Christian Quarreling

As long as Christians have been getting together they have been quarreling. Neil and I use the following verses to illustrate this in the course we offer called “Finding Our Spiritual Edge” (developed by Neil).

1 Corinthians 1:10-13 (NLT)


10 I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. 11 For some members of Chloe’s household have told me about your quarrels, my dear brothers and sisters. 12 Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not!

You can really feel Paul’s frustration. This is less than a generation after Jesus ascended to heaven and already the church is divided. The factions are each saying they follow a different leader. From all biblical accounts Jesus, Peter, Paul and Apollos are good leaders to be following so why can’t they get along? Just taking Paul and Peter as an example: they both were Spirit inspired authors of books of the bible and neither one is a heretic so why do some follow one and some another? There must have been at least slight differences. Maybe it was stylistic differences. Maybe they disagreed on minor points of theology but their core teachings were certainly the same. Whatever the differences were, the similarities must have been much more.

We fall into the same trap today. Our factions may be denominational. Some are Baptist and some are Pentecostal. Some are Vatican 1 Catholics and some are Vatican 2 Catholics. Some are Brethren, some are Brethren in Christ, and some are United Brethren in Christ. Or it may be some other distinction. “I am a Boomer and you are Gen X” or “I am relational and you are task oriented” or “I am introverted and you are extroverted”. We need to focus on our commonality, to be “united in thought and purpose”. We are all God’s children. God loves us and calls us to love others. If we lived out our common purpose instead of being distracted by the differences imagine what we could accomplish!

Mark Wallace