Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Today’s Book Installment)
The One True Church
Chapter 41 – Mark 5 of 10: Unity
The apostles would not allow denominations. For example, listen to Paul on the subject:
1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.
1 Corinthians 1:11 For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.
1 Corinthians 1:12 Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.”
1 Corinthians 1:13 Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
Paul returns to this theme in the third chapter of his letter. In doing so, he makes clear that an absence of spiritual maturity is what leads to an absence of unity.
1 Corinthians 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,
1 Corinthians 3:3 for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?
1 Corinthians 3:4 For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men?
1 Corinthians 3:5 What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.
1 Corinthians 3:6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.
1 Corinthians 3:7 So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.
1 Corinthians 3:8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
Later in the letter, Paul again condemns any hint of division in a church.
1 Corinthians 11:17 But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse.
1 Corinthians 11:18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it.
1 Corinthians 11:19 For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.
And yet again he here appeals for unity:
1 Corinthians 12:25 so that there may be no division in the body…
In their press for unity, the apostles were simply following their Master:
Mark 3:24 “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.”
Of all the marks of the one true church, this is the hardest one for institutional Christianity to fake or explain away.
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