Do you have a favourite band, footballer, actor, author, etc.? Celebrities create excitement wherever they go. Even when we’re not at their gigs or matches, we can follow their lives on social media. No matter who we look up to, we need to remember they’re just people. And we need to remember that in our churches too!

The first-century Corinthian Christians had started to follow different ‘spiritual superstars’, causing the church itself to begin splitting. They had begun to follow certain Christian leaders more than they focused on Jesus. Paul knew this kind of favouritism could be very dangerous. “When one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere human beings?” (1 COR. 3:4).

No matter how wise different Christian leaders, teachers and mentors may be in our churches and round the world, they are still just people. Paul explained: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” (V.6).

Paul and Apollos had worked with God to make Jesus known and to teach the Bible. But it was God alone who made the difference in people’s lives. He alone is the ‘superstar’ who we should focus on. Christians God has put in our lives should always point us back to Jesus, the real hero.

By: Dwiyanto Fadjaray

To Pray About . . .

Father, we know it’s good to follow the example of our church leaders, but help us not to think so highly of them that we worship them instead of You. Amen