Disunity then in the body is a contradiction of Christ who is not divided. He is not rent a

sunder. He is whole. To live in disunity is to contradict who we are as the body of Christ.

Since disunity is a contradiction of the undivided Christ, then getting clearer on who Christ is

and what he's done is essential in our pursuit of unity. That's the focus of John Piper as he

looks at 1 Corinthians 1, 10 to 17 in this episode of light and truth. This sermon was originally

preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on January 24, 1998. What is the nature of the disunity

that Paul was meeting at Corinth? It's described in verses 11 and 12. Let's read these two verses.

For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you my brethren.

What I mean is that each of you says, I belong to Paul or I belong to a palace or I belong to

Seifas or I belong to Christ. Now what's the nature of this disunity? Evidently, what was happening

is that the church was lining up behind its favorite teacher and isolating and elevating

the distinctives of that teacher and boasting in them as better and deriving some kind of

substitutionary pleasure for having been in the train of this noteworthy teacher. Pride,

Paul's going to make plain in just a moment is the root of this disunity that boasts in one

teacher over another. But now before I give you the evidence from that from the text, I want to show

you how relevant this issue is today by just pointing out two ways that today the same boasting and

pride and dangers the church and our unity. Two expressions of this pride today. Let me describe

one. There is a broad danger throughout the church especially in a day where the media

present preachers and many churches are big like this one and ten times bigger, some of them

and people become notorious or famous depending on your attitude and the temptation just pervades

Christendom to align yourself with a star in order to get some of his glory.

Most of us feel like nobody's because we are. When you watch television, it's constantly

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