1 Corinthians 1:10 - Appeal for Unity

Marc Minter

FBC Diana

1 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

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Main Point: The Lord Jesus Christ intends every local church to be populated by members who agree together on a shared set of doctrines and a shared purpose.

Notes

Transcript

Introduction

Have you ever had a disagreement with a fellow church member? How did it go? Did you reconcile? Did you forgive and move on? Did you run away?

Have you ever been part of a church that was experiencing a lot of disunity? What was that like? When you think back, can you see the difference between the symptoms and the deeper problems?

For clarity, it seems to me that FBC Diana is as genuinely united as I’ve ever known her to be. I’m not saying that none of us disagree about anything, but I am saying that we all share a great deal of agreement on the most important things. Therefore, my sermon today should not be misunderstood as a pastoral effort to fix something that’s broken among us.

In fact, church leadership gurus might be excited by a sermon like the one I’m going to preach today. They’d be disappointed though… since my “vision casting” will fall well short of the business marketing strategies that pastors are supposed to employ on occasions like this.

Today we’re going to continue our study through 1 Corinthians by looking at a single verse – chapter 1, verse 10. The Apostle Paul has greeted the church of Corinth, he’s told them about his regular prayer of thanks for them, and now he’s beginning the body of his letter with an appeal. Let’s consider it together…

Scripture Reading

1 Corinthians 1:10 (ESV)

10 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.

Main Idea:

The Lord Jesus Christ intends every local church to be populated by members who agree together on a shared set of doctrines and a shared purpose.

Sermon

1. Appeal from Authority

Our verse this morning is the beginning of the body or substance of Paul’s letter. During some previous Sundays, we’ve studied through the opening greeting, and there we found the basis or foundation for all that Paul is going to talk about throughout the rest of the letter. But here we see the central exhortation or appeal of the whole thing: Paul says, “I appeal to you…” or “I beseech you” (KJV) or “I exhort you” (NASB) or “I urge you” (NET).

This “appeal” or “exhortation” is fundamental to Christianity, and it’s the simple and ongoing task of Christian discipleship. The Christian worldview begins with the axiom or first-principle that God is the creator, and I am His created thing. God knows the purpose for which He has created me, God knows how the world works, and God knows what is morally right. And because I am a created thing, I need to be told who I am and what to do. I need to be informed about how the world works. I need to learn what I am morally obligated to think and say and do.

This need I have is all the more important (and complicated) by the fact that I am a child of Adam… I am a sinner, born of sinners. When our first parents (Adam and Eve) sinned in the garden, all sorts of consequences followed. Sin brought about the consequence of bodily decay and eventual death. Sin resulted in relational dysfunction and emotional anxiety. Sin caused all sorts of negative effects, and the most detrimental of those effects are upon the mind and the will… Not only do I not know what I ought to know, in many cases I don’t want to know what I ought to know! My will or desires or affections are inclined toward that which is wrong, that which is immoral, and even that which is harmful… both to myself and to others.

So then, from beginning to end (at least until this life is over), Christianity is all about “appealing” to me or “exhorting” me to learn new truths, to change wrong ideas, and to embrace right ways of believing and behaving. This is true when I first heard the gospel, and it’s still true every day of my life. Before I was a Christian, I thought and spoke and acted like an unbelieving sinner. When people told me about the gospel, they called me out of unbelief and into a new way of living. And throughout my entire Christian life (for about 22 years now), other Christians have played a role in urging me to conform my thoughts, my words, and my actions to the truths and the commands of the Bible.

Friends, if you think anyone can be a Christian without radically changing the way they think and live, then you have misunderstood Christianity altogether. God’s explicitly stated goal for all those who love and follow Christ is that they will be “conformed” (Rom. 8:29) or “renewed” (Col. 3:10) or “transformed” (Rom. 12:2) to the “image” of Christ. If you are a Christian, God means to change you… and He will always accomplish what He intends.

And God does all of this transformative work by or through “appeals” or “exhortations” that carry the weight of divine authority… which is exactly what we see in our text. Paul’s “appeal” to the Corinthians was not a mere offer of advice. Paul “appealed” to them “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v10).

This is a two-fold designation of the highest authority.

First, Paul’s appeal was coming on the ultimate authority of “the name” of the “Lord Jesus Christ.” Jesus was and is the Christ or the Messiah of God; He is God’s anointed king, who sits enthroned over God’s kingdom. “Jesus is Lord,” was the cry of the earliest Christians (1 Cor. 12:3), even in a day when they were being persecuted for not saying “Caesar is lord.” So, for Paul to say that his “appeal” was “by the name” of the “Lord Jesus Christ” was to demand that the Corinthians submit to the universal lordship of Jesus… from whom Paul was a messenger.

