord, you know me, you know I'm not a talented orator. You know I'm not a charismatic leader. God, what we need today is the spirit. We need your Holy Spirit in me and in these people, your people, Lord.

Otherwise, this is just information. It's not transformation, Lord. We don't need, we don't simply need information about division and about factions, Lord. We need our hearts changed. We need you to remove the things that are always causing us to want to divide.

We need you to remove the things that are always making us out to be individuals that are apart from others, Lord, but we're one body, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We are the church. We are the bride of Christ.

And Lord, some of us have truly lost that mentality. We've forgotten what it's like to be one with the other. And we've divided and we've had false assumptions against other people. We've had moments where we've been so angry with other people, we've left, we've gone to other churches, even though we knew we were supposed to stay where we were.

And it's so easy to just give up and divide. But Lord, I pray now that you would impress upon your people the reward and riches that come with long suffering together, with loving one another and not having factions.

So Lord, please let this be a unifying moment for us. Please convict us and please guide us in your spirit. We pray this in the name of your son, amen. Well, church, now that the apostle Paul has reminded the Corinthians that both he and they have been and are being sanctified, now that he's reminded that you can be changed.

And now that he's told them what to be thankful to God for, in both cases, turning the focus off of oneself to the only one who can fix this congregation, knowing that God can change you and that you need to be thankful to God.

Those are the foundations Paul saw that these people need to have. This is the foundation you and I ought to have. And so the writer of this letter and this planter of this church will address the first and desperately important subject of division.

You see, God detests a lot of things. The Bible says that God hates a lot of things. But there are some things that are especially atrocious to him. Look in your print out or look in the Bible in Proverbs 6, verses 16 through 19.

Wisdom states, there are six things which the Lord hates. Yes, seven, which are an abomination to him. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who other lies, and here it is, and one who spreads strife among brothers.

God hates when his people are fractured apart. And Jesus knew it. What applied to Beelzebul applies to the church. Jesus says it in Luke 11, verse 17. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them, any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a house divided against itself falls.

Our Lord's expectation was and is that his church will be different. It will be different than the world. The world divides and conquers. The world tears itself apart. But the people of Jesus Christ will be different.

And so for the first time in the history of mankind, I'm telling you, this is the first time ever that we are able, we have the ability, you and I, we have the ability to truly be united, not just superficially, not just under the banner of some name or some cause, which people can do for a time, but you and I, as Christians, have the unique ability to actually truly be united.

It's incredible. And it's the one through and to that we're united with. That's Jesus Christ. And so make note, the apostle will continually bring it back to the Savior in this text, okay? So in verse 10, Paul begins addressing the sins in the Corinthian church, essentially saying, now because of all that I said in verses one through 10, because of all that we should be thankful for, the grace, the enrichment, the knowledge, the gifts, the confirmation, the declaration of blameless on the final day, now, now I appeal to you, brethren, and when he says the word brethren, it's used in this way in the Greek, it is inclusive of all men and women, it's everyone.

I appeal to you, men and women of the Corinthian church equals those who are family, you who have a spiritual relationship together. He's reminding them already of who they are. I appeal to you on the basis of gratitude and united family in our Lord, our God.

He is the focus.

He's always the focus.

He says, stop looking at yourselves and look at God. And now that possibly, hopefully you have looked to God and experienced the gratitude that I told you to express, I earnestly appeal to you, I exhort you.

And that's how he begins this. And this appeal for unification will run from here in chapter one, verse 10, all the way to chapter four, verse 21. This exhortation, this church planter will now address their division and the problems and the wrong thinking that has gone with it, okay?

So notice to begin with, Paul's appeal is not by his own authority or power. I exhort you by my own authority. He says that as an authorized apostle of the risen Christ used prophetically by the Holy Spirit, I exhort you in the name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And remember, I told you in the Gospel of John series that appealing to the name of God or the name of Christ is not just stating titles. You see, in Jewish culture, in Hebrew culture, when you appeal to the name of someone, it meant not just their title, oh, my name's Wade, it was who they are as a whole.

I appeal to you by all of who Jesus is, all that Jesus has done, all that Jesus will do, I appeal to you by the power of Christ. I adjure you by the living God, his very being. What Paul is saying is what he's about to address is something Christ himself wants to address.

