Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - May 31, 2020

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on 1 Corinthians 1:10-17.

Family feuds.  I don’t mean the TV show, I mean real family feuds.  You know, there is just something tacky about a family feud.  Families are supposed to be symbols of togetherness not at each other’s throats. What causes families to feud?  (1) pride, (2) misinformation, (3) jealousy, (4) greed.  In fact they act that way just like society acts that way.  The same dynamics come into play.  A while back on Judge Judy, a daughter was suing her mother who owed her some money. But the money wasn’t the real reason they were in Judge Judy’s court. Hurt feelings, anger and stubbornness really drove them into court. Because they went to court rather than give in a little, a daughter lost her mother and grand children lost their grandmother. In the end an angry bitter grandmother left the court with the family problem unresolved.  The feud will continue.

Unfortunately, a church isn’t spared from feuds either. Bitterness and hard feelings grow and blossom among it’s congregation. All the things that caused problems in the mother/daughter relationship on Judge Judy can cause a church to split into warring factions.  You see, it is easy to have a feud.  It generally starts with two strong willed people who are sure that they are 100% right AND 100% righteous.  To compromise is like saying your side is less righteous than the other side. The real challenge in a church feud is in getting rid of the feud and bringing the church family back together like Christ intended.

Today we study a problem that Paul was having with the Church at Corinth that was threatening to split that church up into not two, but four competing factions. Feuds were flowering faster than weeds in your garden.  Some times we feel that the early church was immune to this sort of thing, but remember there were human beings like you and I in that early church and you know what kind of people we are.

In order to fully understand what Paul was up against, we have to have some understanding about the history and culture of Corinth. If you looked at a map Greece, you will see that Corinth enjoyed a prime location. If you wanted to travel from, say, Athens to Sparta, you would have to pass through Corinth. In fact, Corinth was known as the Bridge of Greece because it united the northern half with the southern half. All trading and commerce between the northern and southern halves of Greece had to pass through Corinth.

In addition most east/west naval traffic also passed through Corinth.  Remember, in those days all sea navigation consisted of sailing around land masses so that the boat’s captain could always get his bearings by being able to recognize the land features. Isn’t it easier when given directions to someplace, if you know buildings or businesses - landmarks - you can look for that get you on the right road rather than having to strain to find where the city decided to put the street sign?  When people ask for directions to my house (these are people who still don’t trust a GPS), I always tell them to go like they are going to the Little Creek Amphibious Base and the second block after Military Highway they will come to a dead end street with a Young’s Body Upholstery on one corner and an Urgent Care on the other.  My house is the first house on the right in the fourth block. People can get to my house without ever looking for a street sign.

Now, if the captain wanted to sail around the southern tip of Greece, he was picking a dangerous journey. The southern tip of Greece was known as Cape Malea and sailing around this cape was as dangerous as sailing around Cape Horn was centuries later. There was even a saying in those days that if you were going to sail around Cape Malea you better make out your will first. Now-a-days, that’s the same advice you give people going to Pungo. To avoid Cape Malea the shippers would either sail up to one side of Corinth and, if the boats were small enough, they dragged them out of the water, put them on rollers, and hauled them across the land to the other side of Corinth, a distance of about nine miles, and relaunched them. The second and most popular way was to sail up the river to Corinth, remove the cargo from the boat, transport it through the city of Corinth and charter another boat on the other side. So, you can see that Corinth’s trade was covered both east and west as well as north and south. The result was a very rich city.  In fact nearly all of the wealth of ancient Greece flowed through the city of Corinth.

Now, Corinth had a reputation for commercial prosperity, but with all this wealth there were problems. The wealth was concentrated into the hands of only a few people. Most of the people were poor and sixty percent of the people were slaves.  North of the city, was the hill of the Acropolis, and on that hill stood the great temple of Aphrodite who was the goddess of love. In the temple there were a thousand priestesses who were sacred prostitutes. In the evening, they left the temple and went down into Corinth looking for customers. As you can imagine, Aphrodite was by far the most popular goddess in ancient Corinth.

