The following words were Paul’s assessment of the Corinthians when he wrote to them in the letter we call 1st Corinthians:
“[Y]ou are still influenced by the flesh. For since there is still jealousy and dissension among you, are you not influenced by the flesh and behaving like unregenerate people?” 1 Corinthians 3:3 NET
Paul admonished the Corinthians for having jealousy and dissension among them. What Paul meant in that phrase (jealousy and dissension) may not be exactly as you imagine, however. Of course, I will explain.
First of all, though, we need to understand that Paul wrote this letter to the Christians at Corinth. He was writing to people who were born again who were “still influenced by the flesh” , causing those Christians to behave “like unregenerate people”.
Christians today are also still influenced by the flesh, and we sometimes act like unregenerate people. And, that’s not okay!
God’s plan for you is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29) who is the “the exact representation of [God’s] being”. (Hebrews 1:3) God had same plan for the Corinthian Christians, and He has the same plan for all Christ followers today.
If I have time and focus enough, I will make this a series. Today, though, I want to focus on the influence Paul specifically identified the Corinthians – jealousy. (If you read the whole letter, you find that jealousy wasn’t the only issue, but it’s the one Paul leads with.)
The word translated as jealousy in this verse is ζῆλος, ου, ὁ (zelos), meaning eagerness, zeal, rivalry. (Biblehub) It is an onomatopoeic term that mimics the sound of water bubbling over from heat. It may even derive from the Greek world, zéō (“to boil”).
Zeal comes from the same root word (zē), which means “hot enough to boil”. This word can be used in the positive or the negative. It can be used metaphorically with many emotions such as boiling anger, burning love, burning zeal, etc.
A person who burns with zeal for God is exhibits a positive form of zelos, but a person who burns with zeal for idols exhibits a negative form of zelos. Burning passion for one’s spouse can be good (unless it gets possessive), but burning passion for someone else’s spouse is not good.
Paul pairs zelos with ἔρις, ιδος, ἡ (eris) in the verse quoted above, which means strife and is often translated as contention, strife, wrangling, or quarreling. It means to have a contentious spirit. Thus, zeal (zelos) with a contentious spirit (eris) is how Paul assesses some people in the church in Corinth.
That kind of zeal is caused by the influence of the flesh. That kind of zeal, Paul says, is unregenerate behavior, and needs to stop. So, what is Paul specifically talking about?
Paul is talking about the quarreling among them over who they follow: “One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’; still another, ‘I follow Christ.'” (1 Cor. 1:12) He comes to the point again in Chapter 3 when he says, “Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’” are you not mere human beings?”
Stop and think about that for a moment…. Don’t we still do that in the 21st Century, too? Paul says that this kind of attitude is worldliness; it is acting like “mere infants in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1); it is acting as of we are unregenerate.
If we are going to take Paul (and God) seriously, we should not allow ourselves to burn with a contentious spirit that leads to dissension with fellow Christians. With that in mind, let’s take a deeper dive into what I believe Paul is saying.
I have been meaning to write on unity in the Church for some time, but the subject has seemed too large for me to tackle. I am not a theologian. I took all the classes to be a religion major in college, but I didn’t hand in my thesis paper (on inerrancy), so I settled on being an English Literature major only.
Over the last 15 years, approximately, I been serious in reading Scripture and thinking (and writing) through the many difficult issues that face modern Christians. I have always been about “mere Christianity” since my earliest days as a Christ follower over 40 years ago, and I am convinced more than ever of the importance of being unified around basic or essential Christian principles.
My church is going through 1 Corinthians for the next several months or more, and the first chapter of the letter focuses on unity. I began writing about the need to be intentional – to agree – to end divisions and be unified in mind and purpose in Fighting for Unity in the Body of Christ.
I learned that the Greek word translated “mind” (or mindset”), nous, means more than just our thinking. It encompasses our attitude and disposition also. As we follow Jesus as he followed the Father, we should have same attitude/mindset that Jesus had.
