The References: I Cor. 1:12 What I mean is this—each of you is saying “I’m with Paul” or “I’m with Apollos.”
1 Cor. 16:12 I strongly urged Apollos to go to Corinth, but he was not willing to come at this time.
The story that emerges:
Paul perceived an unwelcome trend had developed in the small church in Corinth. This trend was serious enough to detract from the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It had to do, oddly, with the good leaders at the church.
By the time Paul wrote the letter, the church had received ministry from Apollos and Peter as well as the original planter, Paul. They had been there long enough for the congregation to know differences of each, their relative strengths and weaknesses, and what they did best. The church members had begun to make comparisons of the three and to show outright loyalty and allegiance to one at the expense of the others. The church was splintering around the leaders.
“Some of you are saying, ‘I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or Peter, or Christ’” (1 Cor. 1: 12). Paul recognized that as long as this allowed to grow, spiritual maturity was thwarted.
We know a bit of the styles of Paul and Apollos in Corinth. Paul wrote this about his own preaching: “When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words” (I Cor. 2:1, 4).
By contrast, Apollos’ teachingwaswith wise and persuasive words. We know from his introduction by his friends in Ephesus that he was erudite and eloquent. When he rose to speak or teach, everyone knew a polished and profound teaching would follow. No surprise that Apollos would have been a magnet for one of the splinter groups.
We have here the markings of a case study in competition. Two leaders, both gifted, two men receiving rapt attention from their followers, each touching different people in the congregation. In this scenario we might expect each ego jockeying for greater prestige, favorable comparisons, and elevated status. Such would only exacerbate the cultish tendency and would diminish the church to the stage of competing religious celebrities. Put to the side would be the message of “Christ our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption” (1:30).
If we move to the 16thchapter, we see what was actually unfolding. There we have a window on the situation and the possibility of Apollos returning to Corinth. Apparently Paul had told Apollos that he should revisit Corinth. Apollos told the apostle that he didn’t think he should. This response was either chutzpahor humility. If chutzpah, it was a young disciple telling the apostle that he, Apollos, was refusing him, Paul. That deserves an exclamation point! If chutzpah, then we have competition.
But no, this was not chutzpahbut humility. What we have in the relationship of Apollos and Paul is two devout Christian leaders. Rather than competing, each wants to assist the other and find God’s blessing on each other’s role. Apollos was sending Paul a message of loyalty, of cooperation, and of submission. He recognized the tension in the church there, how the two men had unwittingly become focal points of division. This was drawing away from their message of the sanctifying power of Jesus in His people. Apollos valued the contribution of Paul--Paul whose words were designed “to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. My message and my preaching was with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power (2:1,4).
All that would be undone if Apollos returned at this time. He was not drawn to approbation, accolades, and affirmation. Humility and love for Jesus Christ eliminated that. Apollos clearly would not threaten the power of Paul’s teaching, for he knew it to be astonishing, truly astonishing.
Humility it was. And so yes, a case study, but not in competition but of respect for one another finding pleasure in the God-given gifts of the other. This would demonstrate to the church the unity and love “that does not seek its own but rejoices in the truth” (13:6).
Before I could set up a time for Apollos to meet at my bench, he took the initiative and met me at a place of his choice. And that turned out to be my pew, where I sit on Sunday mornings with my wife. He knew how leadership in churches teeters between competition and collaboration, between jealousy and pleasure. He presented a case study in cooperation and respect for the honor and glory of Jesus Christ, exhibited in the leaders of the church. It was sweet to be part of this, but surrounding the privilege was the grace and personality of the leaders.
He directed my attention up ahead to the left. There I saw the man who succeeded me as rector in this church. (He did not sit with his wife because they are both in the choir.) Ahead and to my right in the pulpit was the man who is the present rector. (He didn’t sit with his wife either, since she was also in the choir. And it is a very good choir!)
I’m sure between the three of us clergy, we surpass the eloquence and the wisdom of both Paul and Apollos, and I’m sure we have strutted at times. But the prevailing desire of the leadership has been to draw people to Jesus Christ through the teaching and preaching of His Word, and to show that life in and through the church’s community.
What Apollos did next put us all in perspective. He pointed to the lady on my left and the one just ahead of me. Both of them were members before I entered the scene. They, and their contemporaries, are mature in their faith and are not at all bothered to cluster around any of those with clerical collars. And like Apollos toward Paul, I find the continuing wisdom of the one who succeeded me1and the one in the pulpit2to be nothing but “truly astonishing.”
1Facebook:daily Bible devotions by Chuck Alley. Pretty darn good stuff.
3Oh, and: https://stpaulsfriends.blogspot.comPretty darn --- oops. I’m supposed to be showing humility, at least for this profile.
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