Is Christ Divided?
Born and bred in the Baptist evangelical milieu of Uruguay, my son once remarked it was nearly impossible for me to be anything but Baptist. He wasn’t wrong.
My upbringing, my way of reading the Bible, my church experience, even my vocabulary were profoundly shaped by this environment. But that never meant living closed off within it. From a young age, I interacted with Pentecostals, Catholics, and free churches. Later came Mennonites, Lutherans, Waldensians, Presbyterians, and others. Perhaps that’s why the question always seemed more intriguing than bothersome: if we are part of a single Church, one in Christ, why so many identities?
The quickest answer would be to say there shouldn’t be any.
And it’s not a foolish argument.
In Corinth, those from Chloe’s household sought out Paul because the church was splitting into factions: “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas,” “I follow Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:11-13). It’s not hard to imagine how this played out. Paul had his history, his background, his way of thinking. Apollos was eloquent and knowledgeable in the Scriptures (Acts 18:24). Peter carried a different trajectory, a different temperament, a different way of speaking.
If we want to be simplistic, it’s easy to solve: everyone abandons their preferences, and that’s that.
But Paul doesn’t resolve it that way.
He asks three questions: Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? The answer is no, no, and no. The problem, therefore, isn’t that Paul, Apollos, and Cephas are different. The problem is that these differences began to claim a place that doesn’t belong to them.
Shortly after, Paul mentions he baptized few and returns to what he understood as his predominant calling: to preach the gospel (1 Corinthians 1:14-17). He distinguishes functions. He doesn’t make them all the same thing. Later, he will say plainly: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6).
One planted. Another watered.
It’s hard to get clearer than that.
Paul doesn’t erase Apollos. Apollos doesn’t need to become Paul for the church to be one. The difference isn’t treated as a flaw to be corrected. The flaw appears when a relative difference becomes an absolute identity.
This changes the conversation about denominations a bit.
Paul isn’t talking about them, of course. It would be anachronistic to pretend he is. But the text already dismantles an important presupposition: unity doesn’t require equality of temperament, function, emphasis, or form.
And perhaps we’ve made a lasting confusion between two things the Bible doesn’t confuse so easily: difference and division.
Difference can serve.
Division loves to compete.
The first can enrich the body. The second begins when the body forgets who is the head.