Disunity among the brethren in the church can occur for many reasons. In his first epistle to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul addresses several severe problems within the congregation, troubles that were undermining the fellowship. Among other things, he criticizes them for their cliquishness, their lawsuits against other members, their sexual sins, their selfish misuse of the Passover service, and their wrong ideas about spiritual gifts.

Another problem is the human tendency to judge others unfairly. For instance, we may not properly appreciate the cost of someone else's service or offering. Remember the widow's mite (Luke 21:1-4). Externally, she gave almost nothing of value to God's work, but proportionally, she gave everything she had! Internally, by her sacrifice, she showed how a Christian perfects the godly character needed to fulfill his future position in the Kingdom of God. This example should motivate all of us to sacrifice ourselves for the fantastic future that awaits us—especially since Jesus tells us that He will reward us for how we treat our brethren (Matthew 25:40).

In I Corinthians 3, Paul scolds church members for their immature behavior: "For you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?" (verse 3). Are we still carnally minded, treating fellow members of the congregation with disrespect? God has called us to be different.

I Corinthians 5 deals with gross immorality among some in the Corinthian church. Is it a problem with us? Maybe we are not sinning to this extreme, but we are all sinners. Unity among us begins with personal repentance, and it should begin right now, as soon as we become aware of our sins. We should also be careful not to hold a member's past behavior against him if he has repented of it. This kind of forgiveness is hard to do but necessary (see Matthew 18:21-35).

I Corinthians 6 admonishes us to trust God and His judgments. Why do we always have to come out on top? Paul teaches that we should let ourselves be defrauded rather than insist on our "rights." Christians were taking their brethren to court! In modern times, this has happened in the churches of God too. Scripture says we should handle disputes among ourselves.

Another problem arose because some members possessed deeper spiritual understanding than others, yet in their arrogance, they looked down on those who knew less. In I Corinthians 8:1, 7, Paul outlines the specific problem:

Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. . . . However, there is not in everyone that knowledge [that, in reality, an idol is nothing, and there is only one God]; for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

In verse 13, he gives the solution: "Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble." It is not helpful to force what we think down the throats of brethren who may disagree with us. Instead, we must be sensitive to others' consciences. We must exercise humility and patience, remembering that we are all at different levels of spiritual understanding. Besides, our understanding could be wrong.

In I Corinthians 11, Paul addresses the root cause of the Corinthians' problems and perhaps our problem today. They were exhibiting a massive failure in evaluating the worth of other members of the spiritual Body of Christ. They showed partiality to certain ones and treated Christ's sacrifice with irreverence. The apostle provides instructions on overcoming this problem in verses 27-29:

Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. (Emphasis ours.)

The Greek word underlying "discerning" is diakrino, which means "to examine different objects and then give preference to one of them." The Corinthians were taking the Passover irreverently because they were not giving proper preference to Christ and His sacrifice or to their fellow members of the church. They should have been abasing themselves in favor of both. But when we value our Savior's sacrifice properly, we will also value those for whom He died. It works the other way, too: By improperly valuing the worth of fellow Christians, we are severely undervaluing the sacrifice of our Savior.

So, Paul emphasizes the solution to all these problems within the Body in I Corinthians 10:24: "Let no one seek his own, but each one the other's well-being." This command is our call to action: We must put the needs of others before our own. We should ask ourselves, "Am I doing what I can to help them and foster unity in the church?"

Jesus says in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." Putting others before ourselves requires sacrifice. To do this, each of us must recognize and overcome our sins. We must put down our human tendency to exalt ourselves and instead honor our brethren in the Body of Christ, bestowing on them love and appreciation because Christ died for them. We must learn to value them as He does.

That is how God's people will be unified and all personal rifts healed, when we disciples of Jesus Christ "have love for one another" (John 13:35).