St. Aidan’s Sermons
Winnipeg, Manitoba
The Rev. Canon Dr. Brett Cane, September 20, 2009
16th Sunday after Pentecost; 8:30 Holy Communion and 10:00 a.m.
Issues Facing Christians Today #2: “Leadership and Divisions”
1 Corinthians 3:1-23; Mark 9:30-37
Opening Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you have told us that the first must be the very last and servant of all; help us now, by your Holy
Spirit, to grasp your view on leadership in the Church and to leave behind jealousy and quarrelling, and so
live out the reconciliation you won for us through your death on the cross, to the glory of God our Father.
Amen.
Introduction
How often have you heard people say, “Oh, if only we could get back to the New Testament Church – then
we would have a Church more like it should be!” Is that so? The Church in Corinth in New Testament times
was, in the words of St. Paul we heard this morning, “worldly…(full of) jealousy and quarrelling” (1
Corinthians 3:3). Oh, for the New Testament Church! Yes, the New Testament tells us of wonderful things
that happened in the early Church but it is also candid about the not-so-wonderful things. In terms of
relationships, the Church then was not that much different from the Church now!
The whole reason Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians was precisely because they were not living out
the Gospel as individuals and more especially, not living it out in their corporate life as a Church. This is the
theme of our Fall series of sermons in 1 Corinthians – “Issues Facing Christians Today.” In the first sermon
last week on chapters 1 and 2, we saw Paul laying out his basic understanding of the Gospel. Before getting
into any particular problem, Paul had to reaffirm the life of Christ these new Christians had been called to:
God’s way of doing things is cross-shaped – self-sacrificial love – foolishness in the eyes of the world but the
wisdom of God. Therefore:
• grasp the Gospel – let God’s wisdom shape your life, not the world’s values.
• don’t be intimidated – let God’s view of you liberate you to speak and live the truth.
• live out the faith – let God’s pattern of the cross be your model in your relationships with others,
especially within the Church.
Today, we look at chapter three, where Paul moves on to the first specific issue he wants to address with the
Christians at Corinth: “leadership and divisions.”
Quarrels in Corinth
Paul begins by telling the Corinthians that they are not “spiritual but worldly…mere “infants in Christ” – not
ready for solid spiritual food but only a baby’s bottle (verses 1-2). What is the problem? We noted last week
that the underlying error of the Christians in Corinth was that they were allowing their attitudes and actions
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to be shaped more by their culture than by God’s perspective. “Christian believers can revert to behaving
like unbelievers.”1 This is what Paul means when he says that they were “worldly” rather than “spiritual.”
For the first century Corinthian Christians, Paul narrows his focus when he says, “For since there is jealousy
and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere human beings? For when one
says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere human beings?” (verses 3-4). The
issue is divisions in the Church – personality cults that have developed around Church leaders. Paul begins
this discussion back in chapter 1 when he says,
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, 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…What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”;
another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas (Peter)”; still another, “I follow
Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1:10, 12)
Last week I mentioned that Corinth was very proud of its intellectual life and that the whole city would turn
out to listen to visiting intellectuals and philosophers. These people were great orators and were keen on
making disciples for themselves resulting in disputes as to which teacher was the greatest. This same pattern
was being reproduced in the Church. Paul mentions four “parties” that had developed around individual
leaders:
• The “Paul Party” probably included many who became Christians through him when he founded the
Church. He infers as much when he says in chapter 1: “Were you baptized into the name of Paul”
(verse 13). Understandably there is often great attachment to the person who led you to Christ and
there can be a hankering for “the good old days” and not looking at the different ways in which God
may be acting in the present. Now Paul wasn’t a very impressive speaker, as he admits himself in
chapter 2: “I came to you in much weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and
my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words…” (verses 3-4). So this led some people to
develop the:
• The “Apollos Association” – we read in Acts 18 that Apollos was from Alexandria, an important
university city, “a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures…he spoke with great
fervour” (Acts 18:24-25). Here was someone more polished than Paul, someone folks in society
would be impressed by. There are some who put such great stress on polished preaching that they
don’t appear in Church when their favourite preacher isn’t in the pulpit. This emphasis might not
have satisfied the:
• The “Cephas Sect” – Cephas was the Aramaic version of Peter. He represented a more Jewish
version of the faith – stressing food laws and legalism and rules – a “back to Jerusalem” movement.
Today’s Church has many people who are so concerned to go “By the Book” that they miss out the
grace of the Gospel. Finally,
• The “Christ Clique” were your “Jesus Only” group who probably looked down on all the rest,
adopting an anti-authoritarian stance and shunning any human leader. “The Lord said to me…”
would demonstrate their superior spiritual attitude. People like this in today’s Church can end up
alienating or intimidating and manipulating less sure believers.
I am sure we can see examples of these divisive tendencies in our own hearts, our congregation, and in the
fracturing of the wider Church into some 22,000 different denominations.
Ultimately it is not the different groupings that are the shame of the Church but how the groups treat one
another. The worst example is at the holiest geographical site in all of Christendom – the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem, built over the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and tomb. The six Christian denominations involved are
at such odds, that a Muslim family has to have charge of the keys. In 1853 an edict was decreed under the
Ottoman rulers stating that everything was to remain as in the past and only changed under total agreement –
1 David Prior, The Message of 1 Corinthians. (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1985), pg. 53.
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which has led to a construction ladder on one of the upper windows remaining in place for the past 150
years! In our own Anglican Church we can see this unchristian behaviour demonstrated when we have
bishops personally supervising the changing of locks to prevent dissident congregations using their buildings
or those who have left accusing those who remain of having “abandoned the true faith.” Paul says that all
such factionalism, jealousy and quarrelling – while giving the appearance of sanctity – is at its root worldly
and unspiritual.