But there was another feature to this “appeal” that might slip passed us if we’re not paying attention. Paul said that Jesus was not only the “Lord” but “our Lord.” It was as though Paul was reminding the Corinthians of their profession of faith. These Christians in Corinth had been “baptized” in the “name” of Christ (1 Cor. 1:13-16), and thus, they had sworn an oath to live in keeping with that public profession of faith. They were not only the obligated subjects of the King of kings and Lord of lords, but they were also Christ’s voluntary servants… It was their joy and their eager desire to submit to their good King and to His right rule over them.

Brothers and sisters, I wonder how this concept shapes what we think about the Bible, or church, or our dealings with other Christians. Do you read the Bible with an expectation that you’re going to learn something you don’t already know? Is that how you listen to a sermon or talk about the Bible with a church member?

I can remember a long car-ride with a good Christian brother, where he had me read a passage of Scripture again and again, because I just kept saying, “It can’t mean what it says…” He would say, “Read it again, and tell me what you think it does mean.” In the end, I began to realize that it probably means exactly what it says… and this memory stands out in my mind as a perfect example of just how ridiculous and hard-headed I can be when the Bible confronts my biased ideas about what “must be” true or what “cannot be” true.

I wonder what you do when you realize that God’s word… that Christ’s word… disagrees with your present belief or behavior? Probably very few of us will respond right away with humility and submission, but is submission and obedience where you usually end up? Or are you more likely to dismiss or neglect or buck against what the Bible teaches you? In other words, do you regularly obey what your Lord commands… or do you only follow Christ when it’s convenient?

God help us…

Paul began his letter with an “appeal” to fellow Christians in “the name” of Christ… Let’s spend the rest of our time considering what he urged them to do…

2. Agreement without Division

What did Paul “appeal” or “urge” or “exhort” his “brothers” or fellow Christians to do? Well, he urged them to “agree” or literally to “speak the same” (KJV; “τὸ αὐτὸ λέγητε” [NA28]). This “agreement” or “speaking the same” was what they were supposed to do instead of perpetuating “divisions.”

The Greek underneath all of this is emphatic in its contrast. Paul urged “that you all agree” or “speak the same” … “and not be among you divisions” (my translation). It is clear that Paul wanted agreement without division, but what exactly were they supposed to “agree” or “speak the same” about?

The answer is found in the following verses (11-17), and this whole letter is full of instruction about what it looks like to agreeon this central matter and to behave in keeping with this agreement. We will dive more deeply into v11-17 next Sunday (Lord willing), but for now I simply want to show that Paul was urging these Corinthians to “agree” or to “speak the same” about who they were “following” or literally about who they were “of” (v10, 12-13).

Among the one church of Corinth, each member was claiming a smaller tribe or clique or in-group. Some were saying, “I am of Paul” (v12). Others were saying, “I am of Apollos” (v12). Still others were saying, “I am of Cephas” (v12). And some were saying, “I am ofChrist” (v12). This was not only unhelpful; it was a blasphemous scandal and an awful lie about the gospel itself.

You can tell just how furious and disgusted Paul was by all of this in the absurd question he asked them in v13… “Was Paul crucified for you?” …In case you didn’t know, this is what you call sarcasm… and Paul used it often when he addressed what he believed were hard-headed fools.

At any rate, the Corinthians were splitting the church or tearing it up by dividing among themselves according to various teachings they perceived to be the emphasis of one teacher or another. One group of church members liked what they heard Peter say about eating meat. Another group liked the way Apollos spoke with such eloquence and persuasion. This other group liked to think of themselves as “charter” members of the church Paul planted back in the day. And still another group fancied themselves purists, following only those statements they could trace back directly to Jesus during His earthly ministry.

Oh, friends, nothing has changed among Christians and churches in the last 2,000 years! How many of us have heard church members fight with one another over just such things as these? God help us… How many of us have fought with other church members over… food or drink, preaching style, or the benefits of longer-term membership in the church?

Brothers and sisters, if we carve out some special or personal feature of our Christian experience and make that (i.e., our experience) definitional to our Christianity, then we blaspheme Christ, and we lie about the gospel.

Paul wanted the Corinthians to “agree” or to “speak the same” about who they “followed” or who they were “of” (v10, 12-13). And we should do the same today! We are Christ-ians! And Christ is the name under which we unite!

