03 Is Baptism Necessary for Salvation? (1 Corinthians 1:13-17)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what Scripture means, but teaches you how to figure it out. I'm Krisan Marotta. This is the third talk in our series on 1 Corinthians. Today we're gonna look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 13 through 17. You'll find lecture notes with links to everything mentioned in the talk on our website, or you can click on the link below the podcast. On the website, that is wednesdayintheword.com slash 1 Corinthians 3. Glad to have you along. Well, we are in the first major section of the letter, which started in 110 and goes through chapter 4. Paul is speaking to the issue of factions in Corinth. Some have decided that Paul lacks wisdom, and we defined that last week. He lacks a particular kind of wisdom in his speech, and they think Apollos is the much more impressive speaker. Well, this creates two problems, and in the last podcast we talked about the importance of studying the context and how if you studied only isolated verses from this letter, you might get the smaller problem, but you'd miss the larger problem. So the smaller problem is the factions themselves, the fact that they have split into camps, and they are asking the question, whose disciple are we? And different folks are answering that question differently. Some are saying, Well, we're the disciples of Apollos, and others are saying we're the disciples of Paul or Peter or Christ. And Paul is not happy with that situation. Even the fact that some would align themselves with him, he doesn't like it. And that's what I've been calling the smaller problem. That smaller problem is what Paul addresses in one ten through seventeen. The larger problem is the rejection of Paul's apostolic authority, and this is the reason why they have developed these factions. And that's the issue Paul's going to address from one seventeen through the end of chapter four. The bigger problem is that many in the Church of Corinth have rejected Paul in favor of Apollos, and he's going to ask, what are you thinking? What values led them to the place where they would reject Paul, where they would reject the apostle to the Gentiles. And that misedplaced thinking, that bad theology is the larger issue that Paul's going to go on to address. And the majority of his discussion is about worldly wisdom and how Paul preached the gospel. The smaller issue is the divisions themselves, and we're going to finish that issue in 117. Then Paul turns to the larger issue of wisdom in the next section. Now it's not surprising that this question of whose disciple are we would come up. It's come up time and again throughout church history ever since Jesus ascended. The problem is not surprising because we follow a teacher who is no longer physically present. When Jesus was physically present with us, there was no confusion. No one was saying I'm a disciple of Peter or I'm a disciple of James or John. Now you could say there was a bit of confusion with John the Baptist, but John and Jesus quickly sorted that out once Jesus fully stepped into public ministry. But then Jesus ascended, and when he left, he authorized certain people to speak for him. He named his apostles and he gave them the authority to say, This is what I taught and this is what I didn't teach. After Jesus physically left us, we're no longer able to be directly taught by him, but he left us his apostles to teach in his place. So in the face of being taught by secondary teachers, there's this temptation to rally around those secondary teachers. And if for us we're even several more steps removed, if and if we listen to our pastor every week, it's tempting to start thinking, oh, I'm his disciple, he's the guy I follow. And it's understandable that we might make that kind of mistake, especially as young believers. So how do we prevent that problem from happening? Well, I think we have to come at it from both sides. We have to approach it as both teachers and listeners. On the teacher side, all of us teachers have to be very clear that it is not about us, it's about Jesus Christ. And that sounds simple to say, but you have to be very clear that what we are about is learning the scriptures. We are about following Jesus. It's not about the person up front teaching, and it's about the one we are teaching about. I think we as teachers have a responsibility to make sure at the end of the day the listeners know more about God and Jesus than they do about us speakers. And this is one reason I resist telling stories about myself because I find over and over throughout the years people remember those personal stories, but they don't remember the point that you were trying to make with them, the point about the Bible. Paul was very clear in his teaching that he was pointing people to Christ. And I suspect Apollos was doing the same thing. He understood that Jesus was the Christ and that the message we are preaching is about him. And that's gonna actually come up as we go through this issue. On the listener side, we listeners have to clearly understand the gospel and be able to discern false gospels from the true gospel. It takes a really clear understanding that we gather together here because we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ and we want to learn more about Him and His Father. We attend a church or a Bible study because we all value the same truth, and the person talking or