My Trip to Corinth: Is Christ Divided?

The past three months I have repeatedly read through the books of 1st and 2nd Corinthians with my two buddies and I wanted to just share some of the points I will take with me. I know that there are a ton more points, but these are some of the ones that I walked away with:

“I appeal to you, brothers. By the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in that same mind and the same judgment…one of you says, ‘I follow Paul’, or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided?” 1 Cor. 1:10-13

Is Christ divided? It seems so. Some say I follow the Pope, or I follow Luther or I follow Wesley, or I follow Calvin. Was it Calvin who was crucified for you? Was Luther the messiah that the Old Testament talked about? Did the Pope rise from the dead? Are Wesley words the ones that the Holy Spirit reminds us of?

Our salvation comes from Christ and it is his death and resurrection that gives us the opportunity to live with God forever in Heaven. I can understand the desire to explore different ways to worship God. Many people believe that they should worship God in a way that is comfortable to them, but many of these denominations were created and are maintained by that thought that there is a certain way to worship God. That is an earthly or fleshly thought process because I can’t imagine that a God as awesome as the one I serve could be worshiped one way. I look forward to spending eternity learning all the ways in which he deserves to be worshiped.

I don’t want to say it but I have to…I hate denominations! I do! What a horrible witness of the unifying spirit of Jesus Christ! The first part of Corinthians has really challenged the way I look at the full body of Christ or the whole Church in the world. I find that I don’t concern myself with the non-essential differences in the many denomination bases, but when I meet someone who says they are a Christian I seek to hear what Jesus means to them and how he is at work in their lives. He is our connect! He is what unifies us!

God forgive us for making this time on earth and the time on Sunday’s about anything else. God forgive us for not talking to our fellow Christian neighbor because their cross looks different than ours. God forgive us for spending some much time and shedding so much of each other’s blood over the liquid used for communion. God forgive us for the way we talk about each other in front of our non-Christian friends or on TV because some of us decide not to have a service if December 25th lands on a Sunday. And finally God please forgive us for denying membership into our believer clicks because we had water dropped on us instead of us being dropped into water.

This is in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. My we allow our non-essentials to be buried with Christ and through his resurrection may we be raised to walk TOGETHER in a new life.