In addition there were taverns and places where people went to get roaring drunk. How does TV and movies usually portray Southerners? Hicks that live in trailer parks with big brown dogs under the porch and a car up on blocks in the front yard.  Well, Corinth’s reputation for drunkenness was so wide spread that when a character in a play portrayed a drunkard, that character would be a Corinthian just like today a character who is a dumb hayseed will always be a southerner.

As Greece grew into a world power, Corinth grew in wickedness and immorality. It was said in ancient Greece that the cost of drinking and playing around in Corinth was so high that only a very rich man could afford to travel there. It was a city for high rollers.  Las Vegas and Atlantic City all rolled up into one.  It looked like life in Corinth would never change. Let the good times roll.

But change it did. In 146 BC the Romans who were starting on their world conquest zeroed in on Greece. The city of Corinth led the opposition to the Roman invasion probably because they had the most to lose financially and as a result, when the Romans captured Corinth, they completely gutted the city. The only thing left was a pile of ruins where the city had stood.  Corinth stayed a destroyed forgotten city for a hundred years.

Then Julius Ceasar chose Corinth as a retirement community for his soldiers and rebuilt the city.  More over, Corinth became the capital of the Roman province of Achaia.  Because of it’s strategic location it soon became a thriving commercial center again. But this time the population consisted of retired Roman soldiers, Greek merchants, Jews taking advantage of the commercial opportunity and a sprinkling of Easterners with strange and exotic customs.

Acts 18:1-17 tells of Paul’s first visit to Corinth. It was on Paul’s second missionary journey. Paul had left Macedonia because people were threatening to kill him so he had crossed over to Athens. In Athens Paul did not have a lot of success saving souls, so he left Athens and went down to Corinth which was about ten miles south of Athens.  Although only seventeen verses in Acts describe his mission in Corinth, Paul actually spent a year and a half there. While in Corinth, Paul stayed with Aquila and Priscilla, who were a Jewish couple very much involved in the early church.

Paul had more luck preaching in the Synagogue in Corinth than he had in Athens and his efforts were improved when Silas and Timothy arrived from Mascedonia. While there, Paul was able to convert Crispus a ruler in the Synagogue who had a lot of influence in the Jewish community.  Unfortunately, the Jews got tired of Paul always preaching about Christ, so they forced Paul to stop speaking in the Synagogue. Did that stop old Paul?  No way.  How do you think Paul out smarted that crowd in the synagogue? What Paul did was to move into the home of a man named Justis who lived right next door to the synagogue.  Paul would stand on Justis’ front porch and preach to the Jews on their way to and from the synagogue.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  Maybe that should say, “Where there is a Paul, there is a way.”

In 52 AD a new Roman governor named Gallio arrived. Now Gallio was an easy going sort of guy who was very charming and gentle. The Jews tried to take advantage of Gallio’s easy going nature to bring Paul to trial on a trumped up charge of teaching contrary to their law.  Gallio refused to hear the case so Paul was able to finish his work there and then move on to Syria.

Three years later, Paul received a letter from Corinth telling him that things weren’t going well. Paul was in Ephesus at the time.  In no time at all, he had sat down and wrote this letter to the Church in Corinth.  Let’s see how Paul handles a church feud.

1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and same purpose.  11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, brothers and sisters.  12 What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephus,” or “Ibelong to Christ.”

What is Paul’s appeal to them? They stop fussing and get along with each other.  They are to be of the same mind.  In other words, Paul has heard that there were feuds erupting in the church and it had to stop.  How does Paul know about the problem in Corinth?  Chloe’s people.  What did they report?  The church people were fighting with themselves - a feud if I ever heard one.  Who is Chloe and why is she snitching on the Corinth?  We really don’t have any idea.  She was probably a business woman in Corinth who was a member of the church there. If she wasn’t important in the church in Corinth, Paul might have waited for more input from other people.  Obviously, Paul had known her while he was in Corinth and he knew that every member of the church in Corinth knew and respected Chloe. It just might be that church services were conducted in her house.  By mentioning Chloe it was like Paul was saying, “I have on good authority that there is a lot of feuding going on in the church. Chloe, who you all know as a fine, fine Christian woman, saw that the church was being torn apart.  So, she sent some of her servants to Ephesus to tell me what was going on.”

