1 Corinthians 1:10 - Exposition

Now . The particle implies the transition from thanksgiving to reproof. Brethren . This very title involves an appeal to them to aim at unity among themselves; and St. Paul, like St. James (v. 10), uses it to soften any austerity which might seem to exist in his language ( 1 Corinthians 7:29 ; 1 Corinthians 10:1 ; 1 Corinthians 14:20 , etc.). Through the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; that is, by the whole idea of Christ's being and office—the strongest bond of union between true Christians (see the powerful appeal in Ephesians 4:1-6 ). That ye all speak the same thing; that is, "that ye may all with one mind and one mouth glorify God" ( Romans 15:6 ). They were doing the very reverse—each glorifying himself and his party (verse 12). Divisions ( σχίσματα ) ; "schisms" used of bodies within the Church, not of separatists from it ( 1 Corinthians 11:18 ). The word is only used in this special sense in this Epistle. In Matthew 9:16 and Mark 2:21 schisma means "a rent;" in John ( John 7:43 ; John 9:16 ; John 10:16 ), "a division of opinion." There would be little or no harm in the schismata so far as they affected unessential points, if it was not their fatal tendency to end in "contentions" ( erides ) and "factions" ( haireseis, 1 Corinthians 11:19 ). Corinth was a place where such divisions would be likely to spring up, partly from the disputatious vivacity and intellectual conceits of the inhabitants, partly from the multitudes of strangers who constantly visited the port, partly from the numerous diversities of previous training through which the various sections of converts had passed. Perfected together; literally, repaired, reunited. In the same mind and in the same judgment ; that is, in what they think and believe ( νοΐ̀ ), and in what they assert and do ( γνώμῃ ). The exhortation, "be of one mind," in every sense of the word, was as necessary in the ancient as in the modern Church ( Romans 15:5 ; 2 Corinthians 13:11 ; Philippians 1:27 ; Philippians 2:2 ; 1 Peter 3:8 ).