Jesus is our pattern, and he calls us all to live as he lived, conforming to the same pattern he described when he said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35
Paul reminds us that Jesus left aside his privilege and humbled himself to become one of us. (Philippians 2) Paul adds that our knowledge and ability to fathom all mysteries are nothing if we don’t have love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-2) Therefore, our mindset – our attitude and disposition (love) toward one another – is vitally important in what it means to be unified in mind and purpose.
Unity does not just mean intellectual assent on matters of doctrine. Paul says that we only “know in part”. (1 Corinthians 13:12) We need to bear that mind, therefore, as we try to be obedient to the commandment to end divisions and be unified in mind and purpose.
This all begs the question, though: what mind and what purpose is Paul talking about? What is it that we must be intentional to agree about?
In the first article, I found some clues in the Greek meanings of the words translated “mind and purpose”, but they only scratch the surface. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, the Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich Lexicon, and the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament all agree that νοῦς (nous) (translated mind) refers not only to the intellect, understanding, or reasoning faculty; it it also encompasses the mindset or disposition of a person.
Doctrine is implied in the concept of being of one mind, but doctrine is not all that this word implies. In fact, the summary of the Law Jesus provided for us (love God and love neighbor) seems to emphasize attitude and action over intellectual, theological constructs.
That doesn’t mean that Jesus was not doing theology when he summarized the Law. In fact, I think it is safe to say that we do theology far less perfectly than Jesus did!
We tend to complicate theology, but Jesus simplified it. In simplifying it, though, Jesus was not discounting or minimizing the rationality and intellectual rigor of it. Rather, Jesus was prioritizing the intellectual aspect of knowledge below below love. As Paul says: even if we can fathom all mysteries and have all knowledge, we have nothing without love. Love, therefore, is the priority over knowledge and understanding.
As we have already seen, the mindset we adopt must also incorporate our disposition and attitude toward God and each other. Any doctrine divorced from these things is empty. It is like a clanging gong without a symphony.
I think it is safe to say that doctrine, by itself, is devoid of life. Knowledge and understanding are nothing without love. It seems to me that love, even without knowledge or understanding, is better than knowledge and understanding without love.
Some might say though, that love cannot be divorced from truth. Jesus said that he is the way, truth and the life, so truth is obviously important.
But, not all truth is of the same value. It is true that today is sunny and warm in the Chicago area, but that truth is not nearly as important as the truth that Jesus is God incarnate who died on the cross for our sin and rose from the dead to redeem us from sin and death.
Having the same mind and purpose implies that we agree to the certain key value and truth propositions. It cannot mean that all of us view all value and truth propositions the same way. As finite beings who know only in part, that would be impossible! So what does Paul mean?
I have been reading in 1st and 2nd Corinthians these last few weeks in the Bible reading plan I am following this year. My church is also focusing on 1 Corinthians for the next few months, and we have been in 1 Corinthians 1 for the last two weeks of sermons and small group discussions.
Paul wrote what we call 1st Corinthians to address divisions in the church, ethical issues, relational issues, and differences over religious practices (among other things). The overarching theme of this letter seems to be an attempt to get this local church in southern Greece on the same page. In the first bit of guidance Paul provides, he says:
I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree together, to end your divisions, and to be united by the same mind and purpose.
1 Corinthians 1:10
Unity (in Christ) is a focus of Paul in many of his letters: Romans 12:4-5; Ephesians 4:3-6, 13; Philippians 2:2; and Colossians 3:14. Peter also stressed like-mindedness in 1 Peter 3:8 (with sympathy, love, and compassion for one another in humility). John stressed love for one another in his letters (1 John 3 & 4; 2 John 1:5-6)) and working together. (3 John 1:8) James urged believers to be “peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” (James 3:17-18)
Paul, Peter, John and James are the pillars of the early church. Unity and love are stressed by them because it was stressed by Jesus. Jesus prayed for unity among the disciples and all who believed after them:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me— so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
JOhn 17:20-23
Jesus, of course, summarized the whole Law of God in two statements: Love God and love your neighbor. In his last extended discourse with the disciples at the Last Supper before the events unfolded that led to the cross, Jesus said:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
JOhn 13:34-35
Love is the new command from Jesus that summarizes all that God sought to teach His people through the Law and the Prophets Therefore, when Paul urges the Church to be unified, we need to pay attention!
