The Call For Unity In 1 Corinthians 1: 10– 17

“I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and

that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same

judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among

you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul," or "I follow

Apollos," or "I follow Cephas," or "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified

for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you

except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. (I did

baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized

anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with

words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”

Historical Context

The city of Corinth in the first century A.D. was an affluent Roman colony situated strategically

close to the western port of Lechaeum and eastern harbor of Cenchreae. The older Corinth

had been sacked and destroyed by Lucius Mummius for defying Rome in 146 B.C. However,

Julius Caesar reestablished it as a colony shortly before his assassination. When Paul arrived at

Corinth around 51 A.D., it had a mixed population of Roman freedmen, indigenous Greeks,

sailors, merchants and Jewish immigrants. Being a relatively young mercantile colony of

freedmen, its culture was not tradition-bound and spurred ambitions to seek material success and

public status. According to David Garland, such aspirations would be greatly served by “attaining

the patronage of powerful persons… exerting political enmity to ostracize opponents, and

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employing skillful oratory to persuade others in any assembly.”1 There were probably itinerant

Sophists whose rhetorical and philosophical skills could be hired to give convincing speeches on

behalf of their employers.

Being a cosmopolitan melting pot, it was not surprising to read the Greek writer Pausanius

describing about 26 temples and shrines dedicated to various pagan gods. Emperor cults, mystery

religions and fertility cults for deities like Apollo, Aphrodite, Osiris, Mithras and others were

rampant.2 Even though Strabo's record of 1,000 sacred prostitutes in the temple on the

Acrocorinth may be an exaggeration, sexual immorality in the city was probably similar to other

commercial centers at that time. It is at this place that Paul established a community of faith that

inherited the corporate vocation of God’s covenant people, Israel.

Exegesis

Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians was partly a response prompted by reports of divisions he

gathered from Chloe’s people. After greeting the church in a customary salutation and

thanksgiving, in which he reaffirmed the troubled church as having been “enriched in every way

– in all your speaking and in all your knowledge” (verse 5), he proceeded to address the first

problem of internal dissensions in the church. He appealed the Corinthian community of faith to

be “united in mind and thought” in the name of Christ (verse 10). The theme of unity within the

community would occupy much of Paul’s thoughts in the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians.

Regarding the call for unity, it should not be confused as a reference to dull, monolithic unison.

Lightfoot (1895) writes: “We have here a strictly classical expression. It is used of political

1
David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, (Baker
Academic: Grand Rapids, 2003), page 5
2
Gordon Fee, Corinthians: A Study Guide, 3rd edition, page 9

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communities which are free from factions, or of different states which entertain friendly relations

with each other”.3

What has caused the quarrels amongst the believers in Corinth? In the prevailing Greco-Roman

culture, it was known that religious teachers were exalted to the status of “theanthropoid”, men

possessing divine qualities4. It is possible that the relatively new converts carry over this tendency

to elevate their Christian teachers on a pedestal and pit them against each other. Other mitigating

sociological factors have been suggested by Gerd Theissen’s research on social tensions between

the rich and poor in the congregation and Jerome Murphy O’Connor’s on how distinctive ethos

may develop because the villa architecture used for such church gatherings allow for preferred

guests and less privileged members to be compartmentalized.

Much discussion amongst scholars revolve around the nature of division in Corinth based on the

four slogan-like catchphrases - “I belong to Paul”, “I belong to Apollos”, “I belong to Cephas”

and “I belong to Christ”. FC Baur argued that a theological controversy not unlike the heated

debate in Galatians 2:11-15 was to be blamed. He associated the Paul group as people with

“radical emancipation from the law” struggling against the Judaizing parties represented by the

Cephas group. On a similar vein, Robertson and Plummer saw four possible theological factions.

The Apollos group represented “Hellenistic intellectualism”, the Cephas group championed

“conciliatory conservatism” and the “Christ” group was comprised of “zealots for the law, hostile

to the apostleship of St.Paul”.5

3
Lightfoot, Notes, 151. Quoted in Antony Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, page 116
4
F.F. Bruce, I & II Corinthians, The New Century Bible Commentary, (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2001),
page 32
5
Robertson and Plummer, First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, The International Critical
Commentary, (T & T Clark: Edinburgh, 1982), page 12.

