Mere infants

1 Corinthians 3:1-5 (TNIV) -

1 Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ.2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere human beings?

4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
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.

My thoughts -

I have heard people, when describing what another church is doing, say "Well I just couldn't worship like that!" I have heard people lament the loss of a pastor and proclaim that they didn't think that they could follow anyone else. Small changes in the staff and service have caused rifts and the occasional exodus. What would Paul say about this?

Maybe he'd tell these people that they're acting like "mere infants". When we place conditions on how we're able to worship and with whom we're willing to worship we are placing ourselves at the center of our worship and making worship not about falling on our knees before a God whom we acknowledge as being greater than us and the only way we can be redeemed and instead are making it about how we can be fulfilled and affirmed.

Yes, there are some legitimate reasons to leave a church. Yes, there are some legitimate reasons to have quarrels. There is such a thing as bad theology that needs to be combated. But usually our issues are with style and personality. Or even worse, just about the person. When we quarrel over this, when we fight over this, when we are divided over style we are placing our own needs above the rest of the body of the church and over the will of God.

I've seen ministries destroyed when a pastor leaves. I've seen congregations divide over instrumentation. When we do this, we are acting not like we should in the example of Christ, but instead like babies. We are "mere infants".