We believe that Christ is our only hope in life and death… We believe that Christ lived and died in the place of sinners… We believe that Christ rose again from the grave… We believe that Christ instituted the church and gave her a mission… We believe Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven… And we believe Christ will come again to complete the work He has begun in this world… Therefore, we gather here in the name of Christ each Sunday morning… and we dare not divide ourselves by any other name or preference or in-group.

In first-century Corinth, the divisions among the church centered around various preachers and Apostles… but in our day, and in our neck of the East Texas piney woods, we aren’t nearly as religious or as theological. Our divisions are far more likely to be over trivial stuff. Some of us divide over “contemporary” and “traditional” styles of music. Some of us divide over church costumes. Do you want to be a cowboy today or a biker, or maybe you have some other fashion statement to make? Some of us divide over customer service. Was there a slide in the nursery? Did I get a goody-bag? Is there a small group or program for people of my same age and gender and interest group? And some of us divide over personal experience. We want church to be the same not only in substance to what it was 10 or 30 or 50 years ago, we want church to feel and look exactly the same today as we remember it was for us back then.

But brothers and sisters, one of the most repeated appeals or exhortations in the New Testament is for local churches to have unity or harmony. For example, to the church in Ephesus, Paul wrote, “I… urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called… bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-3).

To the church in Colossae, Paul wrote, “And above all… put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body” (Colossians 3:14-15).

And to Titus (who was pastoring among churches on the island of Crete), Paul wrote that divisive or contentious church members are not to be tolerated at all because they are a direct threat to church unity. Paul said, “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him” (Titus 3:10). In other words, if a divisive person is still threatening church unity after 2 warnings, then put him/her out of the church.

Friends, it is obvious that church unity or agreement is highly important. Paul was writing to a divided church, full of difficult and divisive members, and he was urging them to “agree” on the central matter of who they were ultimately “following” (v10)… But how were they to practically arrange for such unity?

3. Arrangement for Unity

Paul urged these Christians to be “united” or “restored” or “perfectly joined together” (KJV). The word here was a medical term, used to describe setting a broken bone. The Corinthian church was a body out of alignment. They needed to be rearranged in order to find a restored unity. But what was out of line? What was broken? What did they need to rearrange so that they might enjoy unity?

We see two specific “sames” in our passage: they needed the “same mind” and the “same judgment.” These are necessary arrangements for any organization, including a local church. One might argue that these are supremely important for a local church since churches are organizations or institutions which transcend culture and politics. There’s a sense in which churches are not bound by time or geography… For most every member, their church is something that already existed before them, and it will continue to exist long after they are gone.

Brothers and sisters, the more we share in common with our unbelieving and non-Christian neighbors, the less united we will be as a church. The Bible itself teaches us that the mindset on the things of the world and the ambitions or purposes of our non-Christian friends and co-workers are completely at odds with the biblical worldview and mission.

But the more we share in common with Christians of the 1st century, and the 4th century, and the 16th century, the more united we will be as a church.

We will always be people who live in a particular kind of culture, politic, and community, but the more we can keep our minds and our purpose in alignment with Christians of all ages and places, the better we will live in harmony with one another… and the better we will pass along to the next generation the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Let’s consider these two necessary ingredients for unity in our passage: the “same mind” and the “same judgment” or “purpose.”

First, the “mind” is that which one uses in perceivingor thinking. The word is used broadly in this letter to refer to “outlook” or “attitude” (1 Cor. 2:16), and also to refer to “rational thinking” (1 Cor. 14:14). It seems that Paul is saying here that he wants the Corinthians to have the same “way of thinking.” In other words, he wants them to think like Christians.

Whatever else this might mean, it most certainly emphasizes the need for biblical thinking… for intellectual engagement with God’s truth… or – to use the most common New Testament phrase for it – sound doctrine. Some of you will know that Paul directed his young pastor friend, Timothy, to work against false teaching in the church by teaching “sound doctrine” among the church in Ephesus (1 Tim. 1:10). Timothy was to “teach and urge” those things that “agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Tim. 6:2-3). And Paul gave the same directive to Titus, another pastor friend. He wrote, “teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1).

But this was not just the job of pastors; all of the men of the churches were to be “sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness” (Titus 2:2; cf. Titus 2:8). The women too were to “teach what is good” to younger women (Titus 2:3). Indeed, all Christians were to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom…” (Col. 3:16).

Brothers and sisters, the basis of our fellowship together as Christians is a shared mind or understanding of what is true… what is intellectually true… what is rationally true. We believe not only with our hearts, but also with our minds. We believe reasoned affirmations about God, about Christ, about ourselves, and about what God has done and is doing in the world. And it is the shared collection of these beliefs – these propositional truths – that unites us as a church.

