📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 1:12
What does 1 Corinthians 1:12 mean?
"Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas,” and, “I follow Christ.”"
— 1 Corinthians 1:12 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are from Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you.
Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas,” and, “I follow Christ.”
Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?
I thank God that I baptized none of you, except Crispus and Gaius,
so that no one should say that I had baptized you into my own name.
Explanation
In this verse, Paul is describing a specific problem he has heard about in the Corinthian church: the believers there had splintered into competing factions, each one rallying around a different figure. Some claimed loyalty to Paul, others to Apollos, others to Cephas (Peter), and still others claimed to follow Christ alone, apparently using that claim to set themselves above the rest. Paul is not commending this behavior—he is naming it plainly so he can address it directly in the verses that follow.
The context is essential to understanding this verse rightly. Paul planted the church in Corinth, then later Apollos, a gifted teacher described in Acts 18 as eloquent and skilled in the Scriptures, taught there and strengthened the believers. Cephas, or Peter, was a leading apostle whose reputation and connection to Jesus's earthly ministry carried great weight. Corinth itself was a cosmopolitan Greek city that prized rhetoric, status, and philosophical schools of thought, and it seems the believers had imported that same culture of rivalry and personality-based allegiance into the church. Rather than seeing these teachers as fellow servants working toward the same gospel purpose, the Corinthians began ranking them and dividing into cliques, treating the church like a competition of intellectual factions.
Theologically, this verse exposes a deep misunderstanding of the gospel and the nature of the church. Paul's larger argument in this letter (see especially verses 13 and following) is that Christ cannot be divided, and that the church's unity flows from its shared fo
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