NOTES for Co1 1:13
In his epistle to the Christians of Corinth, Paul, as seen, speaks about a certain division in the Corinthian church, about certain parties formed in the church or near church things. It is of course difficult now to say exactly, what was the nature of the conflict, but, according to Paul's words, it comes to think that it was about groups formed around various teachers or preachers, connected to the church of Corinth. And, as seen, it sometimes happened that the followers behind their instructors sometimes ceased to see the Christ, forgetting very often the sense of Christianity. The apostle, according to his words, tried not to go into details of disputes.
He asks a simple question: who was crucified for you? Who revealed to you the Kingdom? One of your teachers or instructors? Or is Christ? Paul does not try to use theological arguments, he is not interested in the details of the dogma or the religious conception of the world of these groups that have arisen in the Corinthian church. And not because he didn’t have enough knowledge to understand all this. He simply remembers well as seen, what many of his Corinthian coreligionists began to forget: Christianity is not a religion, and the church is not a theological academy and either a club of the intellectuals of religion.
Jesus came into the world and died on the cross not for this, to give to the world a new religion, a new theology or a new morality, but to reveal to the world the Kingdom. And the Church was established by Him, as a community of persons living in the Kingdom. Of course, for the witness of the Kingdom, can be useful and religion, and theology, and morality. But not when they pass in the foreground, such that the disputes on these questions begin to determine all the life of the church community, until the division.
If such a thing happened, then Christ is already forgotten in this community, and the church, in fact, stopped being a church, being transformed into an ordinary religious organization. And Paul is tremendously against such a transformation. For, he became after the meeting with the Resuscitated on the road to Damascus, an inhabitant of the Kingdom, and not a follower of the new religion. And he calls the Christians of Corinth to the same thing: to be inhabitants of the Kingdom.