In the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, he exposes the strife and division that plagued this group of believers. He identifies the source of the division as “carnality”. The end result of this carnal spirit was that Paul could only feed them milk and not meat spiritually, indicating that they lacked the maturity to hear some of the deeper issues of truth and of the Christian life that Paul desired to address.

They were apparently caught up in quarrels over who was the right teacher to follow. Some were aligning with Paul and others with Apollos and it was causing division in the church.

Again, in the eleventh chapter of first Corinthians Paul says, “when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you…”. This time it appears, that instead of sharing together in a meal before they partook of the symbolic bread and cup, each one or maybe each family ate by themselves. Because of possible social and economic differences among the believers, some were still hungry and others had far more than enough. I think we can visualize and even feel the tensions this situation could create. Certainly, it would have undermined the sense of unity.

These were real-life situations and they were preventing the believers at Corinth from growing spiritually. Division and unhealthy conflict tends to keep God’s people at the surface level of spiritual experience. It blocks them from the deeper experiences and greater ministries that God would desire to provide for them.

Paul clearly reminds the Corinthian believers that some will plant, others will water, but it is God who gives the increase. They are laborers together on an earthly plane, but more importantly, they are laborers together with God in a larger spiritual dimension.

“Teamwork” is not a biblical term, but the concept is certainly biblical. The Old Testament book of Nehemiah is a powerful demonstration of both exemplary leadership and the power of teamwork. The walls of the city of Jerusalem had been destroyed many decades earlier. There had been attempts to rebuild the walls, but none were successful. Without walls, the city had lost its power and its glory.

Nehemiah, moved with a burden for his beloved city, was sent by God to restore the city and the walls. Amazingly, under Nehemiah’s leadership and his ability to bring the people together as a team, the wall was rebuilt in fifty two days. Even the enemies of the Jews confessed that this feat was the work of the God of the Jews.

In a series of blog posts, I want to take a deeper look at the biblical, spiritual and practical aspects of teamwork in the setting of the church and other spiritual ministries. It is important that we identify both the possibilities of kingdom growth through spiritual teamwork and also the many ways we allow Satan to destroy this potential growth. May the Spirit open our eyes to dimensions greater than mere surface Christianity.

DSJ