Far too often, Christians get caught in division and quarreling among themselves. These issues are not minor problems but very serious problems. It is a serious problem today just as it was in the church at Corinth. The division and strife in Corinth was one of the reasons Paul wrote to them. Paul called on the church as the family of God to deal with their divisions. He exhorted them in the name of the Lord to agree together (1 Cor. 1:10) and bring an end to their divisions or schisms.
These kinds of divisions or schisms in the fellowship of the church are serious matters because they bring injury to the fellowship of the church. You may say, “What’s the big deal?” So we have a little quarreling and strife and division among us. It’s bound to happen, right? And there are much worse things, right? It seems that we would like very much to diminish the seriousness of division and quarreling in the church, but God regards this as a very serious matter.
Just how serious is this sin of strife? In Rom. 1:29 strife is listed along with the sins of greed, envy and murder. In Rom. 13:13 it is listed with drunkenness and sexual promiscuity. In 1 Cor. 3:3 strife is linked to jealousy and in 2 Cor. 12:20 it is linked to anger, slander, gossip and pride. Gal. 5:20 has the sin of strife named among idolatry and sorcery. It seems clear that strife is no secondary issue in the eyes of God. Therefore, if we are quarreling with one another we are just as guilty as the drunk and sexually promiscuous. Strife and quarreling among Christians is a sin that should be confessed and from which we should repent. It should have no place among those who know Christ as their Lord and Savior because it is a sin that brings great injury to the fellowship of God’s church.
Schism or division is also very serious because it is an insult to the power of the cross. Paul asks a pointed question in 1 Cor. 1:13; he asks “Has Christ been divided?” By their divisive behavior the Corinthians were acting as if Christ had been separated into parts.
Who was crucified for you? It wasn’t Paul or any of the other Christian leaders? No one was baptized in the name of Paul, and Paul rejoices in the fact that there were very few of them in Corinth that he had baptized. Why is Paul so happy that he had baptized so few of them? The answer is in v. 15, “so that no one would say you were baptized in my name.” Paul was not belittling the importance of baptism; he was emphasizing the focus of his ministry.
The focus of Paul’s ministry was in proclaiming the message of the cross. He said, “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel.” Paul had been sent out to evangelize or to announce the good news, and at the heart of that message is the work of Jesus at the cross. However, the schism of the Corinthian church was an insult to the message of the cross. Their factions centered on individual personalities and belittled what Christ had done on the cross. The cross is the means by which we are reconciled to God, and the means by which we are then brought into fellowship with the family of God. Whenever we are quarreling with one another we are forgetting the great sacrifice Christ made on our behalf and are insulting God’s gracious work on the cross.
Paul called upon the Corinthians to divert their loyalty from human leaders to the One who died for them on the cross. The cross of Christ is to be central to our lives just as it is in the gospel message and the ministry of the apostle Paul. Paul said that ministry is not about cleverly delivered messages but being faithful to the message of the cross. He did not depend on any special skill or wisdom for to depend on those would make the cross of Christ empty or void. He did not use any cleverly planned gimmick to sale the gospel for to do so is to take away the significance and the power of the cross. Paul knew what was to be the central focus of his life and ministry, and he knew what needed to be the central focus of the church – Christ crucified.
I wonder how much we are obscuring the message of the cross in our lives and in the local church. By our division and strife has the cross become impossible to see? By our ungodly loyalty to human leaders, has the cross been diminished? By our gimmicks and clever marketing tricks has the church completely lost sight of the power of the cross?
There is one thing that can bring healing to broken lives and broken relationships. There is one thing that can mend the schisms and strife in our lives - the power of the cross of Christ. The power of the cross makes us whole and complete and mends what is torn and broken.
Most importantly, the power of the cross reconciles us to God. Because of Christ’s sacrificial atonement on the cross, we can have peace with God. Christ went to the cross to die for the sins of the world and among those sins for which He died is the sin of division and strife in the church. Let us look to Christ crucified and may the power of the cross be made whole.
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