1 Corinthians 3:3-5 (NIV) You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.

In life, there are people who lead and people who follow. Most people are followers. Out of those who lead, not many lead exceptionally well. Studies show that a significant portion of people who lead are either mediocre or ineffective. That makes for a bleak picture of things, doesn’t it? But at least we, as believers, have a different experience with those that are faith leaders...or do we? Unfortunately, there are a good number of people who go into ministry who have no business doing so because either their hearts are not fully surrendered to God or the Lord never called them in the first place. They cause a lot of disagreement and strife among the community of believers in Christ Jesus.

The Christians in Corinth didn’t have that problem in the first century. The Apostle Paul and his co-worker, Apollos, were awesome men of God who had a firm grasp of the gospel and who taught with integrity. But the believers still managed to find a downside to that. They aligned themselves under either Paul or Apollos and then argued with each other as to who was the better leader, or about which group had the better advantage. If people can’t boast about leading others, then they will boast about who they follow as a leader. Somehow, we as humans feel more important if we are following someone who we deem as important. It makes us feel superior to others if the leader that we follow is more prominent than the leader that others follow. The Apostle Paul, however, was having none of that. He quickly corrected that faulty thinking by bringing them back to the reality that he and Apollos were only servants of God. One was not more important than the other. On the contrary, they worked side by side to advance the good news about Jesus everywhere.

Paul was highlighting the most important thing for the believers at Corinth, and that was that the only one who is really important is God. Instead of considering themselves followers of Paul or of Apollos, he was teaching them to be followers of Christ. He was teaching them and us today to rise above being “mere humans” (as he put it) in the passage of scripture above. Let’s learn that lesson well and not get swell-headed about what church we belong to or what leader we follow. If we are going to do any boasting at all, let’s rise above our humanity and boast only in the Lord Jesus. After all, He is truly the only one worth boasting about!

Pastor Joey Vazquez