1 ¶ And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as
unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat:
for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there
is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and
walk as men? 4 For while one saith, I am
of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
The Corinthian church not only has a problem with following
personalities more directly than Christ, which Paul has made very clear, but
they are having a hard time getting past the basics. They cannot receive meat
but have to be bottle-fed like a baby. Immature Christians today do not know
what is in their Bible and do not care to receive instruction from the Holy
Ghost. They prefer to be spoon-fed and told exactly what to believe by a, “man
of God,” who may or may not himself know what the Bible actually says. When you
have a congregation that cares not a whit for reading the Bible, praying over
the Bible, or asking God for guidance or to speak to them through it you have a
congregation that is being perpetually duped by someone.
Paul again makes the whole devotion to a preacher or teacher over
Christ as a heresy very clear. It is a sign, not of spirituality, but of
carnality. This devotion to a person rather than Christ is the basis of
envying, strife, and divisions in the church. Charismatic leaders, so-called
alpha-males and alpha-females, and socially dominant persons try hard to carve
out a following, to achieve preeminence in the church. But, here, neither Paul
nor Apollos are seeking that following. Paul has made it abundantly clear that
he has only preached the risen Christ and has not sought glory for himself.
5 ¶ Who then is Paul, and who is
Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but
God gave the increase. 7 So then neither
is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth
the increase. 8 Now he that planteth and
he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according
to his own labour. 9 For we are
labourers
together with God: ye are God’s
husbandry, ye are God’s building. 10
According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise
masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But
let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
Paul outlines here the process of conversion of the lost to
Christ. Each of us plays a part, some one thing, others another, but it is God
who saves people, not we ourselves. Our efforts are part of a process authored
and carried out by God. Giving credit to a man or woman who you say led so many
people to Christ is irreverent, untrue, and even blasphemous as it is God who
leads people to Christ.
The American fundamentalist church is set up on an early 20th
century business model with the pastor as boss or CEO who is the Master of
Ceremonies from whom everyone is supposed to take their cue. The fundamentalist
Christian’s primary job is to park their body in a pew and be a passive
listener. Any work that Christian does for Christ, any expression of their
relationship with Christ, that is not expressed through the church organization
or as a supplement to participation in that church is irrelevant. A pastor in
this mold is as uncomfortable with their parishioners engaging in a Bible study
at home with friends and family as the colonial Massachusetts authorities were,
as they banned any Bible study of Christians not sanctioned by the church. In
order to exert control and authority over the congregation it is necessary to
reinforce that nothing the congregation does is good enough for God. They must
always do more. On top of that no matter how much time they spend in prayer or
Bible reading they must be constantly told they are cold and dead spiritually.
Instead of encouraging and edifying the believers they are
discouraged and it is made clear that they can never please God in any way. Numbers,
like new sales for a business, are emphasized. Gospel tracts are passed out
like pizza coupons and the assumption is a business one, that it is a numbers
game. Hand out enough tracts and you are bound to get some new customers, that
is, people visiting the church. Fundamentalists are consumers of religion,
often not the conduit through which the fruits of the Spirit are supposed to
flow to the world.
But, the church is not a meeting place for curious unbelievers. It
is meant to be the called-out body of Christ on earth. Saved people in the
congregation should be edified and encouraged by what is said and taught and,
yes, open sin should be called out as Paul will do presently. They then can
disciple new believers and bring them into the church. Instead, what is
typically preached is the same salvation message every service keeping the
congregation drinking milk like a baby rather than solid food. This produces an
apathy and a sense of pointlessness in drawing close to God as it is made clear
that nothing you do can be pleasing to Him or even noticed by Him unless you
were told to do it by the pastor.
This, of course, leads back to the pastor or his guns-for-hire,
visiting evangelists, making it clear that the congregation is cold and dead,
which it might be due to discouragement and being denied the tools to live each
day with Christ. It is an endless cycle of Christians, baby Christians, seeking
a Super Bowl experience, a momentary emotional sense of excitement and of
having been “revived” during a meeting of the church only to lose that feeling
until the next meeting. Christianity is a workman’s religion, one that requires
you to pick up your tools and live each day in submission to Christ, not a
faith that exists only in emotional experiences under the control of a Master
of Ceremonies.
This is what American fundamentalism is. Paul is warning against
following a man rather than realizing that the man who led you to Christ was
only one part of a process directed entirely by God Himself. We all have a part
to play, no matter how small, and we are all a building built by God. Paul,
like a masterbuilder, laid the foundation for the Corinthians with the tools
and direction Christ gave him. But, he warns the Corinthians to be careful.
I’m not a professional speaker, not a trained theologian, and not
even the sharpest knife in the drawer and much of what I say may be offensive
to some but the modern church is a social club of politically like-minded
people and lacks all spiritual power. It has surrendered to the government the
physical care of the flock and shut off at the source the power of the Holy
Ghost to enrich the lives of people through the Bible and draw them closer to
God.
We must return to what we are here for, our purpose. Because this
is where we are heading now.
Luke 18:8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.
Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
We must remember that it is God who saves and it is He who adds to
the church.
John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he
power to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name: 13
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God.
Acts 2:47 Praising God, and having favour with all the
people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.
Paul will emphasize the edifying of the church, to enlighten, to
inform, to build up, to instruct several times in chapter 14. That is what
should be going on in a church service along with worship, not this incessant
tearing down and ripping to shreds. Our walk with Christ should be joyous and
hopeful not something we dread.
And we should be seeking spiritual guidance from the Holy Ghost,
from God, through the words in His Book, yes, directed by an elder who is a
bishop or what we call today a pastor, but we are not to follow a person like a
celebrity guru whose every word carries the weight of Moses coming down off the
mountain with the Ten Commandments.
Historian Christine Heyrman studied the history of evangelical
churches in America in the early days of the country and during the colonial
period. She wrote about her subject in her book Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt. In that book she
explained that in Baptist churches in the 1700s in America pastors had no
special powers above that of the layman. “Governance of the congregation and
the discipline of members resided exclusively with the brethren.”(4) Preachers
preached and examined new converts. Congregations were small, often less than
20 people, and preachers were not paid but had to have secular employment to
make a living. It is not that this model was without its problems but these
were the days before J. Frank Norris and the Protestant mega-church of the
early twentieth century with the notion of pastoral authority, borrowed from
the Methodists of the 1700s who called it clerical authority, where the pastor
was the boss and the congregation his employees.
Churches have had to struggle in modern times with something that
Christ said that He hated.
Revelation 2:15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine
of the Nicolaitans, which thing
I hate.
Nicolaitans, a term that was later applied backwards by the Roman
church into New Testament history to cover the Bible’s condemnation of their
practice most likely, means from the Greek, victory-over-the-laity. This
indicates that the special category of an infallible popeling, which is what
many fundamentalist pastors consider themselves to be, is in error. Christ is
our priest and the Bible also teaches a priesthood of all believers.
Hebrews 3:1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the
heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ
Jesus;
1Peter 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a
spiritual house, an holy priesthood,
to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
Soon, we will see how the participatory nature of the early church
was a method that God used to present truth to the body of Christ rather than
the modern model which is nothing more than a cult of personality and an
attraction for socially dominant people who wish to exert their will and their
convictions on others.
(1) Christine Leigh Heyrman, Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 105.
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