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Were the Corinthians wrestling over being immersed or were they chalking up points re: who had done the baptising? And was the problem only over the points about baptism or about "parties" growing out of the loyalties engendered?

Great post Bobby, I remain amazed at some of the minor disagreements that people point to as a sure sign of unacceptable error.

Since baptism seems to be a part of this, I would like to ask something.  Is God's work in our lives limited to what we understand?  Does God's power depend on our understanding of it?  Does God only operate in our lives on our level?

Reason for asking, you take the example of the baptists that was put forth.  Here are a people who are seeking to follow God.  They have a different understanding of baptism than most of us would, but they do it to follow the example, right?  So, if they follow the example of Christ, and partake in water immersion, are they not as saved as we?  Just because they do not understand it to be the point of salvation as we do, does God not save them as well?  They are following the pattern, just with a different understanding.

Just a question for you.

In Him,

Rob

Janine, Arkstfan, MASouth, 1Hope and Rob thanks for taking the time to read my post.  First about baptism.  First I do not think we will ever know the specifics of the problems over baptism. But we do know that their baptismal practices was leading to some kind of schism and sectarianism i the church.  They had less than 100% perfect baptismal theology.  Further Paul makes it crystal clear it matters not who does the baptizing (those of Apollos, Cephas or Paul -- one could substitute: baptist, Church of Christ, etc). Paul is remarkably clear that baptism was not to become something to wrangle over:

"For Christ did not send me to baptize
but to preach the Gospel,
not with words of eloquent wisdom,
lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."  

They were making the act of baptism more important than the cross thus emptying its power.  Baptism, when it obscures the cross, is the enemy of the Cross.  But when it is understood properly it PROCLAIMS -- not itself -- the wisdom of God in the cross of Christ.

But Paul makes it clear that even with the problems over baptism they were collectively still the Church of God.  When we encounter folks with less than "perfect" baptismal theology, do we extend that same grace to them that Paul did the Corinthians?

Further I am convinced that is is our overemphasis on baptism that causes us to zero in on that.  Look at the problems at Corinth: monotheism?  Come on, now that is important!  The resurrection -- baptism is nothing without that!  The entire argument of ch. 8 shows the superiority of love to "correct" and "precise" knowledge.  Paul clearly says that "for us there is One God . . ." (v.6) and then in v.8 he just as clearly says "However, not all possess THIS knowledge . . ."  The entire argument of ch.8 is that spiritual love and maturity demonstrate itself by accomodating the one with false knowledge.  Knowledge puffs up but love builds up (Richard Oster in his NIV College Press Commentary on 1 Corinthians has the best info I've seen on this monotheism/paganism in ch.8 -- check it out).  A congregation that has that severe "doctrinal" misinformation was to be loved and cherished -- not blacklisted.

Rob and 1Hope my first ministry (as associate minister) was with a congregation that required the use of the KJV and a tie and jacket anytime you were in front of the congregation.  Using the NIV was in fact a mark of being a false teacher (though neither the preacher nor any of the elders knew the difference between an Alpha and an Aleph they knew how to make final judgement on a translation).  

As I said before, we do have come to accept division as a way of life.

1Hope you are right we need to reexamine ourselves.  I suggested this resource in the book review section:

http://www.gracecentered.com/cgi-bin....=7;t=12

I believe it is worthy of attention and a great tool for elders and Bible class teachers to help us rediscover not only ourselves but our identity as a unity movement.

May God Help Us,
Bobby Valentine
[a href=\"mailto:bvalentine@dixie-net.com\"]bvalentine@dixie-net.com[/a]

Hmmm, I bet you would find a lot of different responses to all of those in any given congregation.  I wonder how many would sit down with each one and look at what the Bible has to say about each one.

MaSouth

I agree with Arkstfan's list, but I will add a few.

funerals and weddings held in the church building
gymns
church name
many forms of benevolence outreach
youth ministers, childrens ministers or any paid fulltime minister


Susie

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (Arkstfan @ May 15 2002,2:16)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--][!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Could you give an example of a minor disagreement that people point to as a sure sign of unacceptable error?[/quote]
Clapping
hand raising
using songs written since 1972
kitchens
children's homes
proper way to dress
opaque vs. clear lecturn vs. no lecturn
allowing a person who has an "unscriptural" divorce to be a member (not to mention teach a class!)
allowing women to do anything other than clean the building, teach classes for the little ones, or bring something to the potluck[/quote]
Arkstfan, you are pretty much on the money with your list, but we can add a few to it.

