For there must be also heresies among you, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 11:19 Go To 1 Corinthians 11
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
People become heretics, even though they would still have held wrong opinions if they had remained within the church. Now that they are outside, they do us more good, not by teaching the truth, for they do not know it, but by provoking carnal Christians to seek the truth and spiritual Christians to expound it. In the church there are innumerable people who are approved by God, but they do not become manifest among us as long as we are content with the darkness of our ignorance and prefer to sleep rather than to behold the light of truth.