Specifically, what was going on?  The church was being divided along personality lines.  Who were the four people named?  Those who were influenced by Paul’s teachings; those who were influenced by Apollos; and those influenced by Peter.  Anybody here ever hear about Apollos?  We know Paul and Peter, but, who is this guy, Apollos? We are introduced to him in Acts 18:24-27. We are told that he was a Jew from Alexandria in Egypt and was an eloquent man who knew the old testament scriptures backwards and forwards. In those days, Alexandria was a university town known for it’s philosophical and intellectual activity. The Harvard of it’s day. The largest library in the world was there. As many as 1 million Jews lived in Alexandra.  The Jews there would take parts of the Old Testament scripture and try to find hidden meanings or ways in which things that happened in their day might have been foretold in the Old Testament scriptures. Sounds like what some fundamentalist preachers do today.

For instance, in Genesis 14:14 and 18:23 we are told that Abraham had a total of 318 people in his household when he followed God’s orders to circumcise them.  Now Greeks used alphabetic letters to symbolize numbers and the letters for 18 contained the first two letters in Jesus’ name. Further more, the letter for 300 was the Greek letter Tau which is in the shape of the cross. These intellectuals put these two things together and came to the conclusion that this incident with Abraham foretold the crucifixion of Jesus. Apollos being among the Jews in Alexandra probably tended to intellectualize the Scripture and being a man who spoke what he believed, may have included some of these unusual interpretations in his sermons. We are told that Pricsilla and Aquila heard him preach one day and while recognizing that Apollos was on fire for the Lord, he was some what inaccurate in his understanding of the Gospel.  They took him aside and instructed him. He appreciated this new information and went off to Achaia which is where Corinth was located and preached what he had learned from Pricsilla and Aquila.

Now, all three men preached about redemption and the necessity of Jesus’s death and resurrection. What, then, was the difference?

There were those who belonged to Paul. Paul had already been to Corinth and preached mainly to the Gentiles which consisted of probably Roman families associated with the retired military men and some Greeks. It may be that these believers had misunderstood Paul’s message and thought that the freedom from the Law that Paul told them they had in Christ was license to do what ever they wanted - to break all of the Ten Commandments and civil law, also, if they wanted to.

There were those who belonged to Apollos.  These were the people who were attracted to mysteries and philosophy.  They enjoyed the mind games of reading into scripture anything that advanced their personal agenda.  You see, for them knowledge led to salvation.  Later as we learned from our study of John, agnostics would follow this same attitude leading them to conclude that all matter is bad and only the spirit is good.

There were those who belonged to Peter. These were probably the Jews who felt that a person had to be a Jew before he could be a Christian. They felt that the Jewish law had to be obeyed and was to be held important and necessary, even by the Gentile believers. Essentially, they believed that a Gentile had to become a Jew before he could become a Christian.  This view would later lead to a major meeting of church leaders who would decide that it was not necessary for a Gentile to become a Jew before he became a Christian.

What was the fourth group names? Those who claimed they belonged to Christ.  Wait a minute.  Doesn’t everybody belongs to Christ? So, how can this be a division in the church? This group were the fundamentalist of the day. They had all of the answers and nobody else was right, no matter how sincerely they believed in Christ.  Nobody was really saved unless they agreed with the fundamentalist’s views. Haven’t you met people like that?  They ask things like “Exactly when did you accept the Lord?”  They don’t mean at what general point in your life.  They mean the exact year, day, hour and minute it happened.  To them, accepting the Lord was always a Damascus road experience.  Or, when did you first speak in tongues?  If you can’t give the right answers then they shake their head and assign you to the fiery pit or try to save you one more time.  With these kind of people the problem is not in their belief in Christ, but in their belief that Christ belongs only to them. To characterize this probably small group of people in Corinth, they were an intolerant, self-righteous group who believed that saying the right words was the same as feeling those words in your heart.

