I have always understood that Paul and Apollos are two believers working in harmony. So I’m glad you are arguing that, “They are two believers who work together in service to the church and in harmony with each other. In this they are positive exemplars for a church divided and invested in a wisdom of honor and distinction of status.”
The scholarship of recent decades which has argued that the factions in Corinth were divided over whether Apollos was wiser (and greater) than Paul, strikes me as unsound in that it lacks the humility which Paul is calling us to emulate and embrace.
In my experience, people who are motivated by fleshly pride and ambition will read those qualities into the apostles and the prophets even though those qualities do not appear in the apostles and prophets.
1 Cor 2:14-15 (NMB)
For the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God. For they are but foolishness to him. Nor can he perceive them, because they are spiritually examined. But he who is spiritual evaluates all things. Yet he himself is judged by no man.
I am really enjoying this series. Thank-you!
I have always understood that Paul and Apollos are two believers working in harmony. So I’m glad you are arguing that, “They are two believers who work together in service to the church and in harmony with each other. In this they are positive exemplars for a church divided and invested in a wisdom of honor and distinction of status.”
The scholarship of recent decades which has argued that the factions in Corinth were divided over whether Apollos was wiser (and greater) than Paul, strikes me as unsound in that it lacks the humility which Paul is calling us to emulate and embrace.
In my experience, people who are motivated by fleshly pride and ambition will read those qualities into the apostles and the prophets even though those qualities do not appear in the apostles and prophets.
1 Cor 2:14-15 (NMB)
For the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God. For they are but foolishness to him. Nor can he perceive them, because they are spiritually examined. But he who is spiritual evaluates all things. Yet he himself is judged by no man.