I am not sure how to write about the things that I believe God has laid on my heart today. I will start, though, by explaining the combination of things that give rise to my thoughts, and I will try my best, relying on the leading of the Holy Spirit and whatever wisdom I have, in humility and full reliance upon the grace of God, to address these things that weigh on my heart today
My thoughts rise out of a combination of my daily scripture reading and regular podcast listening. I have been reading through the New Testament on a year long plan created by the Bible Project. I am in Romans 14 today. These are some excerpts from Romans 14 that stand out:
“Now receive the one who is weak in the faith, and do not have disputes over differing opinions…. “Who are you to pass judgment on another’s servant? [speaking of followers of Christ as servants of God]…. “But you who eat vegetables only – why do you judge your brother or sister? And you who eat everything – why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God…. So then, let us pursue what makes for peace and for building up one another.”
Romans 14:1,4, 10, 19
I have not reproduced the entire Chapter here to be efficient with space, but I encourage anyone who wants to dig in deeper to read all of Romans 14. I have added emphasis where the text has spoken to me.
Paul’s example of eating meat vs. not eating meat is one that doesn’t divide people in churches today, though it might divide vegans and vegetarians from “meat eaters” in our contemporary secular society. (What we eat and our religiosity about it has divided people, I guess, for 2000 years.)
“One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.”
Romans 14:2-3
Frankly, people tend to become divided over just about anything and everything. Paul uses the example of eating and of sacred days to illustrate his point about not despising and not judging each other when we have disagreements:
“One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.”
Romans 14:5-6
Paul says that each of us must give account to God for our own lives. Each of us must follow our own consciences that guide us with the help of the Holy Spirit, and we need to allow space with an attitude of grace for other people to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling in the same way.
Of course, we also have the Holy Spirit to guide us. How our own consciences and the Holy Spirit guide us is a bit of a mystery, though. They are not the same things. We have the Holy Spirit, but we also have our individual consciences. Paul references them both in his writings, and each plays a part in the way we understand and follow Christ in our lives.
The Holy Spirit, of course, is infallible, but our consciences are not.
And, that is the rub. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. We are finite beings, and our individual (and collective) perspectives are limited by the age we live in, the country and culture we are born in, our own abilities, experiences, and myriad factors that influence and shape us. How we internalize and process what the Holy Spirit “says” to us is going to vary from person to person and from people to people.
I recently heard someone say that we each approach Scripture from where we sit. People sit in difference “places” in respect to the Gospel at different times in history, in different cultures, and in different areas of the world. Experts in missions warn of the danger of unwittingly smuggling in our own human perspectives when we take the Gospel to different people groups.
The differences in perspective are not just factors for disparate people groups in far flung regions of the world. People in the seemingly homogenous sphere of the United States of America in the 21st Century are not so homogenous – even among Bible-believing, Jesus-loving people.
I’ll give you an example that stopped me in my tracks in 2016. Polls report that about 80% of people who identify as evangelical (which means white in political polls) voted for Trump, while 80% of blacks who attend church on a regular basis and are theologically conservative did not vote for Trump.
These are people who would largely agree with each other on traditional Christian values, but they “sit” in different places in respect to how they live out following Jesus politically. For white evangelicals, abortion is the political benchmark. For churchgoing blacks, racial and minority issues are paramount.
I should not have to say that God grieves all injustice and all sin. It’s easy to label each other “white supremacists” or “woke progressives” and miss the obvious fact that we all claim Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We all have the Holy Spirit to guide us, and we do the best we can from where we sit to follow the Spirit and our consciences.
Having listened to many black voices since 2016 (because I realized I was missing something), I learned that most black Christians believe that abortion is wrong. They believe in traditional family values, and they are at odds with the Democratic party on those issues. I also learned that a large segment of those “white evangelical’s” in political polls don’t even attend church more than once or twice a year, if that.