Surely these followers of the great men of the early church, didn’t start out to sew divisions in the early church. It was all a matter of their approach and style in preaching the Gospel. When Apollos preached, he tended to be more intellectual and to see confirmation of spiritual things in natural events. He stressed the wisdom of culture and as a result his followers considered knowledge and philosophy as important aspects of one’s spiritual development. Peter on the other hand stressed the Torah and his Jewish heritage. That’s what he knew.  The Old Testament and the writings of Moses were considered as an important part of what Jesus wanted from believers. Then there was Paul. Paul preached a law-free gospel. To Paul’s zealous followers, there were apparent questionable beliefs held by other Christians taught by Peter or Apollos. How could you be free of the Law and be a follower of Peter who spoke of the importance of the Law? How could you be a believer in the Torah and accept Apollos’ philosophy which had nothing to do with the trials of the Jewish nation?  As for the fourth group - the fundamentalist - they were playing on their own field of dreams.  You see, the problem was that people were identifying with personalities which suited their particular cultural back ground.  Not too far from how some people react today.

1 Corinthians 1:13 Has Christ been divided?  Was Paul crucified for you?  Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?  14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name.  16  (I did baptized also the household of Srephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)  17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of it’s power.

What are the three questions Paul asks?  Is Christ divided?  Was Paul Crucified for them?  Were they baptized in Paul’s name?  These are rhetorical questions.  If they were serious questions, then Paul’s sanity would be in question.  Paul’s questions weren’t looking for an answer.  The reader would immediately answer in their mind, “No.  Jesus was the one who was crucified for them.  It was in Jesus’ name that they were baptized.”  The answers are simple and obvious.  The questions are asked to make the reader stop and think.

Paul tells the Corinthians that too much attention is being paid to who performed the baptism and not what the baptism meant. Paul mentions Stephanas, a Greek, who was probably his first convert, Crispus, a Jew, who had been a ruler in the temple and Gaius, a Roman, who may have been a retired soldier and was probably the person who acted as Paul’s host in Corinth. Remember, last week, we found out that Gaius was also known by John.  Paul didn’t baptize many people, but, he isn’t saying that baptism is not important. It is a matter of what you have been called to do and Paul was called to preach.  Paul goes on to say that Apollos, Peter and himself have no disagreement. They all acted as Christ’s servants using their particular talents to bring the lost to Christ. The three would be the first to raise their voices in condemnation of the splits forming in the Church. Further, they would be hurt if their name was being used to support these splits.

It is important to keep several things in mind in evaluating what Paul is saying to the Church at Corinth and really to our Church today:

1. Unity - there are beliefs that we all as Christians share. What are they? (1) faith, (2) a risen Savior, (3) forgiveness of sins, (4) confession. We start with the things that bind us together not those things that drive us apart.
2. Diversity - In speaking of unity, Paul does not say that there should not be diversity. There were people hearing the word coming from different cultures and Christ was placing certain individuals who could present salvation in a way that these different cultures could grasp the good news. Paul illustrated this fact by the nationalities of the people he himself had baptized - Greeks, Jews and Romans. It is a matter of recognizing that people are different and if they are to understand this great gift from God, the message has to hit them where they live.
3. Differences - If three people meet there will be at some times differences in understanding or applying Christian teachings. These differences may be honestly held, but, they need not separate us from each other. If these different views don’t get in the way of all of those important things that we as Christians share, then don’t let them divide us.
4. Divisiveness - This is where we really seek to separate ourselves from the positions held by others by tearing down that person or group. It divides us and has as it’s goal, discord. Unfortunately, many times it is more important to win the point than to learn the truth. This is what was happening in the Corinthian Church and this is what Paul was arguing against. The people had become so protective of and loyal to the one who had given them the Gospel, that they lost sight of the big picture and wanted to make sure that their man was considered the most important guy. The guy who wore the shiniest metal. Like when we were kids and said, “My Daddy can beat your Daddy.”

Family feuds are always hard to deal with.  In our own families it takes love and respecting the other person and cutting them some slack.  But, family feuds in a church open up opportunities for discord and splits which can be so loud that we fail to hear and accept the unity of Christ’s message.  A unity that brings together rich, poor, every nationality, every race, young and old into a relationship of shared faith and love that defies our own culture.  If we hear this call, then family feuds will never threaten our church.

Prayer: Dear Father, we pray that we never place our own agenda before what you would have us do as Christ’s disciples.  In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.