speaking is teaching the same gospel truth and we want to learn more about it. So as listeners, we have to value the content of the message more than the style of the message. The listeners must be listening for the content, not the style, the charisma or the entertainment value of the speaker or the presentation. I think if the Corinthians had had those values, they wouldn't have made the mistake they made. They couldn't have chosen between Apollos and Paul because they would have recognized Apollos and Paul are teaching the same message. If they had understood that both Apollos and Paul were pointing them to Christ's message, there's no choosing between them. It's the same. You don't value one or the other when you're not looking at the style, but you're looking at the content. And that, as we'll see, was the difference between Apollos and Paul. Their key difference was style rhetoric and delivery. How can you choose sides between the same content? It's the same. Both of them are pointing to Christ. But the Corinthians had these wrong values. They wanted a slick, professional debater, an eloquent speaker more than they wanted to learn the gospel. And that's what Paul's gonna go at in this section. So let's start in 1 Corinthians 1 13. Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? So Paul starts off this section saying, You can't be my follower because I'm teaching you to follow Jesus. I'm not the Savior. I preach the cross, but I was not the one on the cross. Jesus was on the cross for me as well as for you. He saved me just like he can save you. If you take the gospel seriously, then you'll realize there's no basis for factions. You can't be my follower as opposed to Apollos because Apollos and I are pointing you to the same guy and we're preaching the same message. Then as part of this statement, look, it's not about me, it's about Christ, he brings up baptism, going on in fourteen through seventeen. I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other, for Christ did not send me to baptized, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. Okay, let's talk about what's going on with baptism here. Considering how highly some of us and some denominations value baptism, I think this is a rather shocking thing for Paul to say. How could he be grateful that he didn't baptize very many people in Corinth? I think the key is understanding this phrase baptize in the name of in verse thirteen and then baptize in my name in verse 15. A disciple or the word disciple simply means a student or one who learns from someone else. His disciples were those who said, I want to hang around and listen to this guy because I think God has sent him with a message and I want to know what it is. And there's this natural connection between the concept of being a student and being baptized, or being someone's disciple and being baptized. That's how John did it, John the Baptist. He gathered disciples, and when they repented, they were baptized and they began to follow John. Those students identified themselves as students of John the Baptist. We got baptized by John, he's our teacher. John was a teacher and he baptized his students as the symbol of new life and repentance and preparation for the coming kingdom. He had his own disciples and we see the disciples of John discussed in Scripture. But even though John had his own disciples, he taught them to look for Christ. Look at the Gospel of John chapter three. This is chapter three verses twenty two through twenty six. After these things Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea, and there he was spending time with them in baptizing. John also was baptizing in Anon near Silim, because there was much water there and people were coming and were being baptized, for John had not yet been thrown into prison. Therefore there arose a discussion on the part of John's disciples with a Jew about purification, and they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who is with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, he is baptizing and all are coming to him. So here we see John's disciples are concerned that more people are being baptized into Jesus' name than into John's name. And we want to ask the question, why is that significant? Why is it significant who is doing the baptizing? And I think it's because of this relationship between the symbol and the teacher. The people that John baptized were disciples of John. The people that were baptized by Jesus' disciples became disciples of Jesus. The name into which you were baptized indicates the name of the teacher you follow. Who do you follow? The person you were baptized in the name of. Now Jesus came along and Jesus called and taught disciples, but as far as we can tell, he baptized no one. His disciples did the baptizing. This is a little bit later, just past that section, John chapter four, verses one and two. Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were, and then it goes on. So here again we see this connection between making disciples and baptizing. Jesus was calling people to learn from him. He was calling people to be his followers, and his followers were baptized as part of that process. But notice John goes out of his way to note that Jesus himself was not baptizing anyone. It was his disciples who were doing the baptizing. So we have all these clues. We have John's disciples being concerned about more people being baptized into Jesus' name. We have the fact that Jesus didn't baptize anyone. What's going on here? Why wouldn't Jesus himself baptize anyone? Now I am speculating because we're not told, but it seems logical that Jesus is preparing us for the situation that we find ourselves in now where we're following a teacher who is no longer present. And he's preparing us for the idea that other teachers will be authorized to speak for him. His apostles, his disciples, do in fact have the message and they can baptize in his name. So he's taking this connection between I'm baptized by a teacher and I follow him, and he's breaking it and saying, You can be baptized by my disciples in my name and follow me. So he's preparing us for the fact that one day he's not going to be physically present and we can still be baptized in his name. And also I think it eliminates the kind of one-upmanship that could arise between some saying, Well, look, I was baptized by Jesus Himself, but you, you were only baptized by that very unimpressive Paul, so I'm better than you. So it eliminates all of that. And it makes it more clear that we are called to be disciples of Christ, even if we hear that call from one of his representatives. Now when Jesus leaves, he gives us the famous Great Commission. This is Matthew twenty-eight, verses nineteen and twenty. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. So here Jesus makes it explicit. He says, I'm leaving, and where are my disciples going to come from? Well, you're going to be the ones to make disciples. You're going to explain to the world what I taught you, and you're going to make disciples for me, Jesus. You're not making disciples for yourselves, you're making disciples for me, Jesus. And to make that clear, whose name will you baptize them into? The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. You are baptizing them into this belief in the one true God, his Son who died on the cross and your in your place, and his spirit who works these truths out in your life. Notice the connection between these three ideas, becoming a disciple, being baptized, and being baptized in a particular name. And notice that name is not Peter, it's not Paul, it's not John, it's the name of Jesus. I think this is the background to what Paul is saying here in 1 Corinthians. When John baptized people, he made disciples for himself, and that was appropriate for John the Baptist. But after the coming of Christ, it is no longer appropriate. And he's saying, I, Paul, am glad I didn't baptize many of you so that you wouldn't mistakenly claim that you're a disciple of Paul. That's not the message I was trying to teach you. I am making disciples for someone else, and that someone is Christ, and that's whose disciple you are. Given the climate in Corinth and the way they were thinking, he's saying, Look, I'm glad I didn't baptize many of you because that would only add to your confusion. And I don't want to add any fuel to the fire by leaving a bunch of people behind who might be tempted to think they were my disciples. So he says, Was Paul crucified for you? No. Whether you reject or accept me, Paul, is personally irrelevant. I am not your Savior. Were you baptized in Paul's name? No. I may have taught you the gospel, but I'm not the source of the message. You're learning the message from me as a servant of Jesus Christ, not as the person who originated the message. Jesus originated the message and I'm passing it on to you. I want to teach you about Jesus, not my own teaching. And you were baptized in the name of Jesus because he is your teacher. So Christ did not send me to baptize, did not send me to make disciples of me. Now notice the mention of the names here, Crispus, Gaius, Stephanus. I think those names show that this is a real letter. He wrote, Look, I only baptized these two guys. Oh wait, I forgot about Stephanus. Okay, maybe I might have baptized a couple more folks that I don't remember, but it wasn't many. If they had had computers in Paul's day, they would have erased that line. But I think this shows it's a real letter. He's thinking it through as he dictates the letter. So let's look at his concluding statement here, verse 17. For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. What are we to make of this statement? Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel. What's he getting at? On the one hand, I don't think we want to take this as a statement that Paul is dismissing baptism or criticizing it somehow. The context suggests otherwise. But at the same time, I don't think he would make this statement if he believed that the act of baptism itself is an essential part of being saved, such that the thief on the cross, for example, could not have been saved despite Jesus forgiving him. Here's what I think he's saying. Paul was sent by Jesus to preach the gospel, to make disciples for Christ, and to teach others about Christ. Paul was called to proclaim the message about Jesus so that they might believe it and they would become disciples of Christ. The goal is to repent and believe. Once they believed, they were to be baptized, but his calling was to gather believers. Paul's calling was not like the calling of John the Baptist. Paul was not baptizing and gathering disciples to himself the way John the Baptist did. No one was supposed to ever say, What baptism did I receive? Oh, I received the baptism of Paul. The way it was said of John the Baptist, there wasn't such a thing. He was not Paul the