We now come to the first problem in the church, disunity. Paul starts by making an appeal for perfect unity in mind and thought. Note that he is not settling for mere tolerance of one another, but is looking for a united church. We are the body of Christ and should be completely united.
This was how Paul wanted things to be, but the situation was that there were different groups forming, some claiming to follow Paul (without Paul's permission apparently), some Apollos, some Cephas (Peter) and the really holy ones were following Jesus! Note that none of these (certainly not Paul, Peter or Jesus, and probably not Apollos) had given permission for their names to be used in this way. We need to be aware that when disunity breaks out, factions will claim to be supporting or following a particular person and will make claims and say things on behalf of that person, that they have no right to do, and which the person knows nothing about.
The people were focusing on entirely the wrong things. Christ is not divided, no one else was crucified, there is only one name we are baptised into. We are sent to preach Christ, not ourselves.
Where does this leave us today with the church split into a myriad of different denominations, streams and groups, and many of these are split further? One word is a mess. More usefully, we first need to recognise that when Christ returns there will be one church, He will only have one bride! So all our denominations and groupings are only temporary. We need to be realistic and recognise that things will not change overnight, but we do need to know the destination.
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