{"id":16864,"date":"2021-07-27T22:00:14","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T05:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/1corinthians-1_1-9-copy\/"},"modified":"2021-07-25T14:53:18","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T21:53:18","slug":"1corinthians-1_10-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/1corinthians-1_10-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Unity Takes Work and Focusing on Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

1 Corinthians 1:10-17\u00a0\u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is 1 Corinthians 1:10-17.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

1 Corinthians 1:10-11 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I 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 thought.
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 10-11:\u00a0\u00a0Paul had heard reports that there were factions and cliques within the church. So here Paul appeals to his congregation to agree with one another and to get along with one another, that they may be \u201cperfectly united in mind and thought\u201d (v10).<\/p>\n

It reminds me of what Pastor Craig Groeschel says.\u00a0\u00a0There are only two things that happen naturally in any organization that don\u2019t require any work on a leader\u2019s part to create: division and underperformance.\u00a0\u00a0Everything else takes intentionality and work.\u00a0\u00a0Whether it\u2019s in a home, a marriage, a church or an organization,\u00a0we need to work on being united, on getting along, because it won\u2019t always happen naturally.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

That is why elsewhere Paul would write to the church in Ephesus, \u201cMake every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace\u201d (Ephesians 4:3).\u00a0\u00a0Unity takes work!\u00a0\u00a0Just as Jesus went out of His way to love those who are so different from Him, unity for us is about going out of our way to love those who are different from us.<\/p>\n

1 Corinthians 1:12-17 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0so no one can say that you were baptized into my name.
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0(Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.)
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel–not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 12-17:\u00a0\u00a0It seems that the divisions and quarrels that were happening in the church in Corinth had to do with some people preferring and attaching themselves to one leader, while others preferring and attaching themselves to another leader.\u00a0\u00a0The Christians in the Corinthian church would even put a great deal of focus on which leader baptized them \u2013 were they baptized by Paul, Apollos, or some other leader (v13-16)?<\/p>\n

Rather than defend the group that was aligning themselves with Paul and criticizing the group that was aligning themselves with other leaders, Paul turns his readers\u2019 attention back to Jesus when he says in verse 13, \u201cIs Christ divided?\u00a0\u00a0Was Paul crucified for you?\u00a0\u00a0Were you baptized into the name of Paul?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0In other words, to paraphrase Paul, \u201cStop focusing so much on individuals like me and Apollos and instead put your focus on Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0After all, you\u2019re not being baptized in my name or some other imperfect human leader\u2019s name.\u00a0\u00a0You\u2019re being baptized in the name of Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s all about Jesus, not any one individual leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

We can unwittingly fall in the same trap when we focus so much on people at the expense of focusing on Jesus.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0No doubt God will bring leaders into your life to help you and lead you, and you must love, honour and respect them, but never let them take the place of Jesus in your life.\u00a0\u00a0Those leaders are there to lead you to Jesus.<\/p>\n

Lord Jesus, may I not focus so much on people that I lose sight of You.\u00a0\u00a0Thank You that when my eyes are rightly focused on You, I have the best example of how to love the people in my life.\u00a0\u00a0Help me to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit with my\u00a0\u00a0brothers and sisters at church.\u00a0\u00a0In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is 1 Corinthians 1:10-17.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

1 Corinthians 1:10-11 (NIV)
\n10\u00a0\u00a0I 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 thought.
\n11\u00a0\u00a0My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.<\/p>\n

On verses 10-11:\u00a0\u00a0Paul had heard reports that there were factions and cliques within the church. So here Paul appeals to his congregation to agree with one another and to get along with one another, that they may be \u201cperfectly united in mind and thought\u201d (v10).<\/p>\n

It reminds me of what Pastor Craig Groeschel says.\u00a0\u00a0There are only two things that happen naturally in any organization that don\u2019t require any work on a leader\u2019s part to create: division and underperformance.\u00a0\u00a0Everything else takes intentionality and work.\u00a0\u00a0Whether it\u2019s in a home, a marriage, a church or an organization,\u00a0we need to work on being united, on getting along, because it won\u2019t always happen naturally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That is why elsewhere Paul would write to the church in Ephesus, \u201cMake every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace\u201d (Ephesians 4:3).\u00a0\u00a0Unity takes work!\u00a0\u00a0Just as Jesus went out of His way to love those who are so different from Him, unity for us is about going out of our way to love those who are different from us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16864"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16865,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16864\/revisions\/16865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}