Paul opens his letter proper by diving into the deep end of the Corinthians morass to deal with the reports he has heard of divisions and quarrels among the leaders/members of the church. It is not difficult to see why he chose to do this. Anyone who has ever had the unhappy experience of living through such a crisis in his or her church knows how delibitating the church becomes, and how long-lasting is the damage done.
Because it is the starting point of our reading of the letter, it is particularly important that we pay particular attention to how we read it because, as Gordon Fee warns,1 it is easy to allow this image of division to colour everything else we read in the rest of the letter. That there were divisions and quarrels in the church is a fact. But this also leaves a great deal of uncertainty about it. How wide-spread were these divisions? To what extent and how were they affecting the week-to-week life of the church? Was it just the beginning of a "still-talking" but unhealty inclination towards particular preferences or had it descended into divisions along clearly demarcated party-lines? It should be noted that we hear no echoes of these divisions and quarrels in Paul's discussion of the other issues beyond Chap 4.2 This suggests that though the divisions and quarrels in the church in Corinth were significant, especially when they touched on Paul's authority as an apostle, they were not so delibitating that they coloured everything in the church.
This is also the longest section of Paul's already long letter. These four chapters do not make for easy reading. It takes several rounds of reading through the section in one sitting to begin to discern the flow of Paul's argument. (If you have not already done so, you should. I suggest at least five rounds.) Paul seems to repeat himself several times over, especially over the theme of wisdom. But even madness has its own logic, and Paul is not mad. Things become clearer when we recognize that Paul uses a ring-structure or chiasmus to frame his arguments:
A. Divisions & Quarrels, 1:10-19,
B. The Wisdom of the World that the Corinthians have Imbibed, 1:20-31,
C. Power, Not Eloquence or Wisdom, is the Essence of the Gospel, 2:1-5
B'. The Wisdom of God that the Corinthians Need to Imbibe, 2:6-16.
A'. Divisions & Quarrels, 3:1-23,
D. Conclusion: Practical Consideration, 4:1-21.
Paul begins by raising the subject of the divisions and quarrels that have been reported to him and appeals for unity (Sec A). This section ends with Paul asserting that he has not been called to baptize (and, therefore, perhaps signaling some as being above others) but to preach gospel, not with wisdom and eloquence (i.e., an air of being clever and sophisticated) but with the power of God. The problem with the Corinthians (suggests Sec B.) is that they are boasting in their divisions and quarrels the way they do because they have imbibed the wisdom of the world. That is not what the gospel is about. Indeed, Paul says, when he came to Corinth he did not preach with such eloquence but with the power of the Spirit's power "so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power" (Sec C). Yet, Paul goes on to say, among those who could really understand, "among the mature," Paul and his companions did speak a message of wisdom, but it was the wisdom of God that was revealed only by His Spirit (Sec B'). Among those who would not, however, Paul says he could only address them as "people who are still worldly" to whom he could only feed milk. This is evidenced by the facts of divisions and quarrels among themselves (Sec 1'). Paul concludes his response to the reports of divisions in Sec D, in which he sets out for the Corinthians a way of viewing what he and his companions are ("servants of Christ . . . entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed") and what they are and should not be.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2020