James Nisbet Commentary - 1 Corinthians 3:6 - 3:6

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James Nisbet Commentary - 1 Corinthians 3:6 - 3:6


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CHRISTIAN UNITY

‘I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.’

1Co_3:6

St. Paul pleaded with the Corinthians for unity of spirit. Had he lived now, I do not think he would have hoped for immediate unity of organisation—however much to be desired—but one feels that he would have written a letter breathing the spirit of this Epistle to the Corinthians ‘to the saints who are of the Church in England, together with all those who call on the Name of the Lord Jesus’—a splendid definition of God’s universal Church! St. Paul well knew how to denounce and oppose strenuously what he thought would undermine Christianity and the Church. Witness the Epistle to the Galatians, witness him withstanding St. Peter to the face! St. Paul was no invertebrate-minded man, incapable of conviction, and so equally complacent to all forms of thought. But while strenuously opposing at one time what he knew to be subversive of Christianity, upholding the great broad principle of the universality of the Church—a vital point—he equally strenuously condemns the partisanship of Christians on matters not fundamental, not indispensable to the existence of Christianity.

I. Is not this the position that we should adopt to-day?—To anything that threatens the groundwork of our faith, the foundation of Jesus Christ, we must offer a Pauline opposition. But what we must shun as radically opposed to the spirit of Christ and the teaching of St. Paul is mere partisanship, which exalts the means into the end. The avoidance of this spirit does not preclude devotion to our own great district of the Catholic Church, or a life’s work for it as a noble part of God’s husbandry, God’s building; but the spirit of Christian sympathy does exclude antagonism to other bodies and other lines of work. Strong resistance to tampering with fundamental truth, and sympathetic tolerance of other consciences and positions seem to be the Pauline teaching. Only, I think, St. Paul would say, ‘Do not with insincere sincerity exaggerate the indifferent into the fundamental.’

II. God’s building should be like one of our glorious cathedrals, to which many centuries, many tastes, many types of mind have contributed their quota of beauty. There is no monotony of style, and the variety is the chief cause of picturesqueness. But the whole of the noble fabric rears up its majestic structure to the glory of one Almighty God; every part shows forth His praise; all is united by one spirit of reverent piety.

III. What we need, as the universal Church of Christ, is absorption in the grand idea of catholicity of spirit—union in love. And I believe that unity of organisation would follow real unity of spirit. Raised on a Christ foundation, one dreams of a Church of God composed of all nations of the earth, worshipping the one God, perhaps in varying form and organisation, but animated by the one thing that is the hall-mark of true Christianity—the Spirit of Christ.

—
Rev. St. J. B. Wynne Wilson.

Illustration

‘St. Paul is writing to the Corinthian Church in a tone of rebuke for the divisions among them. The Church had been founded by Paul, and afterwards Apollos, the learned, eloquent Alexandrine Jew, had been sent from Ephesus thither. Now Corinth was a great mercantile, cosmopolitan centre, containing much active, vigorous life, and minds of varying shades. Naturally men approached Christianity from different mental standpoints, influenced by different moods generated by difference of birth and environment. Paul and Apollos, though animated by the same root-ideas, differed apparently in their presentment of them. Not unnaturally the converts divided, expressing preference for one or other, and adopting him as their teacher. Paul and Apollos did not found sects, but sects attached themselves to their names, and made them the rallying-point. “I am of Paul, I of Apollos,” they said. A third party rejected all human teaching, and went, as they maintained, straight to Christ’s doctrine, uninterpreted by men, “I am of Christ.” The divisions grew heated: they were not healthy rivalry or holy warfare of different ideas, but the contention of unhallowed strife of interest, and of a wholly unchristian spirit which forgot the principle of their faith in adhesion to a partisan presentation of it. The spirit was lost in the institution or party. This contentious strife, says Paul, is carnal, or sensuous, the lowest grade of the three with which he is dealing, spiritual, natural, carnal.’