Follow the argument

Παρακαλῶ δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί, διὰ τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἵνα τὸ αὐτὸ λέγητε πάντες, καὶ μὴ ᾖ ἐν ὑμῖν σχίσματα, ἦτε δὲ κατηρτισμένοι ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ νοῒ καὶ ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ γνώμῃ.

1 Cor 1.10 SBL Greek NT

One of my pet peeves is the habit of preachers to work through a Pauline letter, half a verse at a time, for months on end. I don’t deny that much can be drilled out of scripture in this way; but no one is thereby going to actually understand what Paul was talking about.

Take the verse above, and let me give you my ‘literal as possible and annotated’ rendering:

I summon you (a legal courtroom term) brothers, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (ie that is my authority for doing so), in order that you should all be careful to recount (λέγω is rarely just “say any old thing”; the fundamental part of it is intentionality) the same thing, and that there should be among you no division of opinion (rather than just “division”), and that you should be reconciled (κατηρτισμένοι has a core meaning of restoration, so the NIV’s “united” is lacking something) in the same mind and in the same exercise of intelligence (γνώμη is the power of knowing or the ‘organ’ by which we exercise intelligent judgement).

Now, I agree it is more than possible to preach for a month on just this verse; but in doing so, it is unlikely that we will ever understand what Paul is concerned to say to the Church in Corinth.

So ask yourself, how far does this particular thread run in 1 Corinthians chapter 1?

Trick question: the issue Paul is raising here runs at least to the end of chapter 4, and I would argue, through to the end of chapter 6. Chapter 7 starts with “the issue you wrote me about…” and that seems distinct.

So what am I saying?

Verse 10 of chapter 1 is not a blessed thought; Paul is about to hit them with a major rebuke, and verse 10 is telling the Corinthians what solving this problem is going to require.

The rebuke starts with the report he has from Chloe’s household, namely that they have broken into factions – “I am of Paul”, “I of Apollos”, “I of Cephas”, and even “I of Christ”.

And everything that follows is highlighting their foolishness in getting hung up on trivia, when Paul had been so careful to come to them with the message that they actually need to agree on, a message demonstrated with the power of the Spirit and centred on the foolishness of Christ crucified.

And yet, instead of being ready for solid food, the Corinthians are still behaving like babies. I will leave you to reread this for yourself, but try to stop yourself saying “oh I love this passage about x or y” and instead see up to the end of chapter 6 as a lawyer’s speech aimed at bringing the Corinthian church to repentance, and to that simple reconciled agreement around the same mind and thought, the thing that actually matters: Christ crucified, the power of God.

In closing, let me point to one terrible and persistent mistranslation that has lured far too many into the delusion of their own infallibility.

For example, the NIV has:

The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments

The KJV has:

But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

What 1 Corinthians 2.15 actually says involves one important verb, first in the active voice, and then in the middle voice. How generations of translators have managed to get this so wrong baffles me.

ὁ δὲ πνευματικὸς ἀνακρίνει τὰ πάντα, αὐτὸς δὲ ὑπ’ οὐδενὸς ἀνακρίνεται.

The person who is of the spirit inquires into or examines closely all things

[ἀνακρίνω Active voice]

But they themselves dispute or wrangle with no one

[ἀνακρίνω Middle voice]

And of course Paul continues in v 16, “for who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him? But – we have the mind of Christ.”

And that in two verses is the heart of his answer to 1 Cor 1.10 – how do you Corinthians all get reunited into the same mind and power of thought? Yes, spiritual people ask questions about everything, and get into arguments with no one. Any of you know the mind of the Lord so that you could teach Him something? Of course not; but we all have the mind of Christ – so that is our agreement, right there!

And that is the answer today as well. Many of us seem to allow ourselves huge latitude to say “my church, my right to say what we are uniquely about”.

Time to get with the programme, people.

Jesus thinks it is His church, and that He already said what matters.