When Loyalty Is Wrong

“I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord JesusChrist, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be nodivisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought…. WhatI mean is this: One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’;another, ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Wereyou baptized into the name of Paul?” (1 Corinthians 1:10, 12-13).

This appeal is followed by information on the divisions in thechurch. These divisions were not on theology or ecclesiology. The quarrelssimply were about loyalties to teachers. To our knowledge, the teachers wereeven in fellowship with each other.

These loyalties were sins and were to be repented of andforsaken. They were the cause of the divisions, the disunity, in the church.Today, they are still one of the major causes of divisions. However, today loyaltyis a good word; it is considered a virtue. When it comes to following teachers,however, loyalty is not a virtue. It is a sin—and it is hard to confesssomething as sin when we think it is a virtue. Nevertheless, confession of thissin must happen.

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