In ancient times people did not go to an institution, school, college, nor university to get an education. Rather, they went to a person and asked them if they could become a disciple. If a Jew wanted to learn about God the same was true. They went to a prominent rabbi to be trained as a disciple.
Proper Jews went to the synagogue every Sabbath to worship and hear the Bible since most did not and could not have a copy at home. They did not go to synagogues to learn as some Christians do today. For small congregations, a prominent visiting rabbi would speak. But that was the exception, not the norm.
God was doing something different in the early church. What he was doing in the church had never been done before in antiquity.
Jesus taught that we should not call a person rabbi nor father. Instead in Christ, people were a community. Everyone had different functions and gifts. Different people preached and taught at different times, taking turns as the Holy Spirit prompted and equipped. No one was a disciple of someone else. That is what Paul is rebuking the Corinthians about in this chapter. They were calling themselves disciples of a human.
Some in the Corinthian congregation were still thinking and doing as others did. They followed people and became their disciples. Paul said, “No. Don’t say ‘I follow Paul’ nor ‘I follow Apollos’.” This was not the way the Holy Spirit is working amongst them. The same is true today.
I go to and lead Bible studies, talk to other Christians, read books, and study the Bible. The Holy Spirit slowly reveals to me as I pray and humbly submit to him. I have had to change my understanding of truths along the way. I am grateful for the ways of God. No human is my rabbi nor shepherd. I am not a sheep to men. I am God’s sheep. I thank God for all the people he leads into my life to show me the truth and the way. Yet, I know it’s not them that changes me in character and thought. Its God, my one and only Father.
