How many of you have ever been on a team or in a situation where you, or the group you were a part of was divided? Whether it was a work, school or church, how was the atmosphere in the group when you got together? I am guessing that there was some tension, whether it was on your part or the part of others.

For some of you, the situation has been a lot like getting someone on the left wing of the democratic party and someone from the right wing of the republican party and putting them on the same delegation or committee. There is going to be some division in the group and surely some tension, but often this is the case when we are put into a group of people.

Continuing in the first chapter of 1st Corinthians we come to the first issue that Paul feels is necessary to address and as we will see throughout this letter, this issue is linked to several other issues and becomes a reoccurring theme. Paul addresses the divisive nature of the Corinthian church. Divisions in the church can be very difficult to handle and to deal with but unfortunately, they do happen. Many times we get wrapped up in what we are following along with our agenda and we lose sight of the real issue at hand. In verse ten, Paul tells the people that they have become divided over an issue that is really a moot point. They have lost sight of what the church was about and began to split into different groups based on leaders and teachers. Paul is quick to remind them that it is not any one leader that they are to be following but that they have been called to Christ and are to follow Christ and Christ alone. He is the head of the church and He is the one in which our hope lies.

It was common for people to associate themselves with those that they followed, so there were arguments happening over the fact that some were claiming to follow Paul, some Peter, and some Apollos (another church leader). Paul reminds them to remember they are merely flawed men. People cannot be saved by the name of Paul or Peter; the only name by which they could be saved was Jesus Christ.

We tend to focus so intently on whoever we are following here on earth and less on Jesus Christ, whom our leaders and teachers should be representing. I have met people who get so caught up in who they are following that they seem to have no connection to who Jesus is.

I have also seen this attitude take place between denominations of the Christian church. I have met Nazarenes who will not talk to me once they find out that I attend an Assembly of God church. (The ironic thing is that I was raised and saved in a Nazarene church.) For whatever reason there has seemed to be a real divisive nature that has come into the church over the last hundred years or so and now we have new denominations popping up every week. For a while, the popular thing was to become a non-denominational church, which in fact has become its own denomination of sorts. The church is so divided that we have, in some cases, lost sight of the unity that Paul is encouraging here in 1st Corinthians.

I am by no means saying that there needs to be a total eradication of all denominational barriers but I am saying that the church was meant to be something that was unifying versus divisive. There is no question that there will be groups that pervert what the gospel message is and try to say that they are followers of Christ when in fact they are not. We need to have the discernment to realize that some groups are not groups we can unite with.

My encouragement this week is that we would remember that simply because we worship with multiple denominations, we are all connected to, and followers of Christ. Christ died for us so that we could become children of God, which makes us all brothers and sisters in Christ. Christ has not been divided and we cannot go on living as though he were.