Read
Taking Sides
10My dear friends, as a follower of our Lord Jesus Christ, I beg you to get along with each other. Don't take sides. Always try to agree in what you think. 11Several people from Chloe's family have already reported to me that you keep arguing with each other. 12 They have said that some of you claim to follow me, while others claim to follow Apollos or Peter or Christ.
13Has Christ been divided up? Was I nailed to a cross for you? Were you baptized in my name? 14 I thank God that I didn't baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius. 15Not one of you can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 I did baptize the family of Stephanas, but I don't remember if I baptized anyone else. 17Christ did not send me to baptize. He sent me to tell the good news without using words that sound wise and would make the cross of Christ lose its power.
Reflect
“I beg you to get along with one another” (v 10). Sound familiar? After Paul had left them the Christians in Corinth started to argue with one another. One of the matters of contention was which leader you claimed allegiance to.
Apollos was a Jew from Alexandria, with a Greek name, well educated and thoroughly familiar with the Old Testament. We don’t know how he became a Christian, but he was an enthusiastic follower of Jesus and a great help to the Corinthian church. When Paul wrote this letter to them he was with Paul in Ephesus (1 Corinthians 16:12). Paul wanted him to go back to Corinth, but he declined, probably because he didn’t want to inflame this controversy.
Cephas is of course Peter. We have no record of him ever visiting Corinth. Maybe some of his friends had been there and spread information about the time he had spent with Jesus. But this is just guessing.
And then there are Paul and Christ.
This is a strange list! Whoever included Christ in it has made rather a serious category mistake! Or else there were some in Corinth who didn’t attach themselves to any of the other three, and claimed (perhaps facetiously, perhaps with condescension but maybe with genuine faith) that they were followers of Jesus, and not any of the others.
It looks as if Paul, Apollos and Cephas had nothing to do with all this.
Among philosophers it was common enough to say that one was a follower of so-and-so. There is no place for this kind of party allegiance anywhere in the Christian church. Still less is there place for arguing about it.
Respond
Father, forgive us for being so quick to take sides. Help us to get along with people who disagree with us over things that ultimately don’t matter. We pray that we may never do anything to divide your people. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.
Annabel Robinson
Annabel was born in Kew, near London, England. She committed her life to Jesus Christ at a Scripture Union camp when she was 16, and immediately found joy and peace. At Oxford she was active in the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, where she met her husband, Reid. They emigrated to Canada in 1965, where she taught Classics at the University of Regina until 2007. She has two children, Heather in Oslo and Alasdair in Calgary.