1 Corinthians 3 English Standard Version (ESV)

Divisions in the Church

¹ But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. ² I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, ³ for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? ⁴ For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?

⁵ What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. ⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷ So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. ⁸ He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. ⁹ For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

¹⁰ According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. ¹¹ For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— ¹³ each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. ¹⁴ If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

¹⁶ Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

 

REFLECTION

• If time allows, read the whole chapter. Then read the passage for today.
• Paul told the Corinthian Christians that they were immature, worldly and quarrelsome and could not be addressed as spiritual people because they misunderstood the gospel, the church and its ministry (vv1-4). Even a child knows what infants are like. They are those tiny people who cry and scream, who kick their arms and legs without going anywhere, and who mess their diapers.
• It’s the same spiritually. There’s one unmistakable sign of spiritual babyhood: worldliness. They think and behave just like the people of this world who lack the Spirit. Here adulation of leaders, and the “jealousy and strife among” them were characteristic of the way of “merely human” think and act.
• On the other hand, true servants of God aren’t motivated by adulation or a large following. They honestly want to build Christ’s church. And they build on the one true foundation, Jesus Christ. They keep the focus of their followers on Jesus, not on themselves.
• Paul understood that his accomplishments would be evaluated one day on just this basis. Was he working to promote Jesus or himself? When Judgment Day comes, “each one’s work will become manifest” (v13).

Boast about your pastor, someone might come to hear him, and be impressed. 
Boast about your church building, someone might come to see, and compliment you. 
Boast about Jesus, and someone might realize his need, and be saved.

• Everything we do must be founded on Christ. Before God, search your attitudes and actions, and pray that this would be true of you.