1 Corinthians 3:4-5
For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.
We are all natural drawn to certain types of people. We like to hang out with certain personalities or people of similar interest. Problems can occur when people pick favorites in a church, or perhaps favorite pastors or church leaders. It is not uncommon during an interim period, after a pastor has left, for the attendance to drop. There are many reasons for this, but one cause is that people were drawn to a church because of the pastor. This is not necessarily bad, but can create problems for a new pastor. Rivalry exists even in church and in ministry. As a pastor myself, I know the tremendous pressure to succeed and to be liked by people. Pastors put a lot of self-esteem into how people respond to them. These types of rivalries were causing problems in the Corinthian church as people took sides or liked certain preachers and teachers. This really just revealed the deeper spiritual problems of the people there. Likewise, choosing leaders and sides in church can reveal the spiritual immaturity of those who take such positions. Paul points the Corinthians back to the essential of putting Christ first.
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