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On the other pole, Welborn attributed the divisions “to a power struggle, not a theological

controversy”6. He compared Paul’s terminology with that used by Greco-Roman historians to

argue that personality-centered politics within the church may resemble the surrounding society

where aligning oneself to an apostolic figure would give added clout and prestige to one’s own

agenda. Munck also cautioned against seeing these groups as separate theological fragments.7

In a rebuttal to Baur, Grosheide argued against the supposed Paul-Peter rift by pointing out that it

was Peter who first preached to Gentiles. At the Jerusalem Council, both men were on the same

side (Acts 15) and had same coworkers in Silas and Mark.8 There is also little evidence to

associate Apollos of Alexandria with Philo’s Hellenistic philosophy and emphasis on wisdom.

We do know that he is eloquent in speech and learned in Scripture, only knew of the baptism of

John before being more fully taught by Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:24).

The divisions were most probably internal because the different groups were still one church and

still met for Holy Communion (11:17ff.).9 If there were theological controversies like that in

Galatia, Paul was not one to shun away from heresy to preserve his reputation or for the sake of

not rocking the boat. But here in Corinth, Paul did not attack or defend any groups, not even the

party that claimed to follow him. He went out of his way to represent Apollos as a fellow worker

in the gospel (3:6-9).10 If Apollos was responsible for the divisions, it would be odd that Paul

himself would urge him to visit the Corinthians (16:12). The fact that he was unwilling to do so at

that time is probably an attempt to distance himself from the party associated to his name.

6
Welborn, Politics and Rhetoric in the Corinthian Epistles, 7. Quoted in Antony Thiselton, The First
Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Greek New Testament Commentary, (Eerdmans
Publishing: Grand Rapids, 2000), page 115
7
C.K. Barrett, A Commentary On The First Epistle To The Corinthians, (Hendrickson Publishers:
Massachusetts, 1987), page 45-46
8
F. W. Grosheide, The First Epistle To the Corinthians: The New International Commentary on the New
Testament, (Eerdmans Pubishing: Grand Rapids, 1953), page 36
9
Leon Morris, 1 Corinthians, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, (Inter-Varsity Press: Grand Rapids,
1985), page 39
10
C.K. Barrett, A Commentary On The First Epistle To The Corinthians , page 43

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Perhaps against his will, some believers were boasting and taking pride over against another on

the basis of their favorite teachers (4:6) and an adversarial attitude towards the founder, Paul.11

Although there is still no clear evidence that doctrinal splits existed, it is not merely a matter of

petty squabble. Paul can still criticize all the groupings without going into the details of each

partisan difference because “the community still exists as a whole and all the groups recognize

the traditional creed. This of course is presupposed in 11:23 ff and 15:3 ff.”12

However, what was wrong about the Christ party? Chrysotom disputed the existence of such a

party. The slogan “I belong to Christ” could be added by Paul to reduce the other three slogans to

absurdity. However, the parallelism of the phrasing and the difficulty in finding a logical link

between verse 12 and verse 13 probably indicated that there was a fourth group.13 We could only

guess what they stood for. Perhaps, they claimed to know Christ without the mediation of

preachers or what Lutgert called an elitist, quasi-gnostic “spiritual enthusiasm”. Just as some take

pride in their favorite preacher, some caused divisions by taking pride in the opposite, cynical

direction. If so, then Paul’s rhetorical question in verse 12: “Is Christ divided?” would make more

sense. It would have a similar effect as what Paul said elsewhere in 2 Corinthians 10:7: “If

anyone is confident that he belongs to Christ, he should consider again that we belong to Christ

just as much as he.” The believers were all baptized into one body of Christ (12:12-13). When

they belong to Christ, then all things – whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world of life or

death or the present or the future – are already theirs so there is no ground for boasting (3:21).