This subject is very near and dear to the heart of God. This hurts God, division hurts God. So the Lord Jesus is invoked. Remember Corinthians, he is the Lord of your lives. He's master, and most of all, Jesus Christ is the name in which they were baptized.

Jesus said it himself, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Remember your calling, remember your baptism, remember your Lord. Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus, that you all agree, and that there be no divisions among you, and that instead you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Four things are stated right there. Number one, you all agree. Number two, no divisions be among you. Number three, that you may be made complete in the same mind, and number four, made complete in the same judgment.

So let's address these. First, Paul wants them to agree. And that's not simply to be agreeable. He wants them to agree. This is different. The word in the Greek here is for speaking. He's saying, you all, and he says the word all, by the way, you all, all of you ought to speak the same thing, or it could be said also in the Greek, you all ought to have one voice.

Hey, all of you, you ought to have one voice. And the image I get in my mind is like multiple people trying to talk all at the same time, and they're all saying what they wanna say, never deferring to the other person, never actually truly listening.

They're all trying to get their opinion out. Just not even one voice. It's crazy, it's nuts. Some moms have that experience in their minivans, right? Like, come on, stop, right? One voice, please. But it's even different than that.

Another illustration would be when a king sends an emissary to a foreign leader to give an update on their kingdom, on their nation, but instead, this emissary brought along three other ambassadors, and these four ambassadors from this other king comes before this leader, this nation, and this leader goes, okay, emissaries of kingdom whatever, give me your update from your king.

And all of a sudden, all four of these emissaries, these ambassadors start speaking, and they're not even saying the same thing. They're giving different updates, one about finances of the kingdom, one about warfare of the kingdom, one about the invaders of the kingdom, and one about the cultural impact that's happening in their kingdom.

And boom, all four try to give that king an update about their kingdom, and the king is confused, it's disorderly, and he's thinking, boy, if this is how they give reports, if this is how they give updates, I don't even wanna see how disunified they are in their home nation.

So that's the idea we get. Paul says, speak the same thing. Be one voice together. Our church should be a place in which anyone outside of it may be able to ask one of you a question about Christ, about the gospel, and they get the same thing.

They get the same thing. You could go up to Josh Quasenberry and ask him about the gospel, he'll tell you about Christ. You could go up to Nate Day, and he'll tell you about Christ. So you see, you don't wanna go up to someone else, and all of a sudden they said, well, Jesus is a way, he's not the way, you can find Jesus through Buddha or Hinduism or whatever.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,.

That's not one voice, right? That's different. Jesus has one voice. Those who say they are, those who are saying the same things are allies, they're compatriots, they're aligned associates. And so an issue could be brought up in a church, and all of a sudden the people get together, and because they are informed by the scriptures, by the truth, because they're redeemed people, because they have the Holy Spirit, they can come together, and if an issue is presented, it'd be a no-brainer.

They all think the same thing. You know, speaking in one voice is like when a choir sings all in unison in the same key. You ever seen a symphony choir, and they're all singing, and they go up, and they go down in their notes and in their keys, and it's just magnificent.

But then imagine a choir where all of them are singing from a different song, and they're in a different key, and you just go, I'm out of here, I'm done, this is horrible. That's not beauty, that's not art.

That's ugly, that sounds horrible. And so that's the image we get. Next, I exhort you all that there be no divisions among you. The Greek word here is schismata, schismata, schisms. Something that was once whole, now that has been torn into pieces, multiple pieces.

And that word schism is a buzzword, especially in Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. That word schism has been used in an official sense in Christendom, in especially the centuries following the Eastern and Western church split, where you had the Byzantine church and the Roman church.

Of course, both are riddled with errors to this day. But you have that kind of schism, okay? Something where those schisms occur with theological or doctrinal differences that are irreconcilable. But it's fairly unlikely, and this is key, it is fairly unlikely that the Corinthian church began to have extreme theological differences.

I don't believe that. I don't think they started to have separate membership. I don't think they started to have differing structures the way that we would think of different denominations or things like that.

That is way too soon.

That would be anachronistic. That is outside of this timeline, okay? As one commentator points out, what triggers Paul's dismay is that the report is that believers are forming alliances over and against fellow believers and creating strife.