The Nature of the Church
Paul then proceeds to show that the Church is more important than any one leader or faction or emphasis
within it. He uses three analogies to explain why it is absolutely essential to grasp the true nature of the
Church: the Church as God’s field (verses 5-9); the Church as God’s building (verses 10-15); the Church as
God’s temple (verses 16-17).
1. God’s Field: using the analogy of the Church as God’s field, Paul shows the value of different leaders
but in only in reference to God as the ultimate source of the life of the Church. “What, after all, is
Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned
to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants
nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man
who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labour. For we are God’s
fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building” (verses 5-9) Church leaders are servants, working
together, each using his or her unique gifts but they are acting on God’s behalf, not their own.
Expanding the analogy, Bishop Tom Wright says, “Paul and Apollos are simply the people who serve the
food, while God is responsible for choosing it and cooking it. You shouldn’t make a fuss about which
waiter brings the food to your table. What matters is that God is in charge in the kitchen.”2 The danger
of idolizing Christian leaders and placing them on a pedestal is always with us. Only God is to be on the
pedestal – and that pedestal is the cross where “judgement was passed on all human fame, celebrity,
popularity and reputation.”3 In our own congregation, I am sad to report that during the four months I
was away, attendance dropped 30%. What does that say about our priorities in our Church – are
preaching style and personality more important than our commitment to one another and to Jesus as the
head of our congregation? The Church is God’s field.
2. God’s Building: Paul then moves on to the analogy of the Church as God’s building to stress the serious
responsibility with which Christian leaders build upon the one single foundation. “By the grace God has
given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it…For no one can lay
any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” (verses 10-11). Yes, Paul did
found the Church in Corinth, but he was not the foundation – the foundation is Jesus himself. It is on
that foundation that Christian leaders have built. We do not build on doctrine or theology or morality or
ritual but a person, Jesus Christ. This is immortalized in the hymn we sang last week, “The Church’s
One Foundation Is Jesus Christ her Lord.”4
Paul then has a word of warning to leaders: “But each one should be careful how he builds…If anyone
builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for
what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the
quality of each one’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he
will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames” (verses 11-15).
2 N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone – I Corinthians. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), pg. 34.
3 Ibid..
4 Samuel J. Stone, 1839-1900
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This is not about purgatory, a continuing process of purification after death, nor is it about working for
salvation, nor is it about losing one’s salvation. It is all about the importance of what we do here, in this
life, especially with respect to building up the Church. What we do now has an effect into eternity – for
good or ill. Richard Hayes expands this analogy as follows: “The fire will test what sort of work each
subcontractor has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive his
pay; but if the work of anyone is burned up, he will be fined; the subcontractor will be saved, but only as
through fire.”5 There is Christian assurance but there is also Christian responsibility. Every Christian
leader needs to ask, “Is what I am doing encouraging and enabling people, to worship the true and living
God, in holiness and truth?”6 “Am I serving in my own strength and for my benefit or in the power of
the Spirit and for God’s glory?” The Church is God’s building.
3. God’s Temple: The final analogy is the most striking: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s
temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (verse 16). The “you” here is plural, meaning “You, the
Church, are God’s temple.” The Church has replaced the temple as the primary place where God’s
presence is known on earth. The physical temple in Jerusalem was built with magnificent and
impressive stones and covered in gold and treated with great reverence – even today, the only remaining
portion – the Wailing Wall – is viewed with utmost sanctity. How much more precious and sacred is
God’s spiritual Temple, the Church. The Church is not merely a functional body, established to enable
us as individuals to learn and worship and grow and serve – the community is primarily the place where
God resides: “For we are the temple of the living God” (2 Corinthians 6:16); Yes, I know he lives in each
of us as individual temples, but before that, he is in the Church as his Temple: “In Jesus the whole
building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being
built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph. 2:21-22). Do you come into
our main assembly week-by-week or smaller gatherings between Sundays aware of this stunning reality?
This is why our interactions amongst ourselves and how we treat one another are so important. Paul
concludes with another warning: “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s
temple is sacred, and you are that temple” (verse 17). Paul leaves us in no doubt about the seriousness of
how we relate to one another. Those who damage the community “are interfering with God’s chosen
mode of presence and will certainly incur judgement.”7 The Church is God’s Temple.
You are God’s field, God’s building, God’s temple.
The Final Word
Having set the stage for addressing specific issues facing the Church (which we will look at in the weeks to
come), Paul ends this passage by returning to his earlier theme of wisdom and foolishness: “Do not deceive
yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a ‘fool’ so that
he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight…So then, no more boasting
about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death
or the present or the future – all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God” (verses 18-20, 21-23).
Paul says that dividing yourselves up according to leadership preferences is the world’s way of doing things,
not God’s. God’s way means holding together humility and confidence: there is a humility to be grasped –
you belong to Christ and not to a teacher of your own choosing; and there is a confidence to take on – in
Christ, you possess all things, including your leaders – they are your servants for Christ’s sake.
5 Richard Hays, First Corinthians, Interpretation Commentary. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997), pg. 56.
6 Wright, ibid., pg. 35.
7 Richard Hays, First Corinthians, Interpretation Commentary. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997), pg. 58.
