NOTES for Co1 1:10-17

Texts from Holy Scripture often give rise to many interpretations. People perceive the paradoxical words of the New Testament in different ways. But today’s text is not like that. Having read it, one cannot invent any meaning other than the one the apostle placed in it. Paul often writes in strange and difficult language, expressing in words what a human being is incapable of expressing. Today, however, we read a simple and readily understandable text. He implores us to live in unity and not to seek grounds for division.

Unity is one of the most difficult things for any group of people to attain. This is shown, if by nothing else, by the fact that the apostle writes this in one of his earliest letters, when even those who knew Christ personally were still alive. Yet disputes and quarrels, arrogance and pride had already settled in the Church. That is why the one argument the apostle uses, the one capable of stopping hatred and destroying evil, appears immediately in the text: he implores them by the name of Jesus Christ. For He alone is able to restore and save what has perished in hostility and hatred.