Springs in the Hills, Rivers Parted by Continents

The Corinthian church fractured itself into competing factions—some claiming Paul, others Apollos—yet Maclaren observes that these two teachers were devoted friends whose admirers had become bitter enemies. He uses a striking geographical image: 'The springs lie close together up in the hills, the rivers may be parted by half a continent.' What begins as unity at the source becomes division at the mouth.

Paul's response is surgical: to cling exclusively to any single teacher is to voluntarily narrow the sources of blessing and wisdom. Why reject Apollos when he has gifts? Why dismiss Cephas? The Corinthians were impoverishing themselves through partisan loyalty.

But then Maclaren captures Paul's thought as it "catches fire of its own rapid motion"—the Apostle blazes beyond mere argument into triumphant declaration: All things are yours. Paul, Apollos, and Cephas are but "fragments of His wisdom," broken lights of the infinite Light. Each teacher reflects only a segment of the circle, one aspect of the one infinite Truth. The great reversal emerges: Christ's servants become men's lords precisely because they have ceased to be enslaved to any individual teacher or partial truth.

To possess Christ is to possess the source itself—not the derivative streams but the fountain. His Word becomes the Christian's creed, His Person the wellspring of all knowledge of God and man. In this measure of adherence to Christ alone, believers are liberated from "all undue dependence on, still more from all slavish submission to" any single voice. The remedy for faction is not balancing multiple authorities but anchoring in one ultimate Authority.