1 Corinthians 3
3
The Problem of Immaturity
1For my part, brothers and sisters, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ.#1Co 14:20; Heb 5:13; 1Pt 2:2 2I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready, 3because you are still worldly. For since there is envy#Jms 3:14,16 and strife#3:3 Other mss add and divisions#Ti 3:9 among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans? 4For whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,”#Ti 3:13 are you not acting like mere humans?
The Role of God’s Servants
5What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. 6I planted,#Ac 18:4–11; 1Co 4:15; 9:1; 15:1 Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8Now he who plants and he who waters are one,#3:8 Or of equal status, or united in purpose and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9For we are God’s coworkers.#3:9 Or are coworkers belonging to God You are God’s field, God’s building.#1Pt 2:5
10According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder,#3:10 Or wise master builder and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. 11For no one can lay any foundation#Is 28:16; Rm 15:20; 2Co 10:16; 11:4; Gl 1:6–9 other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. 12If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver,#Jms 5:3 costly stones,#Rv 17:4 wood, hay, or straw, 13each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire;#2Th 1:8; 1Pt 1:7 the fire will test the quality of each one’s work.#Ps 62:12; Pr 24:12; Mt 16:27; 2Co 5:10; 1Pt 1:17 14If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. 15If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience#3:15 Or suffer loss, but he himself will be saved#Mt 9:22; Ac 16:30; Eph 2:8 — but only as through fire.#Jd 23
16Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple#Lk 1:21 and that the Spirit of God lives in you?#Lv 26:11; Jms 4:5 17If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him;#Heb 6:8 for God’s temple is holy,#Ps 20:6; 1Co 7:14 and that is what you are.
The Folly of Human Wisdom
18Let no one deceive#2Co 11:3 himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age,#Lk 16:8 let him become a fool#Mt 5:22 so that he can become wise.#Is 5:21; Jr 8:8–9; Gl 6:3 19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness#1Co 1:18 with God, since it is written,#Ac 15:15; Gl 4:22 He catches the wise in their craftiness;#3:19Jb 5:13#Jb 5:13; Lk 20:23 20and again, The Lord knows that the reasonings#Mt 15:19; 1Tm 2:8 of the wise are futile.#3:20Ps 94:11#Ps 94:11 21So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours#Rm 8:32 — 22whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas#Jn 1:42 or the world or life#1Jn 5:12 or death#Mt 10:21; Jn 8:51; Php 3:10 or things present or things to come#Rm 8:38 — everything is yours, 23and you belong to Christ,#Nm 3:12 and Christ belongs to God.
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© 2017 Holman Bible Publishers
1 Corinthians 3
3
1-4But for right now, friends, I’m completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You’re acting like infants in relation to Christ, capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I’ll nurse you since you don’t seem capable of anything more. As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything’s going your way? When one of you says, “I’m on Paul’s side,” and another says, “I’m for Apollos,” aren’t you being totally childish?
5-9a Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us—servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God’s field in which we are working.
9b-15 Or, to put it another way, you are God’s house. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely.
16-17You realize, don’t you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God’s temple, you can be sure of that. God’s temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple.
18-20Don’t fool yourself. Don’t think that you can be wise merely by being relevant. Be God’s fool—that’s the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It’s written in Scripture,
He exposes the hype of the hipsters.
The Master sees through the smoke screens
of the know-it-alls.
21-23I don’t want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift—Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future—all of it is yours, and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.