Name Dropping – The Lowedown

1 Corinthians 1

¹⁰I appeal to you, brothers,] in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. ¹¹My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. ¹²What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas’”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

¹³Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? ¹⁴I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. ¹⁶(Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) ¹⁷For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1 Corinthians 1:10-17, NIV)

The Daily DAVEotional

What is required for salvation?

That’s a basic question that every religious system should be able to answer.

Traditional Christianity says that salvation comes to those who place their faith in Jesus, who died on a cross to pay the penalty that we deserve for our sins.

However, there are some within the Christian tradition who hold to the view that baptism is an essential step in the salvation process. So in addition to believing in Jesus, one must also be physically baptized, with water, in order to be fully saved.

Is this true? Does one need to be baptized in order to be saved?

I think this passage in 1 Corinthians gives us some insight to address this question.

The context of this passage is that Paul is addressing some problems in the Corinthian church that were creating divisions.

The source of these divisions is that people in the church were aligning themselves with different leaders. I wrote about this passage and the divisions that we can experience in my blog post “Name Dropping in the Early Church”, as well as my post, “Political Divisions within the Church”.

What’s interesting about this passage, though, is that Paul, while addressing the divisions that were occurring in the church, tangentially speaks to the issue of baptism.

Click here to see a A Comprehensive List of Blog Posts Based on Bible Passage Reference

The source of the divisions is that people in the church were aligning themselves with various leaders. These leaders were becoming the central figure for each faction instead of Jesus being the central figure for the whole church. So in essence, you had the Paul faction, the Apollos faction, the Cephas faction and so on.

Paul’s argument is that Jesus isn’t divided. Therefore, his church shouldn’t be divided into factions of people who are identifying with certain popular figures. Instead, the church should be united with everyone identifying with and following Jesus.

To make his case, Paul asks a number of rhetorical questions:

Was Paul crucified for you? (Obviously, the answer is NO)

Were you baptized into the name of Paul? (Again, the answer is obviously NO)

Paul then makes an interesting statement. He says that he is thankful that he didn’t baptize many of the Corinthians. He is glad about that because then they could not claim to have been baptized into Paul’s name. Paul did not want believers making him more important than Jesus.

This begs the question: if baptism is essential for salvation, why would Paul be thankful and glad that he didn’t baptize many people? Wouldn’t he be sad that he hadn’t been able to save many people?

Paul completes his thought with the following statement:

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel

it’s easy to gloss over this statement but what’s important is the fact that Paul is claiming that his goal, his mandate, was to preach the gospel.

A question I have often asked people when engaging in this discussion:

If a person responds to the gospel, will they be saved?

I think most Christians would agree that the gospel message contains everything that is necessary for a person to become saved if they respond positively to the message.

In fact, Paul, n Romans 1:16-17 says,

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹⁷For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.

According to Paul, the gospel “is the power of God unto salvation.”

Now if the gospel message saves people and Paul says that he was sent by Christ to preach the gospel and NOT baptize people, then clearly, baptism is NOT a part of the salvation message, which means it is NOT necessary for a person to be saved.

This does not mean that baptism is not important or that there isn’t some significance to it. There is. It’s just not necessary to be saved.

To learn more about what baptism is and its significance to the Christian, please read the following related posts:

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Reflection

What do you think are the essential elements of the gospel message?

If baptism is necessary for salvation why does Paul say that Jesus did not send him to baptize but to preach the gospel?

If baptism is NOT necessary for salvation, what is the purpose? Why is it practiced?

In verse 13, Paul asks the question, “were you baptized into the name of Paul?” What do you think that means? What does it mean to be baptized “into the name” of another person? How does this understanding of the word “baptize” shed light on the issue of whether baptism is necessary for salvation or not?

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1 Corinthians 1

¹⁰Now, dear brothers and sisters, I appeal to you by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so there won’t be divisions in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. ¹¹For some members of Chloe’s household have told me about your arguments, dear brothers and sisters. ¹²Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter, ” or “I follow only Christ.” ¹³Can Christ be divided into pieces?

Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? ¹⁴I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵for now no one can say they were baptized in my name. ¹⁶(Oh yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. I don’t remember baptizing anyone else.) ¹⁷For Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the Good News—and not with clever speeches and high-sounding ideas, for fear that the cross of Christ would lose its power. (1 Corinthians 1:10-17, NLT)

The Daily DAVEotional

We live in an age where social media, podcasts and the internet have made it easier than ever for pastors and ministry leaders to attain “celebrity” status. Write a book, start a podcast, gain a large online following, embark on the speaking circuit demanding ever larger fees, and pretty soon, you’ve become famous within the Evangelical church, with your status being measured by how many Twitter followers you have or how many subscribe to your podcast.

Not surprisingly, many Christians today choose to align themselves with various Christian leaders. They buy and read all their books, watch all their podcasts and quote/retweet everything they say.

This isn’t just a modern phenomenon apparently, as even in the early formation of the church we see people segregating into different camps. It turns out that this was a major issue in the Corinthian church and one of the primary reasons Paul writes this first letter to its members. People in the church were aligning themselves with various leaders, such as Peter, Apollos, Paul and others.

This leadership affiliation was causing disunity as people were jockeying for position and attempting to gain an edge in the power structure.

Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with learning from and being influenced by godly men and women leaders within the church. But what Paul is addressing is more than that. It’s an obsession to be aligned with and connected to someone whose name association might elevate my own stature in the eyes of others.

We have a name for this in our culture. We call it name dropping, which is a practice whereby a person mentions the name or names of famous or important people in a story or a conversation in order to impress others and make themselves look better.

Paul says this is wrong and the primary reason for it is because it elevates people over the person of Christ. Jesus is the only one who has died for us and he’s the only person with whom we should be identifying.

There’s a second reason this practice is unadvisable and it’s not one that Paul mentions in this passage. That is, what happens when we become so closely aligned and affiliated with a “celebrity” Christian and then they have a moral failure?

Unfortunately, over the years, I’ve seen too many Christian leaders who had large followings succumb to various worldly temptations and thus disqualify themselves from ministry leadership. When we attach our leash to a leader who ends up experiencing a moral failure, our own reputation can inadvertently suffer.

Paul’s appeal is for unity in the church. The only way to achieve that unity is for believers to stop identifying as groupies of well-known Christian leaders and instead, identify with Jesus alone.

Reflection

Who are some well-known Christian leaders you yourself or others are prone to align with?

When have you experienced “name dropping”, either by yourself or someone else?

What do you think are some reasons why Christians are inclined to “name drop” other influential Christians?

How can you take advantage of the tremendous resources and teachings of Christian thought leaders while maintaining Jesus as the person with whom you primarily identify?

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash