In his sermon, David Green discusses the divisions and quarrels within the church at Corinth as addressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17. Paul urges the church members to speak the same thing and be perfectly joined together in the same mind and judgment, pointing out the contentions among them. Some members were aligning themselves with different leaders such as Paul, Apollos, Cephas, or claiming to be of Christ, leading to division. The speaker emphasizes that unity is crucial in the church but clarifies that it is not uniformity. Differences among church members are inevitable, but these should not jeopardize unity. The gospel, according to Paul, is the foundation for this unity, and the church must agree on the essential doctrines of the faith. The sermon cautions against making secondary issues the source of division and highlights the importance of focusing on Christ and the gospel to prevent such quarrels. The speaker encourages examining one's heart to ensure that Christ remains preeminent in church life and warns against the dangers of allowing human leaders to become the focus, which can lead to factions and schisms.

1 Corinthians chapter 1, your copy of God's Word. We'll read for a text verses 10 through 17, which is where we left off from last week. Now I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say that every one of you sayeth, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ.

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius. Lest any should say that I baptized in my own name, I baptized also the household of Stephanus, besides I knew not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect." This is the Word of God, our text for today.

My sermon is on the subject of divisions and quarrels. Divisions and quarrels. Let's again go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We Thank you for this time and this place that we have that we can gather to assemble ourselves for the worship of you.

Lord I pray that even as we've gathered to worship that it would truly be in spirit and in truth, Lord I pray that even as we've sung and prayed and preached already, Lord, as we now enter into this portion of the worship service, the preaching of your word, Lord, I pray that our hearts and our minds will be receptive to what you have for us in your word. Lord, I pray that our hearts and our minds will be receptive to what you have for us in your word. Lord, I pray that you'll be with each one who's here. I pray for those who cannot be here. Lord, some because of distance, some because of sickness, and others for other reasons, Lord, you know.

And I pray that you'll just work in their lives, that they may be with us the next appointed time if it's in your will. I pray that you will forgive us of our sins and our shortcomings. What's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. In this text as we have been going through, as we've begun a series on 1st Corinthians, we see right away that there was a problem, a problem of contentions, divisions, corals within the church at Corinth.

Now as I mentioned earlier this morning, I've been saved since I was about 10 or 11 years old, and in that time I've seen my share of corals, my share of division, seen enough of it. If you've never seen any of those in your lifetime, then one of two things has happened. Either you're new to church life, or you're oblivious to what's going on or maybe you've just maybe you maybe you've just been fortunate you've never seen that happen in a church. But sadly just like what was happening there at Corinth, these things do happen. I'm afraid that they'll continue to happen until we all get to heaven.

Just because it's a sad reality, just because it is all too common does not mean that we ought not to think about these things or to address them even. Paul addresses it right away right away in the beginning of this epistle. He says, I beseech you, or rather I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same judgment. Unity in the church is important, but it's not uniformity. And in fact, if each one of us insisted that everybody else was exactly like what we are.

Then pretty soon there will be nobody left except for us. What I mean by that is that if you insist that everybody's just like you, pretty soon everybody is gone except for you. If I stood up here and every week insisted that everybody was exactly like me pretty soon, there'd be nobody left except for me. This Bible is big, it's complex, so there are bound to be some differences even among the most seasoned saints. If we were to take a poll among members of any given church, whether it's this church or another church, What you'll find is that there are differences about things like, Thanksgiving's coming up, there's differences about Thanksgiving, there's differences about Christmas and Easter obviously, there's differences about alcohol, you may find differences about the woman's head covering, You may find differences about the woman's head covering.

You may find differences about the age of the earth. There's some other things that you'll find within a church body. If you dig hard enough and you look, you'll find differences. If a brother and sister have a disagreement in the same church, they're members the same church, They have a disagreement on whether or not a woman should wear a head covering. That's not in violation of the unity being spoken of here.

However, there are matters that are necessity to be in the church. For instance, we must all be in agreement about the gospel. Paul makes that very, very clear here as well as in his epistle to the churches of Galatia. If you'll hold your finger there and go to Galatians chapter 1. Wednesday night we've been going through Paul's epistle to the churches of Galatia.

