If you consider the madness of the Corinthian church, Paul’s priority in addressing her problems is really quite surprising. Most of us would have busted out of the Greeting with all guns blazing at incest and ecclesiastic intoxication (1 Cor. 5 and 11), but Paul recognized a more central, more dangerous problem.

Much like today, believers in Corinth were mixing their faith in Christ with faith in the personality of a ministry. This wasn’t a different religion or a cultish spin-off that Paul was addressing, but men who considered it worth the cost of division to identify with a non-Jesus characteristic.

Does this not happen today? In Corinth it was “I follow Paul” or “I follow Apollos”; in Contemporary Christian America it’s “I follow R.C. Sproul” or “I follow Rick Warren”. Believers inundate themselves with ministry “materials” and migrate from one conference to the next, never actually drinking divine motivation from the secret place with Christ.

For the record, I love the ministries of Charles Finney, John Wesley, Dallas Willard, Leonard Ravenhill and Billy Henderson, to name a few (not necessarily in that order). They encourage and challenge me to dig deeper into God, but my relationship with God is not contingent on their ministries or their personalities.

There’s a story about a man who confronted Smith Wigglesworth about the behavior of one of his disciples. Essentially, the man cried out, “One of your disciples is bumbling about in the middle of the street drunk.” Wigglesworth responded, “He must be one of my disciples. If he were one of Christ’s, this would not be so.”

Paul also understood that the success of ministry is measured by a believer’s dependence on God alone. He exhorted them not to draw from the peripherals of an individual ministry, but to recognize that “He is the source of our life in Christ Jesus.” (1 Cor. 1:30)

The error of following Paul or Apollos is not uncommon or difficult to fall into. I admit that it’s much easier to read a book about the Bible than to read the Bible itself. And it’s even easier to listen to a sermon on Prayer than it is to spend exclusive, intentional time alone with God.

The materials and persons through which ministry comes are tangible, measurable, and often inspiring. But we lose reality and much more when these are substituted for the rawness of receiving from God himself. Let’s examine the motivators of our lives, and let’s be certain our faith is not mixed with the “wisdom of men,” but rests solely in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:5)