‍Paul condemned Christians for following Peter instead of Christ

  Gary Hoge  ·  November 4, 2026

‍It’s wrong to follow Peter—or anyone else—instead of Christ, but one way we follow Christ is by following the leaders he appointed in the Church. When Jesus sent his disciples out to proclaim the kingdom, he told them:

‍“He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16).

‍And Hebrews 13:17 says,

‍Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

‍What Paul was arguing against in 1 Corinthians was the all-too-human tendency of dividing into factions. He wrote,

‍My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

‍Paul certainly wasn’t telling Christians that they shouldn’t follow their leaders. In fact, later in the very same letter, he explicitly instructed them, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). So Paul obviously didn’t think following a human leader was necessarily incompatible with following Christ. The problem wasn’t following Paul, Peter, or Apollos. It was treating them as rivals to Christ.

‍Unfortunately, this tendency continues to this day. Christians still divide themselves into camps identified with particular religious leaders. One follows a favorite preacher, another a popular Bible teacher. And Catholics are hardly immune to the temptation. One rallies around a particular cardinal, another around a favorite priest or Catholic commentator.

‍Paul was admonishing the Corinthians to maintain unity. He said, “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought” (1 Corinthians 1:10).

‍In fact, Paul makes his meaning even clearer later in the same letter. He asks, “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task” (1 Corinthians 3:5). He then tells the Corinthians, “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas” (1 Corinthians 3:21–22). His point was not that Christians should disregard their leaders, but that those leaders were servants of Christ, whose ministries existed for the benefit of the whole Church. They were not rival authorities around whom Christians should form competing factions.

‍Paul himself exercised considerable authority in the Church, and he expected Christians to obey his instructions. He wrote, “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him” (2 Thessalonians 3:14). Elsewhere, he spoke of “the authority the Lord gave us for building you up rather than pulling you down” (2 Corinthians 10:8). Clearly, Paul did not believe that following Christ meant rejecting the authority of those Christ had appointed to lead his Church. What he opposed was making those leaders the center of one’s religious allegiance, rather than recognizing them as servants of Christ.

‍Yet Paul’s insistence that Christian leaders are servants of Christ doesn’t mean they have no authority. Nor does it mean that all of them have identical responsibilities.

‍Commenting on Matthew 16:19, Protestant New Testament scholar R. T. France acknowledged that Peter occupied a distinctive position in the Church: “Not only is Peter to have a leading role, but this role involves a daunting degree of authority.”¹

‍France went on to compare Peter’s position to that of a steward entrusted with managing his master’s household. But a steward doesn’t compete with his master for authority. He exercises the authority his master has entrusted to him.

‍And that’s precisely the point. Jesus didn’t surrender any of his authority when he entrusted Peter with the keys of the kingdom. He exercised his authority by appointing Peter to a position of leadership in his Church.

‍Paul asked the Corinthians, “Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Corinthians 1:13).

‍Of course not. Neither was Peter crucified for them, nor were they baptized in his name. Jesus Christ was the center of their faith, just as he is the center of ours.

‍Paul was absolutely right to condemn Christians who divided themselves into rival factions around their favorite teachers. But he wasn’t condemning Christians for recognizing the authority of the leaders Christ appointed.

‍Following Peter wasn’t a matter of following him instead of Christ. It was a matter of recognizing the authority Christ had given him.

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^‍1 R. T. France, Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, vol. 1, edited by Leon Morris (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 256. Quotation and surrounding passage.