1 Corinthians 11:19 - Exposition

There must be also heresies among you. It results from the inevitable decrees of the Divine providence. "It is impossible but that offences will come" ( Luke 17:11 ). Heresies. The word does not mean "erroneous opinions," but party factions. Originally the word only means "a choice," and is not used in a bad sense; but since the opinionativeness of men pushes "a choice" into a "party," and since it is the invariable tendency of a party to degenerate into a "faction," the word soon acquires a bad sense (see its use in Acts 5:17 ; Acts 15:5 ; Acts 24:5 , Acts 24:14 : Acts 28:22 ; Galatians 5:20 ; Titus 3:10 ; 2 Peter 2:1 ; and Gieseler, 'Church Hist.,' 1:149). The mutually railing factions, which in their Church newspapers and elsewhere bandy about their false and rival charges of "heresy," are illustrating the virulence of the very sin which they are professing to denounce—the sin of factiousness. That they which are approved may be made manifest among you. Similarly St. John ( 1 John 2:19 ) speaks of the aberrations of false teachers as destined to prove that they did not belong to the true Church. Good is educed out of seeming evil ( James 1:3 ; 1 Peter 1:6 , 1 Peter 1:7 ). Approved; standing the test ( dokimoi ) , the opposite of the "reprobate" ( adokimoi ) of 1 Corinthians 9:27 .