Please turn with me to 1 Corinthians, chapter 1.
Last week, we studied verses 1-9, where we see an amazing truth about Jesus’s church.
1 Corinthians 1:2 (CSB)
To the church of God at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord—both their Lord and ours.
God has hand-picked us to be His people. He summoned us (“called us”) and made us a family of families with a lineage that stretches back millennia. Everyone everywhere who calls on the name of Jesus Christ as their king and savior is part of this family.
This letter is written to a church that was in trouble. Wrestling with many problems. They were getting so many things wrong about how they were supposed to think of themselves and each other! One of these problems, the first one Paul addresses, the problem in our passage today, is the problem of divisions. Factions in the church were tearing people apart from one another. Disagreements and disunity were disrupting this family that God has assembled.
If you've been around any group of people for any length of time, you recognize this problem, don't you? Disunity seems to be a default setting for any group of humans. When you do manage to find a group that has unity, it's a special thing, isn't it? It's worth protecting, it's worth trying to cultivate in the first place. Our passage today diagnoses the problem of disunity in the church and shows us how to restore it when we've lost it.
Pause for a second and make a mental list, or write it down if you are taking notes. What are some current disagreements that are driving a wedge in families? In churches? Among Christians? In Society?
In our passage today, Paul will point out the problem in the Corinthian church and show them a better way.
What is the basis, focus, and source of our unity? We’ll see in verses 10 through 18 thatChristian unity — Biblical unity — is found through Christ (verse 10), in Christ (11-16), and from Christ (17-18).
Let’s read.
1 Corinthians 1:10–18 (CSB)
10 Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction.
11 For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers and sisters, by members of Chloe’s people, that there is rivalry among you. 12 What I am saying is this: One of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in Paul’s name?
14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say you were baptized in my name. 16 I did, in fact, baptize the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t recall if I baptized anyone else.
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ will not be emptied of its effect. 18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved.
Unity Through Christ
1 Corinthians 1:10 (CSB)
Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction.
First of all, notice the closeness of the relationship Paul assumes among Christians. “Brothers and sisters” - siblings.
Because of Jesus, we who believe in Christ have become children of God and are therefore siblings to one another. That’s the closeness of the relationship the Bible has in mind for Christians. And if any of you have siblings, or know groups of siblings, you are thinking, “Well, no wonder there is squabbling!”
Look what Paul calls us to: agreement in three things: what you say, what you understand, and what you become convinced of.
(Conviction here means something like the conclusion you’ve reached or the judgments you’ve made.)
Agreement in confession, comprehension, and conviction.
But notice this agreement,this lack of division, this unity, has a clear focus. It is unity and agreement “through the name of our Lord Jesus” - (some translations say “in the name” or “by the name”, but the idea is “through the name” of Jesus.)
Paul says the agreement we are looking for centers on our understanding of Jesus. The Gospel message about who Jesus is and what He has done is the starting point, the lens through which we think and decide.
Agree in confession (what you say).
The things we say about who Jesus us and what that means for our lives should match up. Our teaching should be accurate, and we should be teaching the same thing.
Agree in comprehension (how you think).
We should be on the same page about how we see the world operating, and an accurate, shared understanding about who Jesus us, and what He has done and is doing, is the basis for that.
Agree in conviction (what you decide).
Because we are aligned in our teaching and our thinking, and because we are processing these things together, we arrive at the same conclusions about how Jesus impacts our daily life.
That’s the bar.
Notice that this isn’t about uniformity in all things in the whole world. It is unity and agreement in the starting place, and it is a commitment to keep Jesus at the foundation and center and focus of our discussions. Because notice what Paul does not say.
False Peace
He does not urge them to avoid hard conversations or keep relational peace at all costs. Quite the opposite.
Unity, in verse 10, requires shared confession, shared comprehension, and shared conviction—and none of those are possible if conflict is simply buried.
What we often call “peace” can sometimes actually be conflict avoidance. But biblical unity is not the absence of tension; it is the pursuit of the truth of Christ together.
False harmony avoids issues that might raise disagreements.
Gospel unity brings everything into the light of the cross and seeks agreement in the essentials of the gospel, and patience and charity in the non-essentials.
Some of us hear this and worry that focusing on clarity and faithfulness in the message, rather than prioritizing relational harmony, will erode relationships and create division.
But Paul’s point is that just the opposite is true.
When unity becomes the goal, we are tempted to protect it by avoiding truth. But when Christ crucified is the goal, unity becomes one of the fruits God produces.
Biblical unity isn’t about seeking to reduce conflict by avoiding it.
