1 Cor 1:14-16 - Honour or Worship?

14-16 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)

This is a development from the original rebuke, which reminded us that we all follow Christ and not our fellow servants. Even when we submit to authority in the church we are not submitting to men but to Christ; the leaders are His servants for our good. So we always follow Christ and we never follow men - even when following Christ requires us to obey men. This is both fundamental and vital to a proper Christian life. If we go wrong here we are like the mariner who starts his journey being off by only a single degree, but ends up a thousand miles from his destination because his course is wrong.

All Christians always refer all things to Christ. This is why we test all things and hold fast to that which is good. This is why true Christian preachers and teachers encourage their hearers to test what they say. When you meet a preacher (usually a televangelist) who anathematizes those who question his teaching then run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. And if he says something like, "I wish I had a Holy Ghost machine gun to mow down those who criticize my ministry," you absolutely know that the person is beyond the pale.

We are an idolatrous race. Even Christians still harbour within themselves the imprint of the old idolatrous nature. It is where we gravitate to when we cease to watch and be on guard. We will turn to this guru or that personality, or this new teaching and that so-called "fresh" movement. We will run from place to place to hear the popular or famous or appealing teachers, often without any critical eye upon either them or ourselves. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people flock to hear Francis Frangipane or Tony Campolo, and to buy afterwards copies of everything these men ever uttered in print - and this without a hint of any attempt to discern whether what they teach is the gospel we first received, or a corruption of it.

Paul fully understood this mindset in his hearers. He knew the propensities of the human heart and he often reminded us of them in his letters to the churches; sometimes directly and at others times indirectly. For example, when He addressed the Ephesian elders in Ac 20:26-31 he warned about false teachers arising from among their own selves. He warned that they would draw many of the disciples after themselves. He admonished them to watch and remember what he had taught them. This was a stern warning.

A milder form is seen in this letter to the Corinthians. He is manifesting his concern for the tendency of all men to worship other men, or to make ritual their worship through sacerdotalism. When we see leaders performing sacred rites we readily make the mistake of thinking it is either the leader or the rite itself in which the blessing or the grace is contained. This is most fully developed in Roman Catholic theology with its reverence for Popes and cardinals and priests and rituals. They may say that some of these things are mere representations but the plain facts indicate that this is not what they mean or practice.

Paul abhors even the nascent or embryonic forms of this heresy. He abhors them so much that he would rather never have baptized any one than have them brag that they were baptized by him as if he, or the ritual baptism were anything. Neither accounts for anything in Paul’s eyes. He is a servant of God (the least of the brethren) and baptism is the outward sign of an inward reality. The fact that he understands that men in Corinth (men like us) are ready and willing to utterly carnalize these truths is a sad testimony to the awful condition of even saved people, and their need for constant teaching and reminders of what Christianity truly is.

And what it is, is the raising up of the Name of Jesus Christ on account of Whom all things are, and all salvation and sanctification that is manifested in the lives of men. There is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved. None. Paul knew it. Luke knew it because Peter knew it. {Ac 4:8-12} But these Corinthians had lost their way because they were building upon a foundation other than Jesus Christ. This doesn’t mean that they had lost their salvation. It means they had wandered, as all sheep do from time to time, and their great God and Saviour had sent His Word in the mouth of His Apostle as the very means by which all the true sheep should be kept in His hand. It is impossible for any of the true sheep to be lost, and God appoints the means by which He will finish in them the good work that He started. This is a true today as it was then.