Life Project Blog

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
    the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

1 Corinthians 1:18-19

In verse 17 Paul began to take a turn into a discussion of the contrast between human wisdom, and the wisdom of God. Keeping context in mind, this comes as Paul’s explanation for why the division is taking place in the Corinthian church community. In this subsection, Paul appears to be making the case that wisdom in this world brings about a great social divide between the wise and the unwise; the strong and the weak. This may seem like a rather strange line of reasoning for many of us today, but let’s pause a moment and consider…

In our time in the West for instance, we live in societies heavily influenced by Progressive thinking relating to public policy. That thinking says that we must have a society that is regulated by educated and highly trained professionals who will make important decisions for the benefit of the masses. The masses of people, it is reasoned, are simply not up to the task of making their own decisions in key areas of life, areas that professionals would be likely to make much better decisions than regular people.  So, this professional class begins to make laws, laws that regulate behaviors, that require this or forbid that.

The result of this is that the professionals seldom hang out with the laborers with whom they have little or nothing in common, and society itself begins to fragment. Where that happens in society, and parts of society find themselves together in the congregation, they tend not to mix together very well. In Paul’s day, there seem to have been groups in the Corinthian church who didn’t mix well together, and they sought to be identified with leaders, like those named in the previous section, and consequently, the church began to fragment. If you recall our introduction to 1 Corinthians, and the brief discussion of Corinth and its status as a Roman colony that was also a major port city, you shouldn’t have much difficulty seeing how that fragmentation could have taken place.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at the verses:

Contrary to what many have claimed over the years, Paul is not setting Christianity up to be anti-intellectual. Think about it – Paul of all people is pretty much the most educated man in any room he walked into, and his great intellect is very much on display in every paragraph of this letter. No sir, he is not advocating anything anti-intellectual here. Instead, his message here is that Christ’s work on the cross renders any social distinction irrelevant. He is teaching the people that they should forget all of their divisions and to see one another as God sees them, not as this human world does. After all, brotherhood in Christ lasts for all eternity; social distinction will all perish soon enough.

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.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.”

1 Corinthians 1:10-12

As we enter the first section of the letter, we might notice that Paul hasn’t provided a thesis statement, a statement that tells us what he is going to talk about in this letter. If I were writing it, I might say it this way: “It has come to my attention that there are some serious problems in your community, and I am writing to you today in an attempt to help you to correct the situation.”

I point this out because this is the first level of context that we need to keep in mind as we continue through the letter: Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to identify and correct several major problems they were experiencing in Corinth, c. 55 AD. If we forget that, we may run into difficulty understanding Paul’s comments later on in the letter.

While Paul didn’t announce his overall reason for writing the entire letter, he does clearly mark his change from one topic to another, and here we can easily see that he has moved on from prayer and thanksgiving to a discussion of disunity among the members of the congregation beginning in v. 10: Quit fighting amongst yourselves! To add gravity to his appeal, he cites his source of information, eyewitness accounts from Corinth itself from members of Chloe’s household. According to his sources, people in the church are divided by their support for individual church leaders: Paul himself, Apollos, Cephas (Peter)… and Jesus. Ironically, Paul, Peter and Apollos are all on the side of Christ – they are not supportive of this division:

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.)For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

1 Corinthians 1:13-17

Apparently, people were being divided along the lines of who was baptized or brought to belief by whom in a sort of rivalry between leaders that was concocted by followers. Could this thinking be like we might find when several people are fans of a sports team, but then divide over who the team’s best player is? Naturally scholars divide over whose theory on this subject is the best, but whatever the reason for the division Paul is telling the people to knock it off.

Paul then goes on, in an interesting way, to say that he’s glad that he personally hadn’t baptized very many of them so that his faction isn’t a big mover in this division and goes on to point out that many came to relationship with Christ through his teaching, which hadn’t been terribly eloquent, lest his performance should in any way, overshadow the cross of Christ, which is the whole point of everything.

This is a lesson that would be important for all of us to take notice of, particularly those who are leaders in the church: We must never overshadow the real reason for everything: Christ. We must never encourage people to become followers of us, for we follow Christ, and anyone who is influenced by our leadership or teaching, must be focused on Christ, for in the end our jobs are to bring others face-to-face with Jesus Christ, and then we must get out of His way.

Billy Graham, for example, taught a simple message of salvation through Jesus Christ. His message was simple, clear and centered only on Christ, and so must ours be simple, clear and centered entirely on Christ.

The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you. An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

Titus 1:5-9

Paul opens his letter to Titus in a customary manner for his time, identifying himself as the author and Titus as the recipient, and giving Titus his greeting. After that, he comes right to the point: Get started appointing elders for each of the local churches they have established on Crete.

These verses are referred to as “qualifications of elders” (see also 1 Tim. 3:1-6) in many local churches that practice local autonomy, as opposed to denominational governance. Interesting conversations sometimes develop when church leaders discuss these verses: Are these exact “qualifications” that must be met by every single church elder, or are they guidelines to apply as appropriate?

Many who read this might be asking themselves why they should even care about that question, and I wouldn’t blame you; it’s a silly argument… except for this:

30 years ago or so, I was in a leadership meeting where this little detail came up in a discussion about appointing a very worthy young man to be an elder in a local congregation: Does a candidate have to be a father? Our candidate was a married man (must a candidate be married?) but he and his wife were unable to have children, and you saw it above, a man whose children believe (v. 6). The question is just how literal did Paul intend to be taken?

You still might be thinking this is a silly and pointless question; I’m not sure how many churches would still be asking it, but here’s one that churches still ask, one that has split several congregations that I could name here: Do they really have to be a man or can they be a woman who is above reproach? How about a trans-person? A gay person?

Far from being silly, this is one of the great challenges of our time. Tomorrow, May 29, I’ll have a Bonus Post with some thoughts on Interpretation.