Baptist. He was not called to have that kind of ministry. So his job was not to dunk as many people as possible. His job was to preach the gospel and to encourage people to believe, and his job was to clearly proclaim the gospel. Baptism is a secondary issue and a result of belief. Once they came to faith, and faith was the goal, sure, go ahead and baptize them. But you can see in Paul's mind, baptism is secondary to coming to faith. His goal was that they believe. Baptism was just a symbol of that belief, a detail. The main issue is understanding the gospel. And Paul has fulfilled his calling if he has clearly and accurately explained the gospel and called people to repent and believe, and that's what he is primarily concerned with. 117 again, for Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel. I think that's what he's saying. My goal was to teach you to come to faith. My goal was not to rack up the numbers and baptize as many people as possible. Then he goes on, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. Now the rest of this verse, I think that last phrase, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void, is a turning point in Paul's thought. It may not be obvious yet because we haven't gone on to read what's coming, but this cleverness of speech or wisdom of word is the topic he's going to zero in on through the rest of chapter one, two, and into chapter four. And he says he didn't send me to be clever and eloquent and to come up with something original. He sent me to be faithful. And that I think is a powerful temptation as a speaker and a teacher. I had a pastor tell me once that every pastor secretly wanted to be a rock star, and that those who didn't admit they wanted to be rock stars were lying. And sadly, I think he's right. Every teacher faces the temptation to attract people to me, me the teacher, to my knowledge, my wit, my cleverness, my speech, and to get thousands of people to flock to me because I am so great, so entertaining, and so clever, and I've got such an original way of putting it all together. Look at what Paul says here. I think he has a very different attitude. He's saying Christ didn't call me to be clever, he called me to be faithful. Faithful. My job is not to come up with a unique and clever turn of phrase. My job is to accurately understand the gospel and proclaim it. So what if I'm not eloquent like Apollo's? I'm teaching you the gospel truth. Now, rock star pastors may have the absolute best intentions. They could easily say, look, I'm attracting thousands of people with cleverness of speech, because that will ultimately attract people to Jesus. First, they have to come in the door, and they do that because I'm so clever and entertaining. And once I get them in the door, you see, then I point them to Jesus and they will follow him too. And that could very well be their well-intentioned motives. It just strikes me that Paul is saying, look, that's not how I operated. And he's going to have more to say about this as we go on in his argument. His point is I just tell it straight. I just pass on the truth as I've been taught it. It's not my job to sell Jesus to people or to dress up the gospel or to modernize it and make it glitterally. It's my job just to preach the gospel, not to make it attractive. And I think that's what shows up in this phrase so that the cross of Christ might not be made void. I think what he's saying is something like this if I were going to sell or spin the gospel, then I have to play down the cross because the cross is just plain old offensive to non-believers. And I have found that to be true. I was in a Sunday school once where the parents objected to us teaching about Jesus and the value of his death because they said, you know, it's just too violent. Could you just talk about God's love instead? And I was also in a church growth class once where they instructed us not to talk about the cross because, you know, the cross isn't seeker friendly. No one wants to hear about sin and what a wretch they are. No one wants to hear that they're gonna have to face God's wrath and they will fail that judgment apart from the cross of Christ. That's just too offensive. You gotta get them in the door, and then later we'll bring up that cross stuff. I think Paul would be horrified by that kind of thinking. I think that is exactly the kind of things he means when he says that the cross of Christ be made void. The cross and what it implies and its significance is not attractive. It's not slick and seeker friendly. If you want to sell the gospel, you have to hide the cross. And Paul's saying, but that's not the gospel. Jesus sent me to preach the gospel without all that hype and spin, and the cross is central to that message. I don't want to make the cross nothing by repackaging the gospel to make it more attractive to people. I don't want to make the cross of Christ void to make the gospel attractive. I think that's what he's saying. Because the cross is offensive and it kind of seems ridiculous. You execute the rival conquered king precisely so that he can't regain power. If he's dead, he can't come back and usurp the throne from you. How could the plan be to execute your champion? That's just foolies. Why would you execute your king? You want him to reign forever, you don't want to kill him, and yet it is precisely because Jesus died on the cross that he will be seated at the right hand of God to rule over all creation. From our worldly perspective, executed kings don't die and come back from the dead, but one did. So the most natural response to the cross is that it's offensive and that it's foolish. Why would God send his Messiah in the world to have the world kill him? That just seems silly. You don't want to kill your king. An executed king is an oxymoron. And that seems foolish until you understand the cross is the power of God for salvation. Jesus was raised from the dead and his rule will be established for eternity. It is what he did on the cross that saves us. Before we end, I want to spend some time thinking about two issues that have been raised by First Corinthians so far. And the first issue is baptism. What can we learn about baptism from these verses? It seems to me there are at least three main ways to think about baptism, and this section, these verses, help us sort them out. The first way to see baptism is that it is a sacrament. We are told to be baptized because the ritual itself has some kind of power in it, and you cannot be fully saved unless you have gone through the ritual. And there are groups that believe that. That we're told to be baptized because the right itself is necessary and you can't really believe without it. I can't really give a full justification of why people think that, but let me just say I find it difficult to believe that Paul would thank God and say he was grateful that he didn't baptize many folks, if indeed baptism is an essential, necessary right that you cannot be saved without. If that were true, if the act itself was necessary for salvation, then I don't think Paul would be grateful for a low number of baptisms. He might be instead reminding them that they have gone through the ritual. His statement here, I think, implies that baptism plays a subordinate role in the scheme of things. Now again, it's a complicated issue, and there's lots more we could say both for and against this view, but I just wanted to raise it that a lot of people believe baptism is a necessary ritual that you must have to be saved. That is not my perspective. So a second way to view baptism is to see it as an ordinance. So it's not a sacrament in the sense that the ritual itself has no spiritual power in and of itself, but it is commanded, and therefore we ought to obey the command. So under this view, people would say salvation is not dependent on whether we are baptized or not, but it is commanded, and to be obedient, we ought to do it. We can be saved if we never have the chance to be baptized, but we are disobedient not to do it. So your salvation's not on the line, just your level of obedience. This is another very common view, and this one makes more sense to me than the first one. I think I could make a better case from scripture for this view, but it's not the one I hold. I would opt for a third option, and this is that baptism is a culturally understood ritual that is a sign of the reality of belief. The command that we are to obey is to believe. Baptism is a sign of that belief. So I would say baptism is the culturally understood symbol of belief. What have we been commanded to do? We have been commanded to believe the gospel, to repent of our sins, and to become disciples of Jesus Christ. That's the real command. Once we've done that, baptism is a ritual that we do that symbolizes the reality of coming to faith. Without the reality of coming to faith, the ritual is meaningless. It has no power in and of itself. What is eternally important is having the faith that that ritual symbolizes. So I would argue you can be saved if you have never been baptized or had the chance to be baptized, and you were not disobedient if you were never baptized. The baptism itself is not the issue. The reality of belief is the issue. Obedience is in the belief. What symbolizes the fact that you have believed and embraced a new way of life? Baptism. So yes, let's do it. That's an acceptable way to make your claim that you have repented and believed. So I would encourage new believers to be baptized, but I don't believe that your salvation is on the line or even some level of obedience. Personally, I came to faith in high school and my baptism was a wonderful and meaningful experience for me, and I would encourage everyone to go through it. I think you could draw an analogy to a graduation ceremony. What's important is that I learned something and finished my degree, that I actually studied and learned and came to some knowledge. Going through the graduation ceremony is not the issue. The important thing is what I studied and learned. But going through the ceremony can be very meaningful and helpful. One passage I want to look at is in Acts 836, when Philip is speaking with the Ethiopian eunuch, and the eunuch says, Look, there's some water, what prevents me from being baptized? I would argue that the issue in this passage is not being baptized. It's not getting wet. The issue is coming to faith. And what the Ethiopian is saying is, I believe. Have I missed anything? Do I understand the real full gospel? Or is there something else I must know before I can become a follower of Jesus? So that question, what prevents me from being baptized, is not, oh, I have to do this ritual or I'm not saved. It's a question of have I accurately understood the gospel? Do I know everything I need to know? Have I understood the gospel? What prevents me? Is there anything else? So we have this ritual that symbolizes