Unity in Christ

The first four chapters of 1 Corinthians – from which we have been reading during the Season of Epiphany – make one point painfully clear: factionalism within the Christian community has always been a problem for the Church which takes the name of Christ. The Apostle Paul writes to the church he founded “not just to make you ashamed but to bring you, as my dearest children, to your senses.” (1 Corinthians 4:14; The Jerusalem Bible). Consider these “highlights” of his argument/appeal:

All the same, I do appeal to you, brothers, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, to make up the differences between you and instead of disagreeing among yourselves, to be united again in your belief and practice. (1:10)

The language of the cross may be illogical to those who are not on the way to salvation, but those of us who are on the way see it as God’s power to save. (1:17)

God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. (1:25)

. . . we teach what scripture calls: the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him. (2:9)

I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God made things grow. (3:6)

By the grace God gave me, I succeeded as an architect and laid the foundations on which someone else is doing the building. . . . For the foundation, nobody can lay any other than the one which has already been laid, that is Jesus Christ. (3:10-11)

So there is nothing to boast about in anything human . . . you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God. (3:21-23)

Paul suggested a new “model” for imagining the role of the Church and of each Christian disciple. It is a powerful directive (and corrective) for its day and for our day:

People must think of us as Christ’s servants, stewards entrusted with the mysteries of God. What is expected of stewards is that each one should be found worthy of his trust. . . . There must be no passing of premature judgment. Leave that until the Lord comes: he will light up all that is hidden in the dark and reveal the secret intentions of men’s hearts. (4:1-4)

We are servants and stewards – in order that the light and love of Christ may shine upon us, into us, and overflow from us into the lives of those “who are not [yet] on the way to salvation.” May God indwell us, unite us, and extend us into the world in the Spirit of Christ.