1 Corinthians 3
Christianity worships only one God. However, we do not know the number of Christian denominations in the world. Christ himself established his Church on Peter. And the apostles and disciples went out to evangelize as Jesus commanded. This is what we confess in the Nicene-Constantinople Creed: the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Though there are many communities of the faithful, there is one Church Christ himself founded on the apostles for all peoples in the world for their sanctification and salvation that will be completed in the resurrection. Therefore, all true churches must come from the apostolic foundation. In other words, there must be successions of the apostleship within the churches. More concretely, these successions are expressed in the valid ordinations of bishops and priests. Why are these successions or ordinations important? It’s because through them selected men are properly formed and conformed to Christ’s priesthood. And through Christ’s priesthood, Christians worship God properly and receive God’s grace.
Nevertheless, throughout the history of the Church, many bishops and priests ignored that they were servants for Christ. And many Christians attached themselves to these bishops and priests rather than to Christ. “I belong to Paul,” “I belong to Apollos.” The Christians in Corinth were divided. There must have been more than one excuse for this division. But, one thing for sure is that Christ could not be an excuse for the division.
The Lord is one and the Lord is the same. The Lord provides everyone with all good things. Ordained ministers are his servants. “What is then Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.”
When we lose sight of Christ, we become people of the flesh who follow the laws and values of the world – political autonomy, financial independence, self-governance, centralization for efficiency, pluralization for inclusiveness, and so on. Do these values help our salvation? Very often these become secret motives for divisions in the Church. There have been very few schisms that were resulted purely from theology or orthodoxy – because we have the ultimate reference of faith, Christ Jesus.
Servants belong to their lord. We belong to one Lord, Christ Jesus.
