Factionalism is a danger, but factionalism is not the same as having a following.

Many people are quick to bring up Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians about those who said “I follow Paul” or “I follow Apollos.”

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (ESV)

1 Corinthians 3:4-9

4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. (ESV)

But Paul is rebuking the church for divisions (1:10) and quarreling (1:11), not for having teachers. Being drawn to a certain preacher does not by itself mean you are committing the sin of factionalism. If you think your favorite teacher is the only one worth listening to, if you are passionate about following him rather than following Christ, if you get into pointless arguments for the sake of defending your teacher, then you are making the mistake Paul warned about.

In spite of all the legitimate warnings against “hero” worship, I want to raise a point of support for holy emulation which includes realistic admiration. Hero worship means admiring someone for unholy reasons and seeing all he does as admirable (whether it’s sin or not). Holy emulation, on the other hand, sees evidences of God’s grace, and admires them for Christ’s sake, and wants to learn from them and grow in them.

This theme is strong in the New Testament.

• “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).
• “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us” (Philippians 3:17).
• “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9).
• “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 1:6).
• “[Do] not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12).
• “You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness” (2 Timothy 3:10).
• “Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it” (2 Timothy 3:14).
• “Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity” (Titus 2:7).

The old Puritan Thomas Brooks comments on holy emulation in The Secret Key to Heaven:

Bad men are wonderfully in love with bad examples…. Oh, that we were as much in love with the examples of good men as others are in love with the examples of bad men. Shall we love to look upon the pictures of our friends; and shall we not love to look upon the pious examples of those that are the lively and lovely picture of Christ? The pious examples of others should be the mirrors by which we should dress ourselves. He is the best and wisest Christian…that imitates those Christians that are most imminent in grace…. It is noble to live by the examples of the most eminent saints.

It is right and risky to aim at being worthy of emulation. It is more foundationally right to aim at being helpful. It is essential in both that we be amazed that we are forgiven through Christ, and that we serve rather than seek to be served. This does not answer all my personal questions about this topic, but it is a start.

Faith as primarily translated in the New Testament scriptures is the Greek word πίστις (pistis) which the NAS Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible with Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries defines as follows:

assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity;  i.e. Credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly, constancy in such profession; by extension, the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself — assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.

While being rooted in the word πείθω (peitho), which means “to persuade; to convince (by argument, true or false)”, it is not peitho, and the difference must be noted to understand its application.

Peitho is plain and simply not faith.  It is never translated as faith anywhere in the NASB or Strongs transliterations anywhere that I can find. It is translated as assure (1), confident (3), convinced (7), followed (2), have confidence (2), having confidence (2), listen (1), obey (3), obeying (1), persuade (4), persuaded (8), etc.  The word pistis however is translated as faith (238), faithfulness (3), pledge (1), proof (1).

I think the single synonym for pistis would be assurance.  Be that as it may, I still believe it is best to ask the bible what is defines faith as.

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Don’t worship other gods or worship idols

Exodus 20:2-5, Deuteronomy 4, Deuteronomy 27, Deuteronomy 29, Joshua 24, Psalm 106:28, Psalm 97:7, Psalm 115:3-8,2 Kings 17:35-39, Isaiah 57:5-14, Hosea 4, Zephaniah 1, Zechariah 10:2, Acts 4:12, Acts 19, Romans 1:16-32, Galatians 5:19-21, Revelation 21:7-8

Don’t practice witchcraft, sorcery or divination (includes astrology)

Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 19:31, Deuteronomy 18:10-11, 1 Samuel 15:23, 2 Kings 17:17, 2 Kings 21:6, 2 Kings 23:24, 2 Chronicles 33:6, Isaiah 8:19, Isaiah 19:3-4, Isaiah 47:9-15, Nahum 3:4, Zechariah 10:2, Acts 19, Galatians 5:19-21, Revelation 21:7-8, Revelation 22:14-15, Daniel 1:18-21, Daniel 5, Daniel 2:27, Micah 5:12

Kings of Israel are criticized for pagan worship

Solomon – 1 Kings 11
Jeroboam-1 Kings 12, 14
Ahab-1 Kings 16-18
Omri-1 Kings 16
Manasseh-2 Kings 21,2 Chronicles 33
Amon-2 Kings 21
Joash-2 Chronicles 24:17
Jehoram-2 Chronicles 21
Ahaz-2 Chronicles 28

Pagan beliefs are compared to sexual adultery

2 Chronicles 21:11-13, Isaiah 57:3, Hosea 4, Romans 1:24-32

Jesus contends with Satan in the wilderness

Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13

Jesus casts out demons

Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 1:23-27, Mark 5:1-19, Mark 7:25-30, Mark 9:17-29, Mark 16:9, Luke 4:33-36, Luke 8:26-39, Luke 9:37-42, Luke 11:14-16

Needless to say, God despises any of these practices and their ilk.  It may seem like a harmless little “fun” thing.  That doesn’t make it right.   Socially acceptable and God acceptable are not the same.

These things are no joke, any more than Judgement day is a joke.

Please pray and think on your own about this topic. Do not base your views on societal norms. Man will deceive, God does not. You are responsible to God for your actions. “Everyone else was doing it” will not be an acceptable excuse on the day of judgment.

[bibleblock]Matthew 7:21-23[/bibleblock]

Adam might have realized he wanted a wife before he finished naming all the creatures of the earth.  However, he continued to do what what God had called him to do.  At the right time (His time), God brought Eve to Adam.This principle applies to all singles – both men and women – who desire to be married.

If a single person constantly thinks about getting married, they will be frustrated, unhappy and perhaps even unjustly angry at God if it fails to happens within their time frame.  With this attitude, they place themselves in a position where they are unable to receive all the blessing the Lord has for them and can hinder the work the Lord has called them to do.

If you desire to be married, put that desire in the Lord’s hands and delight and trust in him.  Develop a heart of trust.  Instead of complaining about what you don’t have, form the habit of thanking God for all that you do have.

I was once told a parable, “We are like a child who brings our broken toys to our Father to fix.  We get frustrated when he doesn’t do it fast enough and we yank them back saying ‘I’ll just do it myself, your taking too long!’.  He then looks at us and says, ‘How can I fix them when you never let go of them?’  The moral?  Let go.  Put it in your Father’s hands and let him work on them so he can fix your broken dreams and give you back more than you ever hoped for.

Pleasing God, not looking for a mate, should be the focus of a single person’s life.

Here is my list of 8 Scriptural guidelines to help single people avoid marrying the wrong one.  If you are considering marrying someone and know you are going against even one of these principles, God has not brought the right one to you.
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Jesus is Lord – whether you like it or not.  The Bible tells us that one day everyone will confess that He is Lord (Philippians 2:11), even those who have rejected Him are doomed to spend eternity separated from God.  But one of the reasons believers freely submit to Him as their personal Lord is that He has seated us with Him in heavenly places (Eph 2:6).  He has made us joint heirs with Him (Rom 8:17).  In other words, He views us as equals.

Although the husband is head of the home, he is not superior to the wife. Although the wife submits to his final word, she is not inferior to her husband.  God has ordained that the principle of submission and authority works only when both those in authority and those in submission recognize the principle of equality.  They stand as equals in God’s sight.  Submission without equality is slavery.

“For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.”  (1 Cor 11:8-9)

Because the woman was taken from the man, the husband has authority over the wife.  But the part of the woman that was constructed from man was her body, no her spirit.  Her spirit was breathed by God into the body of Adam as a separate entity from Adam’s spirit, and she was complete when she was in him.
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