Forming alliances with specific people in the group and being against other alliances in the group. You see, if you remember from the first sermon I told you, in Greek culture back then, there was a party-making mentality.

That was already there. With philosophers who would have protégés, right? Oh, I follow this philosopher. You would have these distinct teachers with their respective students. Oh, my teacher is this. I'm a pupil of this man, this woman.

You had differences in social classes.

Oh, we're wealthy.

Oh, we have all the big houses on the hill of Corinth by that temple over there. You guys, oh boy, you're in poverty. You had Roman or native because having Roman citizenship gave you an advantage to everyone else or whatever else there may be.

There were so many reasons to come together and to become a faction and become a group and become different than other people in the church. And so what the Corinthian church was facing could have been a number of things, but I don't think it was ever truly pertaining to theology.

So what's occurring here is a change of priority in identity, a change of priority in identity. You see, all of us have identities. What makes up you as you? And what ought to be chief now as Christians is just that, that we are number one, firstly, we are Christians.

Christ is our identity. It is first and everything flows from that identity. The minute you put something above that primary, demoting the identity of Christian in your life, havoc enters your experience.

Your life gets harder. You experience way more trials. And more than that, you think you could do this alone? Yeah, there's a lot of people out there who think they could do this Christian life alone, but I'll tell you what, look at their lives and look at their secret lives.

No accountability, no fellowship. We can't do this alone. We weren't made to do this alone. Havoc enters our lives. And so this reality, this identity as a Christian ought to supersede all other convictions or opinions.

And this is a command, don't divide. And we live in a culture that is so quick to divide, do we not? We live in a culture where there's categorization and specialization for everything. There's like a Facebook group for hikers that hike with shorts only.

I mean, there's specialization for everything. Christians who are charismatic, but also kind of Calvinistic, but also only go to churches with bald guys. And there's just so many different specialized groups these days.

It's easier. You know what? It is so much easier. It is easier to divide, so much easier. It's easier to divide from a church than to strive together to achieve that one voice that Paul talked about. It's easier to divorce than to improve a marriage.

It's easier to cut a friendship off than humbly asking for forgiveness. But we're in Christ. Did Christ take the easy road?

No, he did not.

He took what was called the Via Dolorosa, the road of suffering, the pathway of pain. But what did it lead to? It led to the most rewarding redemption. You stick with something, you don't divide, and you will be rewarded almost nine times out of 10.

Are there biblical reasons to divorce? Yes, there are some, fewer than people think. Are there reasons to cut someone off? Yes, there are a few. Are there reasons for us to send someone out of this church?

Yes, the first year we had to do it. There's very few. But when you stick with something, when it doesn't feel right in your flesh, but you know it's true according to the Bible, you know you should go through it, you know you should walk through it, you will be rewarded.

I tell this to people, longevity in a church is important. You're gonna see your leaders make mistakes because they're just human, but then if you, and we've made them already. I've said it a few times, some of my mistakes, but if you go through that and you stick with it, then you'll get to be enriched by that.

If you have a relationship that breaks here, and you work through it, and you're both sanctified, and I'm not saying if someone's actively sinning against you that I shouldn't get involved or the leadership shouldn't get involved.

I'm saying if you go through it, if you wait, if you stay, you will be rewarded. If we continue to hop and hop and hop and hop, we never get to build up that Christian life. We're always starting over, okay?

Something to consider. Paul says, instead, be made complete in the same mind. This word complete isn't the typical Greek word for being complete or perfected at the end. This word is different. It means to get things back into proper order, to fully restore something.

It was a surgical term in Greek days. It was a surgical term for setting of bone breaks. And it's used metaphorically here by Paul. Paul's saying, brothers, sisters, set in place what was broken and let it heal back together.

Restore it back together. Have the same mind. You're so close together. You ever have this in a Bible study where you and another brother or sister are so much on the same page that you say something from the word of God and they're like, that's exactly what I was thinking.

You're on the same page, you have the same mind. Or having the same mind is to both know what is right and what is wrong. Because some people have been calling bad things good and good things bad. And so be on the same biblical page again.

The same minds think alike. And he finishes here by saying, be of the same judgment too. Because if you're of the same mind, you'll make the same decisions. Your opinions will align. It literally means to have the same regard for simply what is.

