Sermon Tone Analysis

As we are well aware of by now, the Corinthian church is beset with jealousy, quarreling, division, and factionalism.

This is one of the larger reasons Paul wrote this letter to the church – 1 Corinthians 1:10ff, “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 though.

My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.

What I mean is this: One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’; still another, ‘I follow Christ.’”

This factionalism revolves around two things: First, an implicit misunderstanding of the gospel, and in particular of the centrality of the cross.

Their love of pomp, prestige, rhetoric, social approval, their raw triumphalism, I am better than you because of what I believe and who I know and listen to attitude, demonstrated they had not reflected very deeply on the entailments of the gospel of the crucified Messiah.

That is why Paul spends so much time on true wisdom, power, status in chapters 1 and 2. Second, the factionalism revolves around an unhealthy infatuation with church leaders.

“Many in the Corinthian church are boasting in their individual teachers as though they could ‘belong’ to them in some way” (Fee, 129).

Again, as Gordon Fee says it, “At issue is their radically misguided perception of the nature of the church and its leadership” (Fee, 128).

In short, they are making some Church leader their prime point of identification.

Having utterly crushed the first wrong reason for the division in the church, Paul will now straightforwardly assert himself to disabuse them of this wrong perception of church and its leaders by providing them a right and proper perspective on the church and its leaders.

He will start to do so by using Apollos and himself as examples in 1 Corinthians 3:5-9.

But before we dive into this text, let us take a step back for a moment and take a bird’s eye view of chapter three because vv.5-23 is one sustained argument.

In the next three paragraphs, Paul seeks to correct their perception of church and its leaders.

In vv.

5-9 Paul uses an agriculture metaphor to answer how the church body is to regard its teachers and leaders.

In vv 10-17 Paul uses an architectural metaphor to address the current leaders~/teachers of the Corinthian church.

He warns them to build the church with imperishable materials corresponding to the foundation – Christ crucified.

He says the church is God’s temple in Corinth; they are resolutely warned against destroying it.

In vv.

18-23 Paul brings the argument begun in 1:10 to a preliminary conclusion – what folly to boast in men, boast in God and in Christ for all things are yours in Christ.

Three truths stand out in the midst of this entire chapter.

First, church leaders are mere servants.

Second, it is God’s church.

He built it, He sustains it, He is passionate about it and will protect it from evil.

Third, because God is passionate about his church, he holds its leaders accountable for how they build it.

In the following weeks we will be unpacking these verses and these truths and seeking to learn all we can about church and its leadership from it.

Today, in verses 5-9 Paul makes three essential points about Church and Church Leaders, so let us unpack these truths and as we go we will consider various points of application.

*Church Leaders are Servants, Not Masters (v.

5)*

“What, after all, is Apollos?

And what is Paul?

With these two questions Paul wants the Corinthian believers to stop and think for a moment about what it is they are doing by joining themselves to such names.

Who or what is Paul after all?

Who or what is Apollos really?

Are they not mere men, how is it you have made them lords of some sort, to whom you may belong?

Do you not know, after all, what Apollos and Paul really are?

They are servants (v.5).

Servant is a common imagery in Paul for himself and his coworkers (cf.

Col. 1:7, 23, 25; 4:7).

He has gathered such imagery from the Lord himself who taught his disciples that “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:42-44) and who as the ultimate expression of servanthood “gave his life as a ransom for many.”

So the cross is not just instructive for the gospel, it is also instructive for church life and church leadership.

Christ set the standard as the ultimate servant of God, so must Paul and Apollos and all other church leaders.

They are servants not masters.

They are servants of God and through their service to God they came to believe in Christ.

By saying such, Paul is pointing out the absurdity of their “leader worship.”

Some of you say “I follow Paul” or “I follow Apollos” but what are they - mere servants doing the task given them by God through whom you believed.

You do not believe in Paul or in Apollos, nor did they die for you, why do you quarrel and fight amongst yourselves over them then, as if they are masters over you and you belong to them?

We are but servants through whom you believed – as the Lord has assigned to each his task.

*/Servant Leadership is Required and Dependent upon God/*

This emphasis on serving is crucial for recovering a biblical perspective on leadership.

Too many churches today are run like they are businesses and the pastors are CEO’s.

This should not be.

Jesus taught servant leadership, “Also a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be the greatest.

Jesus said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves benefactors.

But you are not to be like that.

Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.

For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves?

Is it not the one who is at the table?

But I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:24-27).

Elsewhere he said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35).

Jesus lived servant leadership, getting on his hands and knees washing the feet of his disciples and by giving his life for the ungodly.

Division, rivalry, jealousy arise in the church because certain leaders lord it over the flock and God’s people often love to have it so; it is less demanding, less disturbing.

Authority in the church, truly Christian authority, comes from those who lay down their lives for their brethren in service and availability.

Any other authority is worldly and is to be rejected and will be held accountable for such.

A servant-leader understands that he is dependent upon and desperately needs the power of God to be effective.

That is the direct teaching of Paul here in vv.

6, 7 and it is his teaching elsewhere.

Paul labored for the maturing of everyone in the energy of God, which so powerfully worked within him (Col.

1:28-29; 2 Co. 3:5; 2 Co. 12:9, 10; Phil.

2:13).

Hence, a servant-leader prays, humbly asking God to give him the strength needed to do the work he is called to do.

I ask that you would pray for me as your servant leader to be what Christ and Paul and Apollos modeled for me.

That I would humbly depend upon God and do all things in his strength and for his glory.

This method of leadership goes against everything you are ever told in the world.

I can only do it with God’s help and your prayers.

*Church leaders have both Diversity and Unity (v.6-8)*

These servants are diverse but also united in purpose.

They are diverse in that each has been assigned his task by the Lord and each will be paid~/rewarded according to his own labor.

They are united in purpose in that they each with their many talents and God-given tasks work for one thing – the growth of the crop to a rich harvest and in that they each belong to God.

Paul illustrates such diversity and unity through the analogy of agriculture or farming.

He says in v. 6, “I planted the seed (that is, I founded the church), Apollos watered it (that is, continued a teaching~/leadership ministry among them), but God made it grow” and in v. 8, “The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor.”

Again with such unity and diversity, Paul’s point comes out loud and clear.

Who are Paul and Apollos that you argue and fight over them?

They are but diverse servants, united in goal and purpose.

We are servants of mutual concern, mutual labor, mutual love.

We are humble field hands (the plowboy and the water boy) engaged in mutual, manual labor totally and thoroughly at one in purpose.

Imagine how shocking this language must have been to these Corinthians who were seeking status and success through triumphalism!

Paul has just informed them that these men, these teachers and leaders of the church, are but servants and what’s more, humble field hands engaged in dirty, hard, manual labor.

This is not glory and power in the world’s eyes.

What a massive reorientation of perspective this must have been.

Christian leaders are only servants and are dependent upon each other, it is utter folly to attach oneself so defensively to one.

Such allegiance is making too much of one person, almost inferring a god-like status.

No Christian leader is to be venerated or listened to or adulated with the kind of allegiance and devotion properly reserved for God.

To do so is ignorance and betrays a deep misunderstanding  of the nature of Christian leadership.

*/We Each have our Assigned Tasks and are dependent upon each other/*

Paul and Apollos both did their assigned tasks: Paul planted and Apollos watered.

Both activities are vital.

Each depends on the other.

As David Prior says it, “It is no good one planting seeds where the other cannot water them, and the one who waters does not achieve much if he waters everywhere else except where the seeds have been sown.

Both functions are important and are dependent upon each other.

Both need to work hard and can expect to be rewarded at the end.