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?

Specificity was Paul’s order of the day. No beating around the bush. The divisions were personality cults focused on several different influential individuals. We know Paul, the one who first introduced the Corinthians to Christ; he was the church planter. People tend to latch on to the one who led them to Christ. Apollos was a Hellenistic Jew, who like Paul was steeped in Scripture and was noted for being a powerful preacher. After his initial conversion through the teaching of John the Baptist prior to Christ, he was later given the full message of Christ by Priscilla and Aquila in Ephesus. He became an irrefutably significant apologist for the faith to the Jews in Corinth, and one can understand the following he must have attracted (Acts 18:24). And there was Peter (Paul tended to use his Hebrew name, Cephas). Identifying with him appealed to many, for after all, he was universally recognized as one of the authorized witnesses of Christ’s message (Acts 1:8) and held in wide respect in the early church

Finally, there was a group who claimed to be followers of none other than “Christ.” No mere man did they follow. One would assume this to be a rock solid identification, since Jesus clearly taught that we should follow Him and His teachings.  Indeed, Paul tells his readers later in this letter, “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Yet the fact that the apostle rebukes the Corinthians over these division tells us there was something clearly wrong with identifying with Christ in a sectarian way. Essentially their attitude was this: “We are better than you because we follow Jesus, whereas you follow Paul, or Apollos or Cephas.” They were using the Lord Jesus Christ and His emissaries for divisive purposes. Paul would have none of this!

Jesus prayed concerning His followers, “that they may be one” (John 17:11). Peter learned the importance of unity between Jewish and Gentile believers (Acts 10-11). Paul stressed unity (see Ephesians). Every part of the body is needed for the church to grow. Division deprives Christians of wonderful teachings from men of God. By siding with Paul, some minimized the teachings of Peter. Others, like present-day “red-letter Bible” enthusiasts, gave priority to the specific words of Christ (in some Bibles portrayed in red letters), but in so doing marginalized the Holy Spirit’s teachings through Paul. Alignment for sectarian purposes leaves a church lacking the whole counsel of God.

Lord, help me avoid exclusively emphasizing the teachings of any one preacher.