Whatever reality is, think the same thing. Because he's saying, Corinthians, your worldviews have become different. Your worldviews have become different. So in the end, Paul says, have agreement on truth and reality.

Church, say the same things. Think the same things. Do the same things. And restore all these things back to how you started with the gospel of Christ as the main thing. Say the same thing. Think the same thing.

Do the same thing. You go to corporate business classes, right? I remember being in corporate America and they're like, you know, of course there's this thing, group think, you know, and they want people to be expressive and individuals and that might have different applications.

But here it's important as believers to think the same, to have the same minded Christ, to be unified, okay? You know, here's the deal. Your particular is far less important than the unity of the church.

Your particular, that special thing that you hold to, that thing that you like the most, that thing that you're like that always comes back to you, it's far less important than you think. You are to guard unity and discard anything that infringes upon truth founded unity.

I'm not talking about compromising the truth. I'm not talking about that. I'm not saying give up your convictions. I'm saying maintain unity to the point where you're not elevating your particulars so as to cause division.

Quarrels, Rivalries, and the Factions of Corinth

So how does Paul know all of this is happening in his church plant? He's got some informers. I'll tell you what, pastors always have informers.

You gotta watch out. We're looking.

No, I'm just kidding. Verse 11, for I've been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. And Chloe's name is given in the genitive form. It literally says those of Chloe have revealed your quarrels to me.

And so that means that Paul didn't simply take one person's word for it. Paul interviewed or was given multiple witnesses to this unfortunate issue. That's key. That's key. Multiple witnesses. Those of Chloe came to me.

There are, he says, aridas, conflicts, discords, strife, divisive events resulting in rivalry. You've got quarrels among you. You've got infighting, he says. And now what's interesting, by the way, is that this word, aridas, is often in Paul's lists of vices, sins.

In Romans 1, Galatians 5, the deeds of the flesh, the evil list of sins in Titus chapter three, these things, these quarrels, this division, these are things characteristic of them before Christ saved them.

But they shouldn't be characteristic of them now. They shouldn't be characteristic of us now. And I've seen these types of people before in my ministry. I've seen them before. They turn everything into an argument.

Every discussion is a hill to die on. They sever ties with most people with their contention. These people are often self-righteous but hypocritically riddled with sin. These type of people don't wanna share their heart with you or yours with them.

They wanna rip your heart out and stomp on it. They wanna hurt you. They say they're better than you. They are what's called schismatics, divisive men and women. They are often a cancer in a church. They'll destroy it from the inside outward.

They love modern American Christianity because modern American Christianity has a large front door that brings tons of people in but there's never any forced exit, right? These people can just stick around.

The shepherds are not guarding the flocks. There's hired hands that leave the sheep unprotected to these people. And these type of divisive people will gain followers and they will on their way to the top in their church, they'll build followers.

But as soon as it's hit a point, they'll separate even from their devoted followers because no one else can share the crown. There's only one. There's no one else who can sit on the throne with them. These are divisive people.

They don't realize that the division they're sowing is of the same seeds that were first planted in the mutiny of Lucifer with his demonic fallen angels against the one true God. It's the same seed. That was the first division.

And so what I'm talking about here, you're like, whoa, Pastor Wade, extreme. I know that's an extreme case, no doubt. And it's possible there were a few like that in the Corinthian church, but hopefully most of them were naive to their sin.

Therefore grief and repentance is Paul's aim. Removal would be a last resort. He doesn't want that. Now, as far as quarrels go, Paul mentions one of the main issues creating rivalries. Verse 12, look at this, verse 12.

This is one of the main issues of why they're dividing. Now, I mean this, that each one of you is saying, I am of Paul and I have Apollos and I have Cephas and I have Christ. And what he's saying is the Corinthian church has split into four separate parties potentially, okay?

But scripture shows us that these parties can't be based on theological differences.

Why?

Because Paul and Apollos and Peter and Jesus all preach the same exact gospel. They preach the same exact message. So these groups aren't set up in such a way where it's like, well, I follow Peter because he does this differently.

He teaches this differently. Well, I follow Paul because he teaches that. No, they were all united, same gospel message. And so what's going on here? Why are there these four factions in the church? There are several theories and that's all that they are by the way.

