Whenever you read that word “servant” in the New Testament, you need to remember what it really means. Strictly speaking, in ancient times they did not have servants—at least not in the sense that we have in mind when we use that word. Rather, what they had were slaves. So when you read in the New Testament about somebody being a servant, generally that word translates the Greek word for slave, which is doulos. Thus, this is what we would expect Paul to be saying here. He considers himself as a slave of Christ.
Whenever you read that word “servant” in the New Testament, you need to remember what it really means. Strictly speaking, in ancient times they did not have servants—at least not in the sense that we have in mind when we use that word. Rather, what they had were slaves. So when you read in the New Testament about somebody being a servant, generally that word translates the Greek word for slave, which is doulos. Thus, this is what we would expect Paul to be saying here. He considers himself as a slave of Christ.
In this chapter, without in the slightest repudiating what he said before about the ministers of the church being servants, he adds a further dimension, which from his perspective is all important. “Yes,” Paul says, “ministers are servants of the people, but above all they are servants of Jesus Christ.” Paul, and by extension any other minister in the church, is ultimately answerable to Jesus.
As we come to the end of 1 Corinthians 3, Paul brings us back to this matter of divisions in what is really a very brilliant paragraph. Paul is saying, “Think how foolish these divisions are. First of all, they are based upon the world’s way of doing things, which is folly in the sight of God. You don’t want to be like that. God catches the wise in their craftiness. He turns the wisdom of the world to self-evident foolishness before everybody. These divisions are part of that. Instead, you want to follow after God.”
We come now to the third section, which is the second area in this chapter where people have been so divided. Here we are talking about people being saved, as the King James Bible says, “though as by fire.” And the question is, can anybody be saved that way—that is, without any good works whatsoever? This is the way this passage has normally been taken. I want to suggest that this is a wrong interpretation of it, but let me first explain how most people seem to understand it.
What is the biblical pattern? Paul says in verse 5: “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.” Paul’s emphasis is that the ministers in the church of Jesus Christ are servants, even as Jesus Christ Himself came not to be ministered unto but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.
On the other side are those who say, “No you can’t distinguish between Christians in that fashion because if you’re born again, you must be going on with the Lord. You must acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ. Christ is no Savior if Christ is not the Lord.” And at that point I speak positively and say, “That is absolutely right. If you’re a Christian, you’re regenerate. It’s impossible to think of a regenerate person not going on with the Lord in some fashion, one who is beginning to grow and to hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
In my Bible there is a very appropriate section heading to 1 Corinthians 3. It is called “On Divisions in the Church.” Yet as I read this chapter, which is probably the greatest statement in all the Bible against divisions in the Church of Jesus Christ, I realize that it has actually been the cause of at least two more of them. I say that because there are two themes in this chapter that have divided Christians.
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