that I have turned away from my old way of life and embraced a new way of life and following Jesus. And he's saying, I want to do that symbol. Does anything prevent me? Like, do I have to become a Jew first? Do I have to learn something else? Do I have to make an offering at the temple? It could have been any number of those issues. He's asking, I believe. Is that enough? So I would say to be obedient is not to practice the ritual of baptism. To be obedient is to primarily to repent and believe. To be obedient is to preach the gospel and repent and believe, and baptism is a wonderful ceremony that indicates belief has taken place. And I would argue that in the passages that command baptism, if you read them and study them, everyone I've studied so far, what they are really commanding is preaching and teaching and making disciples. Baptism then is the accepted and understood symbol that accompanies that faith. And there are lots of examples of this kind of command. For instance, Paul says in 1 Timothy that he wants men in every place to pray with holy hands. This is 1 Timothy 2.8. Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension. Well, what's the command here? Is Paul actually commanding us to lift our hands when we pray? Is the command to lift up your hands and we are disobedient if we keep our hands folded or put them in our pockets? I would say no, we're not being disobedient if we don't raise our hands to pray, because while he does say, I want the men in every place to pray lifting holy hands, what we have to realize is lifting hands was the culturally accepted way to pray at the time Paul wrote. It was part of the cultural pattern of public prayer. What he's really commanding is that when you pray, pray with a certain kind of attitude and gratitude. The command is the heart attitude behind the prayers. I think Paul is saying, I want the hands you raise when you pray to be without strife and wrath and quarreling. Let's not be hypocrites. Let's not raise our hands in prayer when our hearts are seething with anger toward our neighbor or something like that. Let's not pray to God and ask him to bless all our sinful attitudes and bickering. Right now you're arguing and fighting and judging each other, and I want that to stop. When you pray, I want you to be repentant and humble so that the command is not the ritual itself, but the attitude, the heart belief behind it. The concern is what's the reality behind the sign? What's going on when you're praying? Similarly, I think the command and the Great Commission to make disciples is not to perform the ritual of baptism, it's to make disciples. Jesus wanted his followers to make more disciples, not to accumulate the largest number of baptisms. The point was not to perform the ritual, the point was to spread the word about the gospel such that people would repent and believe. So when you make those disciples, he says, I want you to make them as disciples of me, not you. I want you to them to be disciples of the Father, Son, and the Spirit, not the person doing the baptizing. So the baptizing you do should be in the name of Jesus, not in the name of Peter, John, or Paul. That raises the question is the ritual an essential part of the process? Is baptism an essential part of bringing people to faith? And the problem we have in answering that question is that most of the time that question is not addressed because belief and baptism always come together. People believe and they get baptized. That's how it's done. This passage in 1 Corinthians is one of the few places where they're separated, where we see Paul sorting out the essential from the non essential, and it seems to me that he puts baptism on the non essential side. I cannot imagine him saying, given the climate in Corinth, I'm sorry I preached the gospel to you because you're claiming to be my disciples. You know, I'm sorry I preached the gospel to you because some of you have gotten confused and you're thinking you're my disciples, and I just wish I'd never preached you at all. I don't think Paul would ever say that. He's not sorry for preaching the gospel to them, despite everything that's happened since. In fact, he opened the letter by saying he's grateful for their faith. He's grateful for what God has done among them. Preaching the gospel is one of the essentials. But he does notice separate preaching the gospel and belief from baptism, and he says, given the climate in the Corinthian church and the factions that have developed, I'm glad that I didn't physically baptize many of you because that would have made the situation worse. That would have added confusion and I'm glad I didn't do it. So that gives us a clue that preaching the gospel is essential. Understanding the gospel is the words of life. We have to take the risk of misunderstanding whenever we preach the gospel, but it's essential that we keep preaching it. Baptism is more like the icing on the cake. It's a ritual we go through that symbolizes belief, but it is not essential to belief itself. The second issue I want to talk about that's raised by what's Paul said so far is the issue of denominations and unity. And some people look at these opening verses in First Corinthians and they say, you know, we just have too many denominations. Look, Paul says, is Christ divided? That means we shouldn't have denominations. We should all be one church, and often you'll see these verses inspiring commentators to lament