I can't give you a definite answer on any of this and I refuse to act like we know for certain. I'm not that presumptuous with God's word, but there are several theories. And one that goes in line with Greek culture the most is that these groups paid special tribute to either Paul, Apollos, Peter, or Jesus, okay?

Viewing someone as a strong leader was often determined in their oratory skills, their presentation, their charisma, and this is a big one, and how high profile they appeared to be. How high profile they appeared to be.

And so for whatever reason, one of these individuals seemed more impressive to certain people than the others. And so the first group says, we are of Paul. We are of Paul. And we assume those in this party were loyal to their church planter, their spiritual father, probably because of that.

Maybe they've even heard of the false apostles or the Judaizers speaking ill of him. And this group, I am of Paul, they would come to his defense. It's possible that those of the Pauline group were of the select few who were actually baptized by him or the select few who were actually given the gospel personally by him.

Now, whatever support they would have showed him, the writer of our letter, he wasn't pleased by it. This made him angry. In fact, this sort of treatment to Paul repulses him. Any other type of man would capitalize on their popularity, but the apostle Paul doesn't.

He knows he's no better than the other men in this list, and some even say that the order of names is the order of greatness. Paul, Apollos, Peter, Jesus Christ. And so Paul even considers himself, why would you be even of me?

I'm no one. He thinks he's no one without Christ and he would be right. And so the next group, besides the Paul group, is the Apollos group. Apollos. What do we know about this man? Acts chapter 18 and chapter 19 give details about him.

And Apollos was an Alexandrian Jew. And Luke specifically mentions this. Apollos was an eloquent man and well-learned. It says in the Bible that he was mighty in the scriptures. And although Apollos spoke accurately of the things of Christ, he wasn't finishing his gospel presentations on being baptized in Christ.

He spoke of John's baptism. Do you remember this? Does anyone recall this? Acts 18, Apollos is sharing the gospel so mightily, but then Priscilla and Aquila see him and they listen to him. They go, wow, this guy knows the scripture.

But then at the end,.

Apollos was going, now receive John's baptism. And they're like, whoa. And they pulled him aside and taught him, it says, the way more correctly. They taught him the way. What was Christianity called in the first century?

The way.

They taught him the way more accurately, okay? And so after that, Apollos has been corrected. He said, oh, yes, thank you for letting me know. I didn't know the rest of the story. And Apollos goes on to Achaia.

And already as a new convert, it says that he was able to greatly help those who believe through grace. And then it says, he became known as one who could powerfully refute Jews in public with the scriptures.

He was impressive. And he started to do this where? In Corinth. He was deemed impressive in Corinth. And some have thought that Apollos brought maybe differing views on baptism to the Corinthians, especially since it's mentioned here.

It was mentioned in Acts, but we have no evidence of that, none at all. What you can actually imagine, what I can imagine is that shortly after Paul starts evangelizing the people in Corinth in Acts 18, Apollos comes on the scene, a new Greek convert, Jewish, I'm sorry, a Jewish man, now Christian, is converting Greeks, Gentiles, and those in the middle of conversion are seeing Apollos skillfully use rhetoric, skillfully use argumentation and apologetics for the gospel.

These Greek people turning to Christ are seeing this, wow, this Apollos man, he's impressive. In a society where arguing your philosophy is important, no wonder they could have elevated this street evangelist.

I am of Apollos, we're the apologetics guys. But again, whatever treatment they were giving Apollos, he would have rejected it, he would have not wanted it. He was probably unwitting of their treatment of him.

So the sin is on them, the sin is on the Corinthians. You see, every leader is gifted in different ways, and it's terribly important to never elevate some over the others, especially over Christ. So you have the group of Paul, you have the group of Apollos, now you have the next group, the one, those who profess Cephas, or pronounced in the Greek with a kappa and an eta, Cephas in the Greek.

Cephas, this is the one we know to be the apostle Peter. Now what's interesting about this group is, I can tell you right now, there is not one piece of biblical evidence, not one indication in the scripture that Peter ever even visited Corinth.

We have no indication that he actually ever even went there. So if you wanna know what this Peter group is about, we have no idea, and I can only guess. So I was praying and going, God, why would these people say they were of Peter?

And then I came to the point where I thought of Galatians, Galatians chapter two. If you remember in Galatians chapter two, Paul talks about how Peter was sitting in Galatia among the Gentile believers, but then when a certain Jewish Christian group came from Jerusalem to visit Galatia, then all of a sudden Peter changed lunch tables.