The second rhetorical question, “Was Paul crucified for you?” pointed them back to the gospel. It

was Christ who gave Himself up for their sins (15:3). By doing so, he took away the ground for

11
Gordon Fee, Corinthians: A Study Guide, 3rd edition, page 58
12
Hans Conzelmann, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Hermenia – A Critical and
Historical Commentary on the Bible, translated by James W. Leitch, (Fortress Press: Philadelphia, 1975),
page 34
13
Ibid., page 33

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boasting in the “Paul group” that claimed allegiance to him. It was not Paul who died on the cross

for them, but Christ. Instead of criticizing the other groups first, Paul deliberately avoided being

made a pawn in their game of partisanship.

The last rhetorical question turned on baptism, the rite of initiation: “Were you baptized into the

name of Paul?” (1:13) According to Barrett, baptism into the name of Christ indicated “it is under

the authority of Christ that baptism takes place, and… the person baptized becomes a property of

Christ.”14 Paul does not own or lord it over their faith. Perhaps there were some mistaken notions

of a special mystical relationship between the person who performed the baptism and the

baptized, Paul was glad that circumstances were such that he did not baptize many of them except

Crispus and Gaius. As an afterthought, he recalled having baptized the household of Stephanas

but the omission could have been a “deliberate gambit to underline how unimportant it is who

baptized whom”.15 In verse 17, Paul stressed that his primary calling was to preach the gospel and

not to perform baptisms, further downplaying the issue of who performed the rite. As a preacher

of the gospel, he did not rely on eloquent words of ‘human wisdom’ that elevates self-reputation

and distracts attention from the power of the cross of Christ. It was not wisdom per se that he

finds incompatible with the gospel. He would not gain the assent of listeners with superficial

rhetorical tricks rather than substance that really transforms.

14
C.K. Barrett, A Commentary On The First Epistle To The Corinthians , page 43
15
David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, page 55

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Applications

As the world becomes increasingly fragmented with violent conflicts, the church faces the

challenge to be an alternative community of reconciliation and peacemaking. Our witness suffers

if sectarian divisions based on personalities, petty doctrinal differences or hyper-spiritual

independence continue to characterize the Body of Christ. There is a place for making a

courageous stand when grievous errors threaten unity in the gospel like what Paul did in

Galatians. However, partisanship and boasting centered on gifted leaders only breed jealousy and

strife.

We need to be reminded that these ministers serve in different capacities according to what the

Lord has called them, and our ultimate allegiance lies in Christ alone who died for our

redemption and into whose Body we have been baptized. Our ecclesiology cannot be content with

merely abstract unity in an invisible church, but actively seek to express it visibly in concrete

terms. When Martin Luther learnt that some Protestants were being called Lutherans, he captured

the heartbeat of Paul by registering this protest, “What is Luther? The teaching is not mine. Nor

was I crucified for anyone… How did I, poor stinking bag of maggots that I am, come to the

point where people call the children of Christ by my evil name?”16

16
Ibid., page 49

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 Bibliography

1. I & II Corinthians, The New Century Bible Commentary, F. F. Bruce, Eerdmans: Grand

Rapids, 2001

2. 1 Corinthians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, David E.

Garland, Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, 2003

3. 1 Corinthians, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Leon Morris, Inter-Varsity

Press: Grand Rapids, 1985

4. A Commentary On The First Epistle To The Corinthians, C. K. Barrett, Hendrickson

Publishers: Massachusetts, 1987

5. A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Hermenia – A Critical and

Historical Commentary on the Bible, Hans Conzelmann, Translated by James W.

Leitch, Fortress Press: Philadelphia, 1975

6. First Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Commentary on the New

Testament, Gordon Fee, Eerdmans Publishing: Grand Rapids, 1987

7. First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, The International Critical

Commentary, Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, T & T Clark: Edinburgh,

1982

8. The First Epistle To the Corinthians: The New International Commentary on the

New Testament, F. W. Grosheide, Eerdmans Pubishing: Grand Rapids, 1953

9. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Greek New Testament

Commentary, Antony C. Thiselton, Eerdmans Publishing: Grand Rapids, 2000

10. The Letters to the Corinthians, William Barclay, Philadelphia: The Westminster

Press, 1954.