Divisions

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

DIVISIONS

1 Cor 1:10-12

10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11 My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ."

NIV

Paul gets right into it, right after his introduction of this letter. There were divisions among the church, wow, what time has done to the church. It has only been a few years and already they cannot agree with one another. Of course, there were others traveling around sharing some content of the gospel message. We do not know what Apollos taught. We know what Cephas taught if this is the Cephas who Christ called Peter. Yet, Peter was the Apostle to the Jews and Paul would have been the Apostle to the Gentiles along with Apollos as we know him from the Acts of the Apostles going into Achaia, something after Paul. We also see that Apollos was in Corinth, while Paul took the road to the interior. However, the point is that there were three different preachers of the gospel that made their way into Corinth and as with people, they take a particular liking to either the personality or the style of their preaching, or maybe just because of their appearance. Then again, their messages would have some differences in how they perceived the gospel. Nevertheless, division happened, as it does with every group because we are people. It has been said that if you gather one hundred Jews together, there would one hundred different opinions. This saying certainly cannot be confined to Jews. It would seem if two people were together, there would be two different opinions. Time has not changed the church much either. We are still divided and most over opinions as to how the word of God is interpreted. They did not have the complete bible at their disposal, as we do. They only had the gospel from the mouth of men, which could have had different slants. Today, we all have the same word, perhaps different translations, but the same word and still, we cannot all agree. We have divided ourselves up over many secondary and tertiary issues, although it seems as do all agree that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and we need to accept him in order to get into heaven. Well, maybe not all think exactly in those terms. Not all denominations agree that in order to see the kingdom of God we have to be born again, yet those are the exact words Jesus spoke to Nicodemus. How is it that some churches do not preach that message? Perhaps that idea comes from the fact there are so many that have been raised in Christian homes, they believe they have been a Christian their whole life, and just started out as a child being born again. Others may never have had an epiphany, but just evolved into being a believer. Again the point is still the same. We have more denominations, more divisions among ourselves than those people in Corinth. What happened? We even have people who attend certain churches because of the personality of the Pastor or follow those more famous preachers who broadcast their messages over various forms of media. We know of some who simply like the particular accent of a certain preacher, and thus what to listen to him, and are influenced by his opinion of the gospel. Divisions among divisions, and Paul wants nothing to do with it. It is all about Jesus and let us keep it about Jesus. Why do we allow want to make it about all the fluff and puff, and not just about Jesus? Oh, if we could just all get along, but that does not appear it is going to happen anything soon, as long as people are people, there will be divisions.