1st Corinthians Chapter 11 verse 19 Holy Bible
For there must be also factions among you, that they that are approved may be made manifest among you.
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For divisions are necessary among you, in order that those who have God's approval may be clearly seen among you.
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For there must also be sects among you, that the approved may become manifest among you.
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For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
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read chapter 11 in WBT
For there also must be factions among you, that those who are approved may be revealed among you.
read chapter 11 in WEB
for it behoveth sects also to be among you, that those approved may become manifest among you;
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 19. - 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, 14: 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, 7). Approved; standing the test (dokimoi), the opposite of the "reprobate" (adokimoi) of 1 Corinthians 9:27.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(19) For there must be also heresies.--Better, For there must be also sects. There have been many attempts to explain where lies the difference between the "divisions" of the former verse and the "sects" of this verse. From all that we know of the Apostolic Church it is clear that neither of these words can mean sects separated from the Church, but "parties" in the Church. Christ had foretold (Matthew 18:7) that "stumbling-blocks," or "scandals," must arise in the Church, and it is possible that our Lord on some occasion spoke of these as "sects" (Justin Martyr attributes the use of this very word to our Lord); and St. Paul, possibly, uses the word here because it was the one traditionally reported as having been used by Christ in some of His unrecorded utterances. Christ has foretold that in the divine economy of permission such divisions will arise. They are allowed because this is a state of continual judgment; and the existence of such "offences" will be God's means of manifesting those who are void of offence, and those who are not.
