Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi all,

I have to say that I'm inclined to see the merit on both sides of the discussion on this issue of who is of who, and who is right, and who is in the wrong. Now, Captain Sparrow, clearly, clearly, it is not wrong to be of Christ. Aren't we all 'of Christ'? Are you yourself not of Christ, I hazard to ask? How can you say, then, that the apostle Paul condemned those who took such a position? Does that even make sense? However, you do not appear to be a novice in these things and therefore I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and humor you. Let me go so far as to say that if the point you're laboring to make is that what the apostle was actually nitpicking at was not the actual stance per se, but the attitude and mindset with which it was put forward, then, I begin to see what you are driving at.

Reading through your thesis again, I begin to see that if that group of believers of whom each claimed to be 'I am of Christ' had, instead, declared, "We are all of Christ", and had agreed by extension that "those of Apollos are of Christ" and "those of Cephas are equally of Christ", etc, it possibly might have been more politically correct (if that is the right phrase) to put it that way...because as Ohio quoted from Romans 12, "so in Christ we who are many form on body, and each member belongs to all the others". One who is able to comprehend the awful import of those words cannot just idly announce that he is "I am of Christ...(whilst implying) and to hell with the rest of you.." but would rather loudly proclaim that "We are all of Christ!". I can well imagine that this would have been most gratifying to the apostle Paul. For he himself encapsulated this attitude of mind later on in the epistle when concluding the issue when he wrote,

..."So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future - all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God"...1 Cor 3:21-23

Amen