1 Corinthians 1:10-17 Now I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing… The formative idea of the chapter is now brought into full view, viz. "There are contentions among you," and it is prefaced by the statement of a principle, to which St. Paul earnestly directs the attention of the Corinthians, viz. "that they be joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment," or "perfected together," the stress being laid, as before, on their corporate or organic character as a Church. These warring divisions were not matters merely or chiefly personal, but they involved the very heart and soul of the Christian community. No doubt their partisanship in the supposed interest of Paul, Apollos, and Peter, ay, of Christ himself, was very hurtful to them as individuals. But the point he urges is that their partisanship was a disjunction of their unity, and hence that this unity, which was designed to grow into perfection, was arrested by strife. And just here St. Paul strikes the great fact that men of the outside world judge of Christianity much more by the Church in its totality than by instances of individual character in the Church. History is full of exemplifications of this truth, from the times of Julian and Coleus to the age of Voltaire and Rousseau. Nor should this surprise us; for evidently there is a philosophy in it, however much the philosophy is abused by the wit and devices of men. Individuals are "members one of another," members of the body; but the body is the Church, and the organic life of the Church is the Divine witness to the glory of Christ made visible through the Church to the world. How quickly the apostle rises into fervid utterance, and how compact his words! "Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?" If his services to the Corinthian Church are to be perverted in this way, St. Paul can only thank God that he baptized but a few of them. At the moment, St. Paul hastens to assert his own high manhood by an utter refusal to be made an object of partisanship, and he does this in the only method possible to his argument, by confessing his obligations to Christ who had sent him "to preach the gospel." - L. Parallel Verses KJV: Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. |
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