He was sitting with the Gentiles eating food, and then Peter changed, and he only sat with the Jewish Christians. And if you remember in Galatians chapter two, Paul had to call him out. You are showing partiality.

We're all believers now, and Peter was rebuked by Paul. And so what you have to think about is maybe the followers of Peter were mostly Jews. So Paul's believers could have been the first few initial converts.

Apollos' followers were mostly Gentile admirers, and Peter's could have been Jews who found it difficult to assimilate from Jewish synagogue life into a Gentile Christian context.

Jews.

Peter would have appeared in some ways the most Jewish. Paul was very kind to Gentiles, but so was Peter. Peter knew that the gospel was for everyone. You see this especially in the book of Acts in the inclusion of the Gentiles with Cornelius.

Acts chapter 11, Peter has the vision. The Gentiles are included. He goes to the Jerusalem church. You guys, the Gentiles are included for this gospel, and so Peter knows, but maybe this group was following him because of that moment in Galatia.

But I also think it's possible that it was this. I think it's possible that the Corinthians elevated Peter because they saw Peter as the right-hand man of Jesus Christ. Peter was one of the closest disciples and apostles.

To the Lord.

He was what was called the pillar. He was a mega apostle, touched by heaven, right? Paul just simply saw a vision of Jesus on the road, but Peter walked with Jesus. Peter was close to Jesus. Peter was different.

Oh, Peter was so special, right? So they elevated him. Oh, we don't care about you, Paul or Apollos. You came later. We follow, we're of Peter. We don't know. What we do know is once again, now more mature and full of the Holy Spirit, Peter would have rejected this treatment just as much as he would reject idol worship of him now, prayers given to Peter now, icons made of Peter now.

He'd reject it all. He doesn't want it. And so finally, the last group in our text is the group that said, I am of Christ. There's always that one guy, by the way. You can follow whatever theologian you want.

I follow Jesus, super holy here. So you're saying you don't read any other books or you don't go to a church and listen to a pastor. No, Jesus teaches me personally. Man, you are so holy. I wanna be like you, right?

I'm jesting, of course. I'm joking. These are typically the type of guys who have funky theology. They're self-righteous about how they need just a Bible. They don't need a church. But I digress. This is a completely different category, okay?

Completely different thing than admiring a certain theologian's work or a pastor. So I have to tell you that the Christ group is more mysterious to scholars than all the others. If Christ is the leader of the church, why would Paul have to even bring it up?

Someone's saying, I'm of Christ. Are the Christ group doing the right thing or are they doing the wrong thing? Well, like I said, we have no indication that the differences here were doctrinal or theological.

They were elevating specific individuals that they wanted to be their personal leaders. And I honestly wonder if, just like my joke, this group, although not given the gospel directly by Jesus Christ, were eventually rejecting all of the apostles, especially rejecting Paul.

Do you know what I'm saying? Essentially, what if this group, this Christ group, was given the gospel and then all of a sudden they wanted to reject all the elders and all the apostles that came their way.

They're like, we just follow Jesus. He'll teach us. They were rejecting authority, possibly. They don't need any human leaders over them or to teach them because they are of Christ. And we wouldn't need to go far in the gospels or in the epistles to show the grave error of that, but it is possible nonetheless.

Oh, Christ teaches us, Christ alone. Yeah, but Christ also gave the means and modes by which the church would be taught. What does the Bible say? Apostles, teachers, evangelists, pastors, preachers. And this group might have the audacity to go, nope, Jesus only.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Apostles, teachers, preachers, nope, Jesus only. But it's also possible that this group didn't even exist. One commentator states the declaration that I belong to Christ is Paul's and prepares for his assertions that he knew only a crucified Christ when he first preached in Corinth, that he has the mind of Christ, that he is to be thought of as a servant of Christ and that he's a fool for Christ.

His basic argument in these chapters would be that no leader has any ultimate significance and none is to be puffed up in favor of one against another, especially above the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, what's interesting is when Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation was becoming well-known, you all know Martin Luther, right?

16th century monk saw that the Bible taught that salvation is not purchased with indulgences. Salvation is never purchased, it's never sold. It's given freely. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone.