Is Christ Divided Is a Question About Whose Name You Say First

Somebody asked him at work what he believed and he answered with a man's name.

He did not plan it. The question came at lunch, from somebody who was genuinely asking, and what came out of his mouth first was the name of a teacher, followed by a description of what that teacher holds, and then a couple of sentences about why that position is better than the alternatives.

The other man said, all right, and that was the end of it, and it was a fine conversation.

He thought about it on the way home and could not get comfortable. Not because anything he said was false. Every word of it was accurate. It is what he actually believes and he could defend all of it.

It is that if you had recorded the conversation and played it back, a stranger would not have been able to tell from the first ninety seconds whether he was a Christian or a member of something.

There is a letter that opens by taking exactly this apart, and one of the camps in it is named after the man writing.

The four camps

Here it is, in the King James Version:

Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:12)

Four camps.

I am of Paul. The man writing. He puts himself first on the list, which means this is not a letter in which one teacher complains about the popularity of others.

I of Apollos. A gifted speaker.

I of Cephas. Peter, the senior man.

And I of Christ.

That fourth one is the strange one and it is the reason this passage is not a simple lesson about not having favorites. There is a camp whose slogan is the right answer, and Paul lists it as part of the problem, in the same breath, with the same grammar.

Because a man who says I of Christ as a party badge, to distinguish himself from the men in the other three camps, is doing exactly what the other three are doing. He has used the right name to do the wrong thing, and the tell is that he says it in a list.

You are not caught out by having a teacher and you were never wrong to have learned from one. 1 Corinthians 1:12 puts Paul's own name at the head of the list and includes the camp with the correct slogan, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than a change of loyalty who moves a man out of a camp.

The three questions

Then he asks three questions and does not answer any of them, because they answer themselves.

Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Corinthians 1:13)

Is Christ divided?

Was Paul crucified for you?

Or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?

Two of the three have his own name in them. He is not asking the Corinthians to think less of Apollos or Cephas. He is asking them to notice that the test is not who taught well, it is who died and whose name was said over them.

And that test is usable on a Tuesday at lunch. Not: is this man good. Most of them are. Not: was he right. He probably was. But: was he crucified for you, and was his name the one said over you.

You have a test you can run in a lunchroom and you were never left without a way to check whose name comes first. 1 Corinthians 1:13 asks was Paul crucified for you, and it is His Spirit who makes a plain question do work in a man rather than only make a point.

What he says you already have

And then, two chapters later, the sentence that turns the whole thing around and gives back more than it takes.

Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23)

All things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas.

That is not a rebuke. It is an inheritance. He does not say stop listening to teachers. He says all of them belong to you, which is exactly the opposite of the camp arrangement, where a man gets one and loses the others.

And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. The ownership runs in one direction and the reader is on the receiving end of it.

So the man in a camp has been getting less rather than more. He had one teacher and could not hear the others. The letter says all of them are his.

You have all of them and you were never meant to be issued one. 1 Corinthians 3:22 says whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, all are yours, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an inheritance like that something a man actually spends.

Whose name it is

And two sentences from elsewhere on whose name the thing is filed under.

And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. (Colossians 1:18)

That in all things he might have the preeminence. Preeminence is a position in a list, and the verse says which position and in how many things.

And Peter, in front of the men who had put him on trial:

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

None other name.

Which is the same test in a different form. A man's faith is filed under a name whether he has ever thought about it or not, and the question is only which one comes out when somebody asks him at lunch.

You are filed under a name that was given rather than chosen and you were never sealed under anybody else's. Acts 4:12 says there is none other name and Colossians 1:18 says He is to have the preeminence in all things, and it is His Spirit who makes a name in a doctrine into a name in a man's mouth.