1st Corinthians and Unity

Saturday, a bunch of us were at the church building holding a hot dog sale when a neighbor came in and sat down for a while. Now, this man is a Church of Christ member who lives a mile or so from our congregation but attends church in the next town over. He's known for changing congregations frequently and always finding fault with the one he's at.

I listened to him and another man talking about all of the church splits that had happened in the last year or so, and about how people were leaving this congregation for that, and people were meeting in hotels and funeral homes because of things that had gone on at their previous congregations.

Then the talk turned to Norway Avenue. Some of you might have heard of this church (Fred Peatross used to be an elder). This man had attended there a little while, and had left because they "mixed acts of worship" by singing during communion (at least that's what I was told, although I was initially told that he was going to straighten them out).

General consternation was expressed about the possibility they would go instrumental, and the man named someone we all knew and said he couldn't believe it, but this man had started attending there.

I left the room rather than get into the conversation. This was a man I knew not to argue with anyway; he prides himself on his "directness". The thoughts that were going through my head were about Jesus' call for unity, about how our love for each other was supposed to be the determining mark that would hold us together, and how we were willing to throw this away over stuff the Bible didn't even talk about, mostly so we could get our own way.

I knew how I would be answered, though. I've been on the other side of the conversation, and the verse I liked to use was 1 Corinthians 1:10, I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

Paul then lit into the Corinthians about how they were following man instead of Christ, and about how if they just followed God's word, they'd have the same opinions about everything. But is that what he was really saying? Was this what unity of mind and thought supposed to be?

I considered this a while back, and I kept reading. Just a few verses later, right after the "I of Paul, I of Cephas", he starts talking about the cross:

"For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 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.' "

is that it, then? Just preach the cross? Could that be the basis of our unity of mind and thought?

It seemed like a stretch, but he did put that line in there about wisdom and intelligence not being the point. If we are supposed to reason it all out for ourselves, then wisdom and intelligence would be the point, wouldn't it?

Then I read the next verses.

"Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."

We preach Christ crucified? Is that really it? I mean, Paul couldn't mean that's all there is, could he? That has to be hyperbole. By "Christ crucified" he has to still be reminding them not to follow men, but follow the Bible, doesn't he?

But that's not what he said. And he does keep going on about human wisdom.

And there, in the next chapter, was the clincher:

"When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."

There's that verse. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Man, could that be it? Could it be that, after telling the Corinthians to be united in mind and thought, then telling them not to trust in their own wisdom, he tells them that this one thing is what matters, nothing else?

It sure seemed like it.

After this, he talks about wisdom coming from the Spirit, and how we won't recognize it if we don't belong to God, and how we should become fools instead of boasting about what we know. I won't quote it, but it's there. You can read it.

So is this the key to unity? Nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified?

If so, where does that leave us? Weak. Helpless. Dependent. Those aren't places we want to be. Those are things that make us...uncomfortable.

But we become uncomfortable in our brokenness and look to Him for comfort.

Why do we not have unity? Because there are things we want more. It's that simple. We want to have our say about doctrine. We want correctness. We want our own rightness. Unity's inconvenient. Unity means sacrificing ourselves and submitting to others.

I'm not good at that.

But if we don't have unity, we will not be the church that God wants us to be. We cannot be His presence on Earth in the sense that He wants if we are fragmented and arguing and showing twenty-four other emotions before we show the love for each other that He said would identify us.

If we are to be united in the same thought and the same mind, then Paul has told us what that thought is:

Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

If we preached that, if that was really at the center of everything we did, then maybe everything else, including the unity of the Spirit, would follow.

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[Written by Marc Shoemaker, and posted here with his permission.]