Back during the time of the Protestant Reformation, Christians began to discuss the fundamental marks or characteristics of a church of the Lord Jesus Christ. For centuries, the church was simply assumed… it was where the priest spoke the words of the Mass and distributed the elements of the Eucharist.

We don’t have time to get into the historic origin and development of the Roman Catholic Church this morning, but 16th-century Protestants believed that Rome had departed significantly from the historic Christian faith. And when Protestants began gathering as churches, it became visibly obvious that Roman priests and the Roman Mass could not be the marks of a Christian church, since Protestants had neither the priesthood nor the Mass.

What, then, was a true Christian church? Well, Protestants answered: a true church is a gathering of believers where the gospel of Christ is truly preached and where the sacraments or ordinances of Christ are rightly administered (referring to baptism and the Lord’s Supper). And these two marks of a true church center on doctrine. What is the true gospel? What are the sacraments or ordinances of the church, and how did Christ authorize Christians to administer them?

However you answer those questions, you will inevitably be saying what you believe in the form of doctrine. Your definition of a church is your ecclesiology or your doctrine of the church. So too, your definition of baptism and of the Lord Supper is your doctrine of the ordinances.

Friends, there are many today (and there have been many throughout history) who want to avoid teaching or talking about doctrine because they think doctrine divides… but we simply cannot avoid it. The church that has no doctrine is no church at all, and the only way we can experience true unity (not just the absence of disagreement) is to be clear about what we believe and why.

For FBC Diana (like most other churches) we make our doctrine clear in a summary of our beliefs, which are listed in our Confession of Faith.[i]All of the members of this church have agreed on several points of doctrine, and we have agreed to teach and believe and live according to these doctrines. Our confession of faith does not include everything any one of us might believe, nor does it stand in authority over Scripture… but our confession of faith summarizes what we all agree the Bible teaches on those doctrines which are necessary for church unity.

This gets really practical when some of us might disagree. What do we do when we have a disagreement between two or more church members? Think about this with me a moment… We all know that church members do eventually disagree about something. What do we do when we disagree?

I think we all know that we ought not just disappear… but that is often exactly what people do. Let’s think about what we will do before we get the urge to jump ship, so that we will be prepared to help each other grow as Christians, rather than treat each other like children on a playground.

When we disagree, we might begin by considering the context. Was this a prepared statement, or was it a one-off comment? All of us have said dumb or imprecise things in a conversation, and we ought to be gracious with one another when we step on our own tongues. Scripture teaches us to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32).

Next, we might ask more questions. Have we understood each other correctly? Is the disagreement real or is it merely a miscommunication? All of us will sometimes hear something different than it was intended, and we ought to be sure we’ve understood each other before we start making any accusations. The Scripture says that we ought to “be quick to hear, slow to speak, [and] slow to anger” (James 1:19).

And once we’ve done the good and hard work of figuring out that our disagreement is real and that it’s centered on a biblical doctrine (i.e., not just a personal preference), then we would all do well to consider whether this is something worth fighting over. Is this an essential doctrine of the Christian faith? Is this a doctrine we must agree on in order to church together? Can we come to the Lord’s Table together with Christians who disagree with us on this matter?

Friends, if we don’t have to divide over it, then I recommend that we don’t divide over it. We can certainly talk about it, and we can all grow and learn by thinking through what we really believe… but we should absolutely avoid fighting over or dividing over those beliefs which are not (1) critical to our Christianity or (2) necessary for our gathering and functioning as a church.

Friends, Christian unity is not found by checking our minds at the door. We all believe something, and we ought to be clear about what we believe. But real Christian unity is found when we share the same mind, the same doctrine.

I praise God for the unity I perceive among FBC Diana, and I pray that God will help us all to continue doing the good and necessary work of aligning ourselves doctrinally. Some of us will enjoy the study of doctrine more than others, but we must all play our part in maintaining unity by sharing the same mind.

The second vital ingredient for unity is sharing the “same judgment” or “purpose.” The word translated “judgment” in the ESV is “thought” in the NIV and “purpose” in the NRSV. The idea here has more to do with aim or will or intent than what we’ve been talking about so far. Not only does Paul urge the Corinthians to believe the same things, he also wants them to share the same purpose or mission.

All throughout this letter, we will discover that the Corinthian church was a disordered bunch. They thought of their spiritual gifts as personal skills. They thought of their societal status as personal benefits. And they thought of their spiritual maturity as personal accomplishment. In short, many of them were headed in different directions, based on their own individual status and desires.