But in Galatians chapter 1 verses 8 and 9, he says, but though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you, then that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. We said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel in you then that you've received let him be accursed." And so the gospel is is very very important to the life of a church. Furthermore there are other doctrines that go along with the gospel that are very important. And we could go in and start listing those things, but just to give an overview and to consider this, it's important that a church, an orderly church, be in agreement on these other doctrines as well. For instance, Even though church doctrine doesn't have anything to do with salvation, it is important for an orderly church.

It would be terribly disorderly. Terribly disorderly. For instance, if a church were to come together and accept into its membership individuals who thought that, well, individuals who were Presbyterians, individuals who were Lutherans and Catholics even, and still call itself a Baptist Church. That would be a disorderly church. There would be a problem there.

I liked what something that as I was reading over this verse, this passage, and you know I like to pull up several different commentaries and study Bibles and so on and so forth. I liked what actually John MacArthur said. He said, doctrinal unity clearly and completely based on Scripture must be the foundation of all church life. And historically this is the way Baptists have felt. They have lived this way, they have dealt this way.

This is why, this is why the majority of Baptists, especially going down through history, you find that they've been confessional. In other words, they've had a confession. And what that does, and why I'm a big fan of a confession of faith is not only does it help to hold the church together with these things very easily on a piece of paper but also helps to keep a member or a group of members in getting hold of some tradition or pet doctrine and causing some big split or division over it. Well, there were divisions there in the church of Cornith, and Paul heard about it. As he wrote to this church, he wrote to them under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

I like how that even though this is God's Word and we know that, there's still this human element there. Paul wrote this letter to a church, to an actual church, And Paul says, it has been declared unto me of you my brethren, verse 11, by them which are of the house of Chloe that there are contentions among you. Paul had been informed that there were contentions, there were quarreling, there was strife going on in that church. Now you'll notice in this Now, you'll notice in this verse that there's several italicized words there, which are of the house. And so that got me on a trail.

I said, what's going on here? What's going on here? Well, it's not real clear in the Greek what this is all about. So I want to share some of this with you this morning Because this is kind of interesting to me. Back in the days before phones, before the US Postal Service, before Facebook, information was traveling.

And Paul heard of this somehow. Ezra Gold, a commentator that was from the 1800s. He's contemporary with John Brodus. He wrote on this verse, he says, he says our translation our version adds here that these persons belong to the household of Chloe he says he says in whiners grammar it means Chloe's people A more definite explanation must be supplied by the facts of this case. Perhaps we should here understand with most expositors, the members of the household, others understand the slaves, to the original readers, the expression was clear, But only because they knew the facts Neither is it certain where Chloe belonged She may have been an Ephesian who had been on a visit to Corinth and brought back this word, or a Corinthian who had come to Ephesus.

So these are some possibilities as Ezra Gold wrote this. He was digging into this himself. Paul was at Ephesus. The church was at Corinth. He's writing from Ephesus.

So these are some possibilities. Was it Chloe's relatives? Was it Chloe's, was it a slave? Was this a person, was this person an Ephesian? Was this person a Corinthian?

Kind of interesting. To add to the mystery, John Gill, he wrote, some take Chloe to be the name of a place, a city so called is said to have been in Cappadocia, but it seems rather to have been the name of a woman. And so, Gill was digging into this as well. MacArthur, also a more contemporary commentator, he said, probably a prominent person in the Corinthian church who had written or come to visit Paul in Ephesus to tell of him the factions in the church. But he says, it is not known whether Chloe was a man or a woman.

And so you get all these commentaries and all these learned individuals and they've spent years studying the Bible and really they get down and they start trying to figure out who Chloe is or what Chloe was And at the end of the day, nobody really knows. However, this is my point. My point is this, that through the church at Corinth, they knew who Chloe was, apparently. They were familiar. Who Chloe was, or what Chloe was, if it's a city.

They knew who Chloe was, if this was a man or a woman. They knew. They knew what Paul was talking about. Furthermore, Paul knew. And so there are some things that no matter how much we study, how much we dig, how much we try to figure things, we may never know some of these details.