1) Sunday schools (actual division in the Churches of Christ over this in the1920's)
2) Use of printed educational materials (for those who accepted Sunday Schools)
3) Reading fiction, playing cards, attending theater, playing baseball
4) Mixed "bathing" (as it was called), "bobbed" hair
5) Using unfermented grape juice and using fermented wine

And in light of our now defunct conversation in the "Politics" section I though you would find this at least interesting.  There were in fact churches that debated and defended as sound doctrine that black people "had no souls."  I came across this announcement during the research for my thesis:

"Bro. E.A. Bedichek and Bro. W. Jones debated the following remarkable propositions at Cedar Hill, Texas,:
'1. The Scriptures teach that the negro of the Old and New Testament times possesses a soul, the same as a white man, and is included in the commission as given by Christ as a subject of gospel address. Bedichek affirms.
2. The Scriptures teach that the Negro of the Old and New Testament times is a beast, identical with the beast of the field, and without a soul as possessed by the white man. Jones affirms."

This is from Burnett's Budget, February 15, 1908, p. 3.  BB was a popular monthly among Churches of Christ until its editor, T.R. Burnett, died in 1916.

So our list of things to divide over ranges from the stupid to something of importance.  The interesting thing,  however, is we would withdraw over Sunday Schools but not the overt racism in the debate reported in BB.

May God Have Mercy Upon Us,
Bobby Valentine
[a href=\"mailto:bvalentine@dixie-net.com\"]bvalentine@dixie-net.com[/a]

I sometimes find myself making a rather mournful statement, along the lines of Rodney King's "can't we all just get along" line.

Sometimes I even say it out loud.  Sometimes people hear me and agree.

"Why can't we all hold up the Christ and follow Him?"

Here I am, a Christian for not quite 20 years and not even 40 years old yet, and I wanna go home! :(

I have been deeply interested in this issue of "fellowship."  I read various
passages in the NT that -- seemingly -- make unity a foundational/CORE
matter to God.  Entire letters in the NT are dedicated to the theme:
Philippians is written in its entirety on this theme and how to
achieve/maintain unity/fellowship (cf. especially Gordon Fee's outstanding
Commentary in the NICNT series) and Ephesians is also dominated by the
theology of oneness in Christ.  Plenty of other passages seem to make unity a "mark of the church." If this is so then WE are not a "restored" church.

I ask, in light of our discussion regarding the Baptists especially, if any
poster here is aware of a Baptist Congregation that has as many, and as
severe problems as the Church of God at Corinth??  Which congregation among the Churches of Christ has those grave issues.  You will recall them:

1) They had division and partyism (baptism played a KEY role in this
   schism)
2) They had "issues" with Paul's authority and apostleship
3) They not only had sexual perversion but openly approved of it as a sign
  of superior wisdom
4) They had lawsuits in public court destroying the unity and witness of the
   Body
5) They had problems regarding sexuality, marriage and asceticism
6) They had folks who still had not accepted the doctrine of monotheism
  (cf. 8.7)
7) They had huge issues regarding worship: problems with the Lord's
   Supper
8) They had huge issues over spiritual gifts
9) They even had folks who denied the resurrection
10) They seem to have had a great lack of love for one another

Now please tell me what Baptist church has these severe doctrinal issues?
Yet amazingly Paul calls them "the church of God . . . to those SANCTIFIED
in Christ Jesus . . ."  Paul then says "I ALWAYS thank God for you because
of his grace given you in Jesus . . ."

I for one am convinced that IF we had a congregation half as bad as this one even Wineskins would have written them off!  But not so with Paul.  Our little disagreement with the Baptists over the TIMING of remission is quite insignificant when compared to denying the resurrection! As I have shown from my posts (Sayings on Rebaptism) the issue of timing is inconsequential as long as folks still obey God.  I have never in my life met a Baptist that said we should NOT be baptised.  I have never in my life met a Baptist that had not accepted monotheism. As Alexander Campbell once said of the Baptists, "I can do no less for them than what Paul did for the Corinthians."

If you have not read my post, Campbell, Baptists and Fellowship, I encourage you to do so.  I think Alex was on to something.

My question is do we really take seriously the commands to MAINTAIN the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace?  Paul took it very seriously.

Struggling, so help me out.

His Mark +
Bobby Valentine
[a href=\"mailto:bvalentine@dixie-net.com\"]bvalentine@dixie-net.com[/a]

They were chalking up points on who had done the baptizing.  The context shows the doctrine of  baptism was not in question, but rather the Corinthian church was rallying around different personalites.  I think this was commented on somewhere else, wasn't it?

