1 Corinthians 3--Divisions in the Church

1 Corinthians 3
English Standard Version

Divisions in the Church
​
3 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.

18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

---

There's lots going on here in this chapter, but let's start with the first point that the Corinthian church has a culture of factions and cliques (some try to use the word denominations, but I don't think that's correct as they are divided over leaders and not theological differences).  Paul corrects them saying that they are still being controlled by their flesh--we'll see later in 1 Corinthians that Paul is clear that those controlled by the flesh and identified by the works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God, but he's building his argument to that point.  For now, all Paul will say is that they are babies that need to grow up and become spiritually mature.  They need to stop nursing (depending on someone else to give them everything they need in a form that's easy to digest) and get to the point where they digest the meat of the Word of God (especially the gospel).  From this passage, some people try to form the doctrine of the "carnal Christian" as if it's okay to live in this scenario of being infantile in your faith and controlled by your flesh and looking and acting like the world while calling yourself a Christian, ignoring the fact that this passage is scolding and correcting the Corinthian church for being in that state and ignoring everything that comes before and after this passage in the book of 1 Corinthians.  Recall that we just studied that there are only two types of wisdom--the wisdom that comes from God and the wisdom of this world, and that only the wisdom of God understands the gospel and saves people.

We also talked about this exact issue of divisions once already in Chapter 1, and Paul is not coming back to spend even more time on it (and it will be a common theme of the whole letter).  Paul was clear in Chapter 1 that they were not saved by Paul or Apollos or anyone else, and here Paul says that it was a team effort, but that God is the one responsible for the increase (the fruit that is produced)--just like he said in Chapter 1.

Paul then switches metaphors from agriculture to construction--a metaphor already used by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount that there are two foundations.  If you recall in Matthew 7 that there was a wise man and a foolish man and the wise man built his house on the Rock (that is Christ) and the foolish man built his house on the shifting sands that is anything other than Christ (the many other religions, worldviews and philosophies of this world all fall into this category).  The rain and wind came and the house built on the sand came crashing down because it was not built on a firm foundation, but the house that was built on the Rock stood firm and weathered the storm.  I think Paul is alluding to this teaching of Christ here, but now is extending it to say that even if the correct foundation is laid, people can build things on top of it that will not last--things made of wood, hay and stubble that will burn up in the Day of the LORD when fire will test everything and only what has been done for Christ and His glory by the power of the Holy Spirit will last--all that which has been done in a way that is self-serving and gratifying the flesh will be burnt up, even if people were fooled into thinking that it looked good.  This again is a correction and rebuke of the Corinthian church who had a good foundation (that is Christ) laid for them by Paul and that Apollos built on in a good way, but now others are trying to build an edifice out out of cheap materials (wood, hay, and stubble) that are like the materials used by this world and will not stand the trial by fire in judgment day.  Build upon the foundation with materials that will be worthy to present to the Bridegroom and King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  You don't want to come through the judgment where everything in your life has been "burned up" by the cleansing fire and you stand there with nothing left to present to Christ because nothing in your life was done by Him or for Him.  Don't put God to that kind of test where you say "but I said the magic words" but your life says that you never repented and were never converted--Matthew 7 also tells us about people that will try this with Jesus when He is judging them and it does not go well for them.  


Matthew 7:21-23
English Standard VersionI Never Knew You21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Next, Paul addresses the issue that the Corinthians claim to be Christians which would mean that they would have the Holy Spirit living inside of them (and presumably in control of their lives), but they are defiling themselves in ways that Paul will talk about in the coming chapters and therefore defiling the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Specifically the Corinthian church was involved in all kinds of sexual sin and bringing the idolatrous practices of temple prostitutes and orgies into their worship services because this is what worship services were like at their pagan temples.  It was not what they were taught by Paul or Apollos but I think the Corinthians were trying what we would call the "seeker-friendly" model today and trying to make it easy for people to join the their congregation by not looking that different from the world.  That will attract no one because if your message is "we're the same as you" then no one needs the gospel that you're "selling" if it's not transformational.  If your gospel makes you still look and act like the world, then the world will say "I'm good, I can look and act like that without your Jesus."  It is only by being born again and being new creations in Christ and being different than the world that we are both and offense to them and attractive to them.  In this way they see their need for the gospel and are hopefully attracted to it as God draws them, as only He can.

Paul returns once again to the idea of the "secret" and "hidden" things and "the wisdom of this age" (the ideas injected by the worldly philosophers that the Corinthians were mixing with Christianity to make their own version that sounded more palatable).  Paul says again that the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God and that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world, but that God will be the one who wins the day and "catches the wise in their craftiness."  Also, we should remember that we should always be about the business of glorifying God in all that we say, do, and think, yet the wisdom and philosophies of this world seek to glorify man (specifically self) and therefore stand in opposition to the things of God and should not be able to be comingled with the gospel.

It matters not who led you to Christ whether it was your father, your Sunday School teacher or some random stranger that you'd never met before and probably won't see again until heaven.  It is the message (the gospel of Jesus Christ) that is important, not the messenger--even if the messenger was someone like Paul or Peter (Cephas).  "Now I belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to me.  Not for the years of time alone, but for eternity." (Now I Belong to Jesus)