But the main point is this. Point is this. Paul got word from someone, somehow, this Chloe, this household of Chloe, this Chloe's people. However way, however way it is, this is, this is the point. Paul got the word that it was going on That there are contentions That there are That there are contentions corals is another way of putting it, among you.

Among you. No matter which way Paul heard it, no matter forgetting about Chloe for a minute, Of all the things that could have been told about a church, of all the things that they could be known for, how terrible it is that this is what was getting out. That when people came to the church of Corinth, they saw that there were divisions, that there were corals, that there were this going on here. How much better for him to hear about their faith. How much better for them to hear about their zeal for the Lord?

How much better for them to hear something else, some good news rather than bad news? But this is what he heard. I don't believe that it was every member who was involved in this, but it was enough that the word had gotten out. And so he says in verse 12, now this I say that every one of you sayeth, I am of Paul and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas and I of Christ. Some were saying that they were of Paul.

Some were saying that they were of Apollos. Some were saying they were of Cephas, and some were saying that they were of Christ. Now, Paul's the one writing this letter. He could have taken this a different direction. He could have taken advantage of the group that was for him and kind of pitted them against the others and so on and so forth.

But that's not the direction that he goes. He knew that there was trouble there. He knew this was not healthy for the church. Some were saying they were of Paul. Paul had been instrumental in their conversion perhaps.

He was certainly instrumental in the founding of the church. Paul was, I mean, if You are sitting there in the first century in the Roman world, and you were looking for a man to look up to, a bold, courageous missionary who had been through a lot, who was willing to count the cost, who was willing to spend and be spent for the cause of Christ, Paul was your man. He was a brave, bold preacher of the gospel. And so some of them said, we're of Paul. Others were saying they were of Apollo's.

Now this was in opposition to Paul. There were some in the church who despised Paul, a man who wrote mean letters, but they said he was weak in person and all of those things. But on the flip side, Apollos was very eloquent in his preaching. He was a good man of the Lord, certainly an able preacher. Many in the church said I'm of Apollos.

Others said I'm of Cephas. Cephas is who Peter is known as. And so Some said, I'm of Cephas. I'm of Peter. Both Paul and Apollos seemed like kids compared to Peter.

Oh, Brother Peter, the Apostle Peter, he'd been around since the time of Jesus. He was a rock. He was solid. Back there in Jerusalem, he was certainly a man who was not afraid to speak his mind. He was bold as well, and Certainly this group maybe thought they were better than them all using Peter's name wherever they went and whatever agenda that they pursued in the church.

So there was these three groups, but then there was a fourth group. This fourth group said, I'm of Christ. I'm of Christ. And truly, that's where everybody should be. But Paul lists this group with the others.

And he doesn't commend them, which is intriguing to me. As I meditated on this and thought about it, I didn't want to praise them where no praise was given. I thought, what is going on? Am I missing something? Why is it that Paul lists this fourth group with the others?

I'll tell you why. I believe John Gill nailed it. He said, I rather think that these design a faction and party to be condemned as the others. These were for Christ in opposition to Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, and any other minister of the word. They were for Christ without his ministers.

They were wiser than their teachers. They were above being under any ministrations and ordinances, as the others attributed too much to the ministers of the gospel. These detracted too much from them and denied them to be of any use and service. Some persons may be, " Gil goes on to write, "...in such a sense for Christ as to be blameworthy as when they use his name to deceive men or divide his interest. And so think about in our day and age, there are groups of people out there, individuals, maybe you know them.

I've come across them before. You talk to them about the Lord. They say, well, I'm saved. He said, all right, where do you go to church? And they said, well, I don't need a church.

I call them the Bible. These guys are the My Bible and Me group. They don't need anybody else. They sneer at the thought of a church. They sneer at the thought of a pastor.

They look down on anybody who would read after any man, any commentary. Paul throws them in here. I believe that was the type of people these guys were. And these four groups that's listed, they were at odds with each other in a divided church. Again, may I point out that this scene has been played out multiple times throughout history.

It is a sad thing with such a text before us, But I say it to say this, this is not just an isolated scenario here with the Church of Corinth. Churches become divided over men who were inside and even outside of the Church. Let us pay attention to what the Holy Spirit has for us here in this and consider our own hearts Verse 13 and through 16 is Paul's answer to them He says is Christ divided Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say that I had baptized in my own name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanus, besides I know not whether I baptized any other." any other.

Very recently I preached at a Bible conference in Sanford. I preached from this text. I actually took my text from verse 9, but I read all the way down through here. Verse 9 says, God is faithful whom you were called under the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. In the context of this, Paul is calling them to something greater than what they have going on there at the church at Corinth.

The word for fellowship is the Greek word which means community or to join together. God intended for the church at Corinth and for every church that's ever come after or since, all of his churches, He intends for us as we assemble ourselves together and as we consider church life to join together because of Christ. But the church of Corinth was missing the mark. Their focus was not really on Christ, but on men, and this caused division. Mark it well.

Understand that where Christ is not preeminent, someone else will be. There will be no true fellowship. There will only be factions, schisms, and divisions. Where does this come from? Where did that come from?

Well, James had written it. If memory serves me right, I believe James is one of the earlier books of the New Testament. But James, chapter 4, in verse 1, he says, From whence come wars and fighting among you? Come they not hints even of your lusts that were in your members? The source of all this mess that was going on that Paul had heard about from the household of Chloe.

These divisions that were going on, the source of it was the flesh. And so Paul says, is Christ divided? I know often when we think of the church of Corinth, we think of the fact that they didn't exclude the one who was involved in sexual sin. Let us not miss this. What a shocking statement.

Is Christ divided? It's almost as shocking as in Malachi when he says, will we may not rob God? These statements are meant to grab our attention. Is Christ divided? Is Christ divided?

Looking at the way that the church of Corinth was, If that's church life, if that's the way things are supposed to be, then the answer is yes. Christ is divided. Jesus prayed in John chapter 17. John 17 verses 20 and 21, Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee that thou also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." You see, Jesus prayed this way, heavenly unity, fellowship. This is our source and our example.

Before we can have fellowship with the brethren as he brought up in verse 9, that we're called to, before we can see this verse 10, now I beseech you brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. Before that can happen, we've got to have Christ as the one that is our example. He's got to be preeminent. We must be in proper fellowship with him. We can't be over here saying, well, I'm of Christ and doing it so that we make ourselves look better than everybody else, no, no.

We know were no better than anyone else. When Paul says, is Christ divided? When he talks about this unity, when he talks about this fellowship, maybe he even had in mind what the psalmist said in Psalm 133. Psalm 133. The psalmist said behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments as the dew of Hermon as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life, forevermore.

He says how pleasant it is when the brethren dwell together in unity. And then he likens it to the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard. You see, he says as the dew of hermit, what's all this coming from above, isn't it? That's the picture. What Paul is writing to them when he says you were called to the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord, Now I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Y'all speak the same thing that there be no divisions among you. You'll be perfectly joined together in the same mind, in the same judgment. This is something that can only come from above. I mean you're looking at a church here at Corinth that had Jews and Gentiles and had a mixture of different people with different backgrounds and all sorts of things, and yet they were joined together as a church. How's that even going to work?

Why didn't they end up splitting off? Why isn't there some big historic moment within that first century in which there's the Gentile church over here and the Jewish church over here. It could have happened, you know. You read through the New Testament, there's plenty of opportunities where that could have happened, but it didn't. Why?

Because God. Because of what we have here. And you and I, we look at this unity and we look at this at this fellowship we look at this this church in Corinth and we say how in the world does this come together and the only way that it comes together is from God. He's got to work in the lives of people He's got to set this up and you and I, we can either protect and preserve it or we spoil and destroy what he gives. So as he writes, he writes very carefully.

He's breaking down strongholds. He's not breaking down people. He doesn't write and say, is Christ divided? Was Apollos crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Peter?