the state of the evangelical world today. Well, that's an interesting question. Would Paul lament the many denominations in Christianity? Is that to our shame? Are denominations clear evidence that we have not been following Christ the way we ought? Because we are all his disciples, therefore we should all be one church, one denomination. How should we think about that? How should we think about Christian unity and at what cost we achieve it? Well, I would argue the problem in Corinth is that they valued the wrong things, and we're going to see that as we go on into Paul's argument. The evidence we have is that Paul and Apollos preached the same gospel, but they preached it using different styles. Apollos was skilled at rhetoric and very eloquent in his presentation. He was a debater, and by comparison, Paul's presentation was more flat and boring, but they preached the same gospel. The problem is that the Corinthians value the presentation more than the content. They're valuing what Paul's going to go on to call worldly wisdom more than the gospel itself, and that's the issue that's coming up next. When you value the gospel more than these other kinds of things, we'll have unity. When you value other things like presentation and style more than the gospel, we're going to have strife. To reject Paul because his rhetorical style is not impressive is to value the wrong thing, and Paul's going to go on to call them to stop being foolish and to value the truth of the gospel more than the manner of its delivery. Right now they value style over substance, and Paul is saying you need to be more concerned with the substance. The gospel is the most important message you'll ever hear, and that's what you need to get right. If you miss that, you miss everything. You don't want to lose the gospel because you're too concerned with rhetoric and eloquence. So, what does this have to do with denominations? Well, we could have too many denominations because we are valuing the wrong things, like the Corinthian church. It's probably true that some churches are around because they value the wrong things, and the people who attend them value the wrong things. Well, this church preaches sin, forgiveness, and repentance, and this other church preaches, say, love and social justice, and this other church preaches health and wealth and prosperity, and this other church, well, that's a great media show and multimedia presentation and great entertainment value. And people could be going to those various churches because they're valuing those things. Those kind of churches exist, and it could be that people attend them because they are valuing the wrong things. They value those other things like social justice, prosperity, media entertainment more than they value the gospel. There is a sense in which that kind of theology does divide us and ought to divide us. The kind of theology that results from misplaced values and misunderstandings of the gospel ought to divide us. We can't be unified because we don't think the same things, we don't value the same things, and in some cases we don't even follow the same gospel. I think Paul would argue the path to unity is to seek truth together. In the situation I've just described, you're not going to unite two churches or two denominations who value completely different things and believe a completely different gospel. Unity is not possible in that situation. The only way to unity is to believe and value the same gospel. In my opinion, it's useless to say let's all just get along. You can't just paper over differences in core beliefs. The only way to achieve unity is for one side to persuade the other to change their minds. And hopefully the ones who are missing the heart of the gospel would realize their folly and realign themselves with the truth. So there's a sense in which theology should divide us. And the solution is not to ignore theology, the solution is to get our theology straight. What Paul would call them to, I think, is come back to the gospel. Ask God for the wisdom to value the right and proper things and to open your eyes to the wisdom of the gospel and unite around that. When everyone sees the wisdom of the gospel and values the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified, we will have unity. We also need to consider, I think, the parable of the wheat and the tares, that implies that there will always be false teachers and false doctrines among us. So there is a sense in which divisions will be inevitable in the visible church because there will always be false teachers in it. There will always be those in the church who claim to follow Jesus, but in reality are valuing something else or someone else. And as they follow their path, they're going to get farther from those on the path of Christ. And that's just reality. It will be difficult to tell sometimes who is on the right path and who's on the wrong path, only God truly knows. But this is another problem that isn't going to be solved by ignoring theology. In fact, just the opposite. It is holding fast to the gospel and not compromising it that will eventually reveal those who don't truly embrace it. So what should we do? Well, we should repent and believe and cling to the truth, as James says. We should pray for wisdom and understanding, and God will give it to us, and we should all approach these issues with the humility that we could be the one who is wrong. Also, in this discussion, we want