MaSouth

Arkstfan,

Could you give an example of a minor disagreement that people point to as a sure sign of unacceptable error?

Thanks,
MaSouth

MASouth
I know of places where you are only allowed to read from the KJV and anything else is simply not allowed. How about one cup verses many, or having to wear a coat and tie to serve the LS.
If unity is a characteristic of Jesus' disciples, we had better reexamine ourselves as our history is full of division.

Bobby,

I could't agree with you more.  As one who is a member of a Baptist Church and who has been attending a Church of Christ for the past six months, I see Godly christians in both churches. In fact, I think but for a couple of issues preachers of both churches could exchange pulpits and receive hearty amens to their message.

The pulpit minister of the Church of Christ that I am attending is good friends with the pastor of a large Baptist church down the street. I think that is absolutely great!!

You are right in that we do have to accept division as a way of life, that is-- division in the matter of non essentials.  However, we must seek unity in the matter of essentials and fellowship.  

I know this, I love the brethern no matter what church they attend.  

mrbill

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (MASouth @ May 14 2002,6:44)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Could you give an example of a minor disagreement that people point to as a sure sign of unacceptable error?[/quote]
Clapping
hand raising
using songs written since 1972
kitchens
children's homes
proper way to dress
opaque vs. clear lecturn vs. no lecturn
allowing a person who has an "unscriptural" divorce to be a member (not to mention teach a class!)
allowing women to do anything other than clean the building, teach classes for the little ones, or bring something to the potluck

Actually, a few of those produced a little chuckle, like the songs since 1972 and the lecturns.  

MaSouth

And let's not forget to add our "correctness" in HOW we baptized as opposed to why. I wonder if Philip would have been picked apart for baptizing someone along the roadside without the proper baptismal or if his authority would have been questioned. Or as Ark said about women--"allowing women to do anything other than clean the building, teach classes for the little ones, or bring something to the potluck"--isn't leadership serving? We have it all a little upside down, at times, don't we?

seekr

The older I get the more aware of my failings and lack of knolwedge about God I become.  But, thanks be to God, I also become more aware that I rest in the justified state of the perfect one whose clothes I am wearing.  The discussion of doctrinal error caused me to ask, "is not all error, 'doctrinal"? Doctrine is generally agreed to be "DIDACHE" or "teaching".  I suppose if that is correct, then any teaching we violate is doctrinal error.  Seems to me that some of the preachers who taught me as a lad insisted that "doctrinal" error would send us to hell as well as moral sins.  There was always some gray area, neither fish nor fowl, that didn't matter much.  But woe to those comitting "doctrinal" error and moral sins.  This is why I developed at an early age an insistance that if it doesn't make sense, "don't adopt it" and spout it off as though we are fully confidnat of the truthfulness of it.  It ocurrs to me that we should avoid all sin and error and concentrate more on our personal relationship with Christ rather than collective relationship with others.  When I get together with other saints from time to time, instead of doing a mental x-ray to try to determine if they have done the right things, for the right reason, at the right time, and at the hands of the right preacher who teaches the right thing in a group who call themselves the right name, I can pay more attention to encouraging those who are struggling as I am.

I commented on the idea I mention here in another thread because I am convinced, like Alvin and Janine, that we must move strongly into a desire to encourage and build up. This is a theme in much of 1st Corinthians. For example, in chapter 14 there is a great emphasis on doing whatever "builds up the church." i.e. acting in ways to make each other stronger Christians with more confidence in God. To be honest with you, in the last few months of my work with a church here I stopped asking people to attend, because I was concerned they would be "torn down," and I was the preacher! (I was not the one doing the tearing down).

Anyway, all of you are familiar with Paul's building metaphor in 1 Cor 3:10 ff. Kata ten charin tou Theou... "Based on God's grace, which was a gift to me, I as a wise master construction supervisor (literally architekton), put down a foundation and others are building on it, but each person needs to pay attention to how he builds...." There can be no real construction unless it is done on Christ! Not your ideas, not my ideas, but Christ! The Apostle then develops the idea that some build better and more permanently than others. Some really do great work and others do not build very efficiently. But even the least efficient builder is not lost, he or she is saved! Why? Because they are builders. Maybe they have little to show for it after all is said and done, but they did try and build, and are saved.

In contrast, immediately after this, the destroyers are mentioned. These persons are really good at what they do, and what they do is banish the Holy Spirit from the church. Their fate? "God will destroy them!"

So, would you rather be a builder or a destroyer?