Anyone aware of the alarming state of American evangelicalism’s celebrity-driven church culture would not have to try hard to draw parallels with the church in Corinth. The “big name” pastors, as we sometimes call them, thanks to the Christian conference circuit, book publishing, the internet, and so on, tempt many evangelicals to cannibalize each other in the spirit of following “Paul” or “Apollos.” In today’s terms, these could be men like John Piper, Tim Keller, Mark Dever, C.J. Mahaney, Mark Driscoll, Rob Bell, R.C. Sproul, Tony Evans, or whomever people would rather download and listen to instead of their own pastor.

The problem is not the wonderful ways God uses these men. The problem is with us, the people holding these great preachers and teachers of our time too highly and using them to attack other Christians who might not believe whatever we consider to be the “right” interpretation of what “the gospel” says the church should be doing in the world. I go through seasons of falling into this myself. It’s embarrassing but I do it.

Quarrels, dissension, and divisions are plastered all over the internet as Jesus followers poke passive insults at each other in the name of whatever peripheral minutiae we determine as “getting the gospel right.” For example, not being Reformed enough, or not “traditional” enough, or too traditional, or too literal, or too involved in social issues, or not evangelistic enough, and so on. Paul challenges the Corinthian church saying:
“You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere men? 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. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. (1 Corinthians 3:3-6)
 For more, see:
http://online.worldmag.com/2009/09/23/celebrity-pastor-worship/