to take in what I call the weaker brother factor. There are many issues that we can and will disagree about, and for many of them, we can agree to disagree without judging and condemning each other. Now that's easy to say, but it's hard to do. Because we are sinful and prideful and it is in our nature to look down on people who disagree with us. But as far as we are able, we ought to strive to view those disagreements over non essentials with humility and forbearance. And Paula is going to give us an example of those later in the letter. Now, some of us will be farther down the path of maturity than others. That will always be the case in this journey of faith. There will be people ahead of us and people behind us. And we are all tempted to judge those who disagree with us as ooh, awful rotten folks. We have all sinned that way. But there are some lines we dare not cross. Who was Jesus and what did he do for you? Those are the essentials. We want to cling to that truth. And part of maturity is learning where to draw the line and to draw the line in the right place. And then accepting those who disagree with you on the non-essentials. And finally, there's what I call the Paul and Barnabas factor. Paul and Barnabas had a disagreement over John Mark. They were on a journey, John Mark left them, and they wanted to go on another journey. Barnabas wanted to bring John Mark, and Paul said, No, I won't have him because of this past issue. So they had a problem they couldn't resolve, and they decided it would make more sense for them to work apart. So Barnabas went his way and Paul went on his journey with Silas instead. And it is okay to make the decision to say, for now, it's better if we work toward the same goal in separate places. I think Paul and Barnabas were on the same side. They were working for the same Lord, they had the same gospel, and for a season they chose to work apart because of some disagreement. What we don't see them doing is judging and condemning each other for their differences. And that's a position we may find ourselves in too. We are called to discern the true gospel and never compromise it, but we are also called to live with and discern the non essentials and to refrain from judging those who disagree with us on the non essentials. Well, what are the non essentials? Well, people debate that, but I would argue music style, liturgy versus non-liturgy, who serves communion and who doesn't, who prays up front and who doesn't, how often we have communion, raising our hands, not raising our hands, and so on. I would argue all of those are expressions of our faith, but not faith itself, and we ought to refrain from passing judgment on each other. Many years ago I heard a pastor say that his philosophy of ministry was that we ought to have something to offend everyone as long as we preach the same gospel. And I think that's a great philosophy. We ought to have all kinds of services, all kinds of music, contemporary, traditional, and all kinds of ways of expressing our faith that reach a variety of people. I think it is unwise for one group to impose one single worship style on the community. And I would say that's not unity, that's conformity. What unites us is the gospel, and we are free to express our repentance and our joy and our gratitude for the gospel in a variety of ways, and the visible church ought to express our faith in all those ways. For one group to say we're only going to have this particular kind of music, this particular kind of liturgy, this particular style is a false kind of unity. So where does that leave us? We've been called to believe the great truths of the gospel, and in doing so, we will draw closer to those who believe and follow those same truths. Fundamentally, that's what Christian unity is all about. Those who follow the same Lord will find each other and recognize that we are committed to the same gospel. At the same time, those gospel truths will cause me to be different than those who reject the gospel and those who claim to follow the gospel but in reality are following something different. And that difference cannot be helped. We should not attempt to ignore or minimize that problem because the distinction is real. However, I am called to be wise enough to distinguish the important from the unimportant and to refrain from judging or condemning my fellow believer when we disagree about the non-important, the non-essential. I am called to embrace my fellow believer even when we disagree on non-essentials. Sometimes, practically speaking, we may decide to work apart. We may respect each other, but we recognize that we're on the same team, even though now we're maybe working in separate places. So we will have unity when we seek truth together and we learn in humility to refrain from judging each other on the non-essentials. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. This is a podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. Please do me a favor, if you've enjoyed this podcast, take a minute and leave a rating or review on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform. It really does help people find the podcast, and of course, tell a friend what you've learned. That's the best. Our theme music is graciously provided by my favorite musician, Reggie Coates of heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for listening today. I'm Chris Amorata, and I hope you'll join me next week for Wednesday in the words.