"I'm Just a Bible-Believer!"

1 Corinthians 1:12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.

How many times have you heard good preachers say things like, "Yeah, some people say they are X and others say they are X. But, bless God, I'm just a Bible believer!" (You can plug in your choice of doctrinal differences for the X's.) The idea is this, both parties have problems with them, so I'm simply going to follow what the Bible says.

Now, this is the right stance to take - let's get that out of the way. However, when you look at 1 Corinthians 1:12, the contentious people at the church of Corinth were following different personalities, if you will, and saying that "I'm a Pauline, I'm an Apollite, I'm a Cephan, I'm a Chrisitan..." (I had fun making up those names!) Notice that one of the contentious group of people which Paul is chargin here was saying, "I am of Christ."

That group of people, the "I am of Christ" group, is just as guilty as those that are saying to be of Paul. The fact of the matter is that we all should follow Christ and not just say that we are. Don't be mad when people are willing to accept "labels" to simply help establish their beliefs - that's not the problem. Now, when you follow your group-label to a contentious point, well, now you really have stopped following Christ's example.

Anyway, just a divisive thought...