Now, this might be a great strategy for personal advancement in a capitalistic economy, but it is a terrible strategy for making disciples in a local church. In fact, making disciples is the unifying purpose of the local church, and this mission requires that every church member keep their eye on the ball.

Most of us will be familiar with Jesus’s Great Commission in Matthew 28, where He authorized His disciples to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded…” (Matt. 28:19-20). Friends, this basic commission is repeated in at least two other places in the New Testament (Jn. 20:21-23 and Acts 1:8), and it is theJesus-authorized mission-statement for every local church from the first century to the last (whichever one that will be).

Each individual Christian may give himself or herself to all sorts of God-glorifying Christian service in the world. A Christian may be a mom or a dad, a butcher or a baker, an accountant or an engineer, a politician or a lawyer, a schoolteacher or an oilfield roughneck. But a church is not authorized by Christ to be any of that. A gathered body of agreeing Christians, who share the same mind about the gospel and about who they are as a church, must also be unified in their agreement to sustain the mission of making disciples… (1) by teaching the gospel with the aim to persuade, (2) by baptizing new Christians into fellowship with us, and (3) by teaching one another to live according to all that Christ has commanded.

Brothers and sisters, the local church has a very narrow mission because it is the institution in and through which we all share one common purpose without losing the freedom to pursue all sorts of interests and opportunities individually. Furthermore, the local church’s narrow mission is that which remains the same throughout all history… until Christ returns… regardless of cultural context or geographical location.

J. Gresham Machen was born almost exactly 100 years before me, and he was a Presbyterian theologian and church leader during a transitional period of American evangelical history. Four years before he died, in 1933, he published an essay titled The Responsibility of the Church in Our New Age.

In his final paragraph, Machen wrote, “This, then, is the answer I give to the question before us. The responsibility of the church in the new age is the same as its responsibility in every age. It is to testify that this world is lost in sin; that the span of human life – nay, all the length of human history – is an infinitesimal island in the awful depths of eternity; that there is a mysterious, holy living God, Creator of all, Upholder of all, infinitely beyond all; that he has revealed himself to us in his Word and offered us communion with himself through Jesus Christ the Lord; that there is no other salvation, for individuals or for nations, save this, but that this salvation is full and free, and that whosever possesses it has for himself and for all others to whom he may be the instrument of bringing it a treasure compared with which all other kingdoms of the earth – nay, all the wonders of the starry heavens – are as the dust of the street. An unpopular message it is – an impractical message, we are told. But it is the message of the Christian church. Neglect it, and you will have destruction; heed it, and you will have life.[ii]

Conclusion

Friends, I’ve argued this morning, from the text of 1 Corinthians 1:10, that the Lord Jesus Christ intends every local church to be populated by members who agree together on a shared set of doctrines and a shared purpose. That shared set of doctrines are those beliefs which are essential to Christianity and to our ability to function as a church. These are not negotiable, and every church member must seek for unity on the basis of what we believe God has revealed in His word.

I’ve also argued that our shared purpose – the central and all-encompassing mission of our church – is to make disciples by preaching the gospel, by baptizing new converts, and by teaching one another to follow all that Christ commands. For years now, these are the very words that have been printed on the cover of our bulletin every week, and it has been my aim from day one to pastorally lead us toward this shared purpose.

Let’s praise the Lord for the ways He has brought us together in genuine unity on the basis of our agreement… about our doctrine and our purpose. Let’s strive to resist temptations to divide over lesser doctrines or various missions, any of which may be good in themselves. And let’s pray that God will grant us the same mind and the same judgment or purpose for decades to come… that we may be a benefit not only to ourselves but also to those who will come after us.

Endnotes

[i] See our Confession of Faith here: https://fbcdiana.org/confession-of-faith [ii]J. Gresham Machen, “The Responsibility of the Church in Our New Age,” The Presbyterian Guardian, January 1967, 3–13. Access the PDF online here: https://www.readmachen.com/pg/the-responsibility-of-the-church-in-our-new-age.pdf

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aland, Kurt, Barbara Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger, eds. Novum Testamentum Graece. 28th ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012.

Chrysostom, John. Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians. Edited by Philip Schaff. Logos Research Edition. Vol. 12. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series. New York, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1889.

Ciampa, Roy E., and Brian S. Rosner. The First Letter to the Corinthians. Logos Research Edition. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010.

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Sproul, R. C., ed. The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition). Logos Research Edition. Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015.

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Vaughan, Curtis, and Thomas D. Lea. 1 Corinthians. Logos Research Edition. Founders Study Commentary. Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2002.

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