Another less controversial example from my own life illustrates what Paul talks about in Romans 14. I grew up in a family of responsible social drinkers. Family gatherings included a “cocktail hour” before meals, but I never observed family members getting drunk.
During my rebellious youth, and before I became a believer, however, I was a reckless, irresponsible drinker. I drank often and to great excess. When I became a Christian, I didn’t touch alcohol for many years, and I was tempted to believe that no one else should either.
My views on this subject have been tempered by the wisdom that comes with age and experience and the gentle grace of the Holy Spirit. Paul would say I was weak in my faith, and I admit that I became judgmental over it because I projected my weakness onto everyone else.
Paul says in Romans 14 that people who are weak in their own faith become judgmental. The danger of people who have a strong faith and a secure conscience is to despise those who are weaker. Paul urges us to resist both tendencies.
But, let me get to my point. I am increasingly concerned with judgmental attitudes over issues on a par with eating, drinking, and sacred days are doing damage in the modern Church. Paul would say that we need to focus our attention on “pursu[ing] what makes for peace and for building up one another.” Unfortunately, we spend far too much energy judging each other and tearing each other down.
This is nothing new, of course. Paul wrote an entire letter to the Church in Corinth that he led off with this exhortation:
“I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree together, to end your divisions, and to be united by the same mind and purpose.”
Go into all the world and tell the gospel to all creation
As I read through the New Testament this year as part of my daily reading plan, I have finished the Gospels, and I am well into the Book of Acts. As I read through the Gospels, I was mindful of the context in location, time period, and the history of the area and the people of Israel, surrounding nations, and the Greco-Roman world leading up to the time that Jesus walked the earth. I have also been mindful of the sweep of this history as it has played out since that time to the present day.
As a believer in the story of God revealing himself to human beings in this history that we continue to live into, I am also mindful that this time was pivotal. God becoming incarnate (taking on human form and fully living into His own creation), is the centerpiece of our story. It ties the story together from the beginning to the end that will play out into the future fulfillment of God’s ultimate plans.
Abraham and his descendants have been the focus of this story from the time that he heard God encouraging him to leave his family and homeland and strike out to a land God would show him, full of the promise descendants as numerous as the sands of the shores of the sea and the stars in the sky. But the story has taken an unexpected turn – unexpected, at least, for those descendants who have been living into this story for millennia by the time of Christ.
But it shouldn’t have been unexpected. That original promise to Abraham included blessing for all the nations of the earth. This was God’s plan from the beginning – from the creation of Adam and Eve and the command to “be fruitful and multiply.”
The covenant God made with Moses with those descendants of Abraham, however, took on a life of its own – at least as far as they perceived it. They were (more or less) faithful to that covenant. At least, they clung to that story despite their failings to be faithful and despite their myopic view of what God was doing.
It was myopic because they lost sight of God’s intention to bless the nations of the earth through them. This blessing was embedded into the original promise to Abraham, and it was always intended to be part of the story. Yet, they had lost that thread.
Thus, when God entered into the story to move it along and begin to work out the thread of His ultimate plan, they didn’t recognize Him. The people God chose through whom He would work out this plan unwittingly resisted it.
Yet, God in His sovereignty was not surprised by this. He used their resistance to move the story forward. Jesus knew this when he read from the Isaiah scroll in his hometown synagogue:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Luke 4:18-19
When Jesus told them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”, they were not ready to receive it, though the fulfillment of it was long-awaited by them. Jesus knew their rejection of him would be the catalyst God would use to unfold the rest of the story:
“Jesus said to them, ‘Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
Luke 4:23
Jesus, the fullness of God in human form (Col. 2:9), knew he would die at the insistence of his own people, but this was meant to be.
“And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!”
Pjilippians 2:8
God worked through this people He chose to prepare for the time He would enter the story, and their rejection of Him would be the turning point.
Navigating by Faith 