The message of the cross heals conflict by helping us deal with disagreement in light of the message of the Gospel.
Paul is not calling us to reduce our concern for relational harmony; he is directing us to the only foundation strong enough to build and sustain it!
The unity that we are called to comes through Christ, and it is kept only when we are unified in Christ.
Unity In Christ
What happens when something or someone else takes His place? We see it in verses 11-16. When we lower our gaze from finding our unity in Christ, we start to form tribes around lesser things and lesser people.
Here’s what was happening in Corinth.
Paul calls out four different factions. It’s possible there were others, but he only needed these four examples for the church — then and now — to recognize the pattern he’s pointing out.
The Factions
“I follow Paul” - Paul started the church, and when He moved on to Ephesus, he left it in the care of pastors, including Apollos. The “Paul People” are about loyalty to the founder. “The way he did it was better.” For these people, faithfulness was about loyalty to the past, even if it meant resistance to what God is doing in the present.
“I follow Apollos” - According to Paul elsewhere, Apollos was a gifted speaker! The Apollos people were about liking the new guy better. Out with the old, in with the new. This is also a problem!
“I follow Cephas” - Cephas is the great Apostle Peter. The external famous guy. They are comparing their local leaders with Him, and finding them lacking.
Christ people - At first, this sounds right—but Paul includes it as part of the problem. This is Christ-language used to bypass God-given leadership and accountability. “We don’t need human leaders; we answer directly to Christ.” (In practice, that means deciding for ourselves what that looks like…)
Now, it’s true that every believer has direct access to Christ. But Christ also exercises His authority through His Word, which teaches us that the church is to be ordered and led through qualified leaders. Submission is not to personalities, but to Christ as His message, the word of the cross, is taught.
When Christ Himself isn’t actually the focus, it’s possible to use even spiritual-sounding Christ-language to divide the church.
The Baptisms
Verses 14-15 humanize 1 Corinthians for me. They remind me that this is a letter written by a real human at a real point in time. It seems like a little bit of a digression: “I didn’t baptize anyone… oh, except these two. None of the rest of you can say you were baptized by me. Oh, except this other family. But beyond that… I’m not actually sure. I can’t remember.”
But these aren’t just random names. They are the first believers in Corinth.Crispus was a synagogue leader who converted when Paul started preaching in Corinth. Gaius, we learn from Romans, hosted the Corinthian church in his home, and Stephanas’s household was the first to believe in the region.
Paul’s major point here: “Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in Paul’s name?” No, of course not! Jesus died for you! You were baptized in Jesus’s name! You follow Jesus! You are Christian, not Paulinian!
It doesn’t matter who baptized you. It matters who died for you!
Stop worrying about your spiritual heritage or lineage from a human standpoint!Focus on your lineage as a child of God! Paul is going to go on in chapter 3 to say that your favorite pastor, your favorite preacher, the spiritual leader you identify with most, are irrelevant! God is the one at work!
It is not wrong to appreciate faithful and godly leaders. Building our identity around them is.
Our unity does not come from our identification with a tribe founded around a personality, a human leader. Unity will only come, and will only last, as we center our spiritual lives and our church around Jesus Christ.
Because it is His message that is the source of our unity.
Paul did not come to gather a following.
Paul came to point people to Jesus.
Unity From Christ
1 Corinthians 1:17-18 (CSB)
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ will not be emptied of its effect. 18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved.
The power for unity does not come from shared heroes, preferences, or history. The power for unity comes from Christ Himself. As we proclaim His message, unity will follow.
Paul knows how this sounds.
He knows it seems backward.
The cross looks weak.
It looks ineffective.
It looks insufficient.
It doesn’t feel like the right tool to fix division, conflict, or fractured relationships.
But Paul insists: this is God’s chosen means.
The cross is how God makes peace with sinners.
Jesus carried our sin and offenses to the cross in our place and dealt with them. And if he did that for us, what do we have to hold against anyone else?
If we fix our eyes on Jesus, the God-man, the most worthy of all praise and all worship, who humbled himself and took the blame for our sin, our pride begins to die, we become harder to offend. Grace wells up in us and begins to flow out toward others.
Only forgiven people, shaped by that mercy, can really live in unity.
The cross forgives sinners and creates peacemakers.
If you want a beautiful, unified church, don’t aim first at unity.
Aim at Christ, and unity follows.
If you want harmony that lasts, don’t build it on personality or peacekeeping.
Build it on the message of Christ crucified, and peacemaking will be possible!
Because the word of the cross may be foolishness to the world,
but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
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