He doesn't write that way. He doesn't write and say, well, look, I understand why you all want to follow me. I founded that church, I've been through a lot, and Peter over here, look at all his faults. And Apollos will look, no, no. He doesn't do that, does he?

He doesn't slander the others. He doesn't gossip about them. He doesn't tear them down. He throws himself in there. He says, first of all, is Christ divided?

We looked at that and He says, was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? He sets himself up as an example among them. He doesn't give us a good outline of how he's better than Apollos or Peter. He doesn't give us an outline of what's wrong with Peter and what's wrong with Apollos.

And then, well, I've got some faults too, so you all shouldn't be following me either. No, no. He just goes straight in, cuts to the chase, and he says, look, this is a mess and it shouldn't be happening. And you and I, we read this and we can thumb our nose and say the Church of Corinth was so wrong. I can't believe they do that.

But you and I, we must also search our own hearts. We all have preachers, pastors, commentators that we appreciate. Take their names right in the margin. I've got Bibles where I've written, was James Hobbes crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of John Gew?

I've got my favorites, and you do too. Maybe it's John Calvin, A.W. Pink, J.R. Graves, some other prominent writer. Perhaps it's some preacher, David Green, Joe Wilson, Doug Newell, Rob Jeffries, Reggie Moore, on and on they go.

But listen, take this, examine your heart, and understand what the Spirit would have for us. Paul says, I thank God, verse 14, that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius, lest I should say that I had baptized in my own name, and I baptized also the house of Stephanus, besides I know not whether I baptized any other. First of all, you ever run into anybody who believes in baptismal regeneration? The idea that baptism saves, this is an excellent text to take them to. If baptism saves, if there's any saving effect in the water, Paul was a heartless preacher, wasn't he?

He was heartless. He says, I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius. Lest any should say that I baptized in my own name." Notice he hardly remembers who he had baptized at Corinth. He said, He said, I baptized also the house of Stephanus, and besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. Listen, Paul was not heartless, But in baptism is very important.

It is extremely important. In fact, every child of God ought to be scripturally baptized. But let's not make more of it than what it really is. The preacher who baptized you is not any better than any other preacher. Don't say, well, David Green baptized me, so I'm of David Green.

No, no don't do that. It says here in verse 17, he says, for Christ sent me not to baptize, For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect." This is not to be taken that he had not been sent at all to baptize. Otherwise he was wrong to baptize the few that he did at Corinth, the others that he baptized in other places. No, he did baptize. His meaning here is that the principal business was to preach the gospel.

That's the principal business that he had. Not in wisdom of word, so that the cross of Christ will be made of none effect. Literally, it will be made empty. He says, I'm here to preach the gospel. Let us be the same.

Yes, as Baptists, the amount of water in the Baptistry is important. Who baptizes is important. The authority is important. But that should not be the only thing that we're known for. I was cleaning around the sign the other day at the end of the road, cutting some weeds in there, And I'm thankful for the fact that it reads missionary on the sign.

Let's live that way. Without the gospel, There's not going to be any baptism. Without the Gospel, the baptistry is dry. Without the Gospel, there'll be no church. Without the gospel, we'll have nothing.

Even our reasons for meaning are gone without the gospel. Remember I said that if Jesus is not preeminent, someone else will be, and there will be divisions. The Gospel has to be the primary message of the church. If you go to Paul's second epistle to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. I'm bringing this to a close.

2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 5. He says, for we preach not ourselves. We preach not ourselves. This isn't David Green's message, this wasn't Paul's message, but we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves, your servants for Jesus sake. It was never about Paul.

It was never about Apollo, or Cephas. It's not about you, and it's not about me. It's about Christ Jesus our Lord, crucified, buried, and risen again. And that's where the church at Corinth had missed. That's why they had the mess that they were in.

When Paul got that word from Chloe's people that there were corals and divisions in the church. They lost their focus. They lost who they were and what they were supposed to be about. They'd taken their eyes off of Christ. And instead, we're looking at themselves and each other.

May it never be said of us that we have done the same thing. Let's learn from them. And may God add a blessing to the preaching of his word.