Are You Obsessed with Christian Influencers?
Are you obsessed with Christian influencers? In a social media culture, it’s easy to find our favorite voices we like and become a member of their tribe. But this is something the Apostle Paul spoke against.
1 Corinthians 3-4
Today's Scripture Passage
A Few Thoughts to Consider
Are you obsessed with Christian influencers?
In a social media culture, it’s easy to find our favorite voices we like and become a member of their tribe. But this is something the Apostle Paul spoke against. In 1 Corinthians 3:1-4, he rebukes the Corinthians for their spiritual immaturity, describing them as “infants in Christ” who are not ready for solid spiritual food. Why are they infants? Because they’re more obsessed with following key figures than they are following Christ.
The two key figures were Apollos and Paul. Apollos was an early Christian preacher and a contemporary of Paul, who was mentioned several times in the New Testament. He was a Jewish man from Alexandria, known for being eloquent and well-versed in the Scriptures. Because Paul and Apollos presumably had differing leadership styles and slight differences of belief, those in the church at Corinth tended to pick sides.
This led to divisions and caused some to say, “I am with Paul,” and others to say, “I am with Apollos.” As Gordon Fee notes, “The real issue is their radically misguided perception of the nature of the church and its leadership, especially in this case the role of the church’s teachers.”[1] Speaking to this dilemma, Paul says,
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
Paul isn’t saying that these believers came to faith by believing in him or Apollos, but that “through them they came to believe in Christ.”[2] Because of this, there was natural loyalty that extended to one or the other—a loyalty that sometimes went too far. As Anthony C. Thiselton writes, “Whereas the Corinthian addressees place each minister in a different category and stand back to evaluate them, Paul places all those who share authentic ministry as God’s channels in one category.”[3]
