We are going to cover the third chapter of First Corinthians today. In Chapter 1, Paul explains the importance of preaching the Gospel, keeping his message the Cross of Jesus Christ. Christ and him crucified. It had gotten back to Paul that some were unimpressed with Paul when he was there in person, and thought he didn’t seem wise or eloquent enough for their liking, Paul came to them in weakness in fear and trembling. But as we read, Paul had made an intentional effort to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul knew that God reveals himself using the weak, and God shames the wise of the world with His foolishness, he shames the strong of the world with the weak, lowly, and despised. Last Post, we covered Chapter 2, and there he wrote that the Holy Spirit searches and instructs us of the deep things of God and the intentions of God. He said that those who are spirit filled teach those who are spiritual using spirit taught words. And to everyone else it is foolishness. But because we have the Spirit, we have the mind of Christ, and we can question and interrogate and exercise discernment over things. We can learn from chapter 1 that the church was divided. There were divisions but Paul wrote to say there should be no divisions, and they should be of one mind, perfectly united in mind and thought.

3 Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?

Again Paul is reminding the church that they were receiving a message and instruction from Paul that was purposefully simple. When people live by the Holy Spirit, they question things, they search and confirm things, they gather evidence, in order to make sure whatever they are hearing or being told is Biblical, true, accurately portraying God’s character and His intentions, His promises, his Plans. Paul explains that his instruction to them was simple and assumed that they weren’t mature in their spirituality. It’s not a different message, or a different cross of Jesus Christ. The Milk Paul gave to them was sufficient to give them an understanding of what happened, and why Jesus died, and why they needed a savior. The spiritual solid food would have looked more complicated, and required searching, discernment, a prior understanding of the Jewish Law and Prophets, the History of Israel, the different elements of the temple, the customs and practices of ritual cleansing and offerings for sin and purification. There isn’t a separate message or another cross of Christ, but there is a significant back story which if you learn about it and study it, that back story makes Christ even more to be treasured and savored, and rejoiced in. Paul could tell they weren’t ready for spiritual solid food, because their behavior showed that they weren’t acting according to the Spirit, but according to the World. He saw fruits of worldliness, like jealousy & quarreling. Instead of fruits of the spirit, which is 1 mind and 1 church, and unity like 1 body. Vs 4 provides evidence, which was already brought up in Chapter 1,

4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings? 5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. 9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

The church was not in one mind and one spirit. They were not acting in unity, but they had factions and divisions. Some said they followed Paul, but others say Apollos. I referenced some of Paul’s time in Corinth as described by the scripture in Acts 18. And Another interesting thing to read at the end of Acts 18, we are introduced to Apollos, who was apparently very gifted in bold speech and he was known to “vigorously refute his Jewish opponents in public debate”. This gives a bit more context about how some of the Corinthians followed Paul, others followed Apollos, and others followed Cephas or Peter. They all had different gifting and obviously their preaching methods resonated with some groups better than others. But This kind of hero worship makes no sense, and turns the leaders of the church into a form of an idol. It is natural human thing to do. We love to elevate greatness. Ask someone who loves basketball who is the GOAT, and you’ll hear all sorts of evidence, statistics, and hypothetical one on one matches that require time travel so both players could be in their prime. Our imaginations run wild when we try to figure out things like this. But Christ showed us another form of greatness and leadership. We are still trying to wrap our minds around it. He said if you wanted to be great, you needed to serve. The greatest is the one who washes the feet. Paul took Christ’s teaching to heart and realized that his identity was a servant to God. In Verse 5 he doens’t use doulos / slave term for servant, but the diakonos or deacon servant. Both Paul and Apollos (and also Peter/Cephas) and everyone else in the leadership roles in the church are called by God to be ministering deacons or servants to help the body of the church. They were all co-workers, laborers. Paul was called by God to plant a seed, Apollos was called by God to water it. He who plants and he who waters are one. They are both on the same level. Both of those jobs are essential and crucial for a good growth, both have a defined purpose. but God is the one to make the plant grow. God makes the gain. Paul and Apollos are not looking for followers in the church, they will be each rewarded for their labor, but they are co-workers, serving God. And God is the only one who get the glory. He then compares the church as the field of crops, or as the building

10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

The one foundation is Jesus Christ. There is no other foundation to lay. If you lay another foundation, besides Jesus Christ, you are creating a false God, a false testimony, based on false doctrine. Paul warns that we should build with care that we don’t build any new foundation, we shouldn’t add or take away from the foundation. We should also take care to build upon the foundation with appropriate materials, and that means having the correct end goal of building on top of the foundation. We want to build a church that endures! We could use gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, straw. It’s funny to hear some commentary about this. Some commentary implies Gold and silver and the precious stones are better than wood, hay and straw and will somehow outlast the Fire. Some churches use this wording to make a point that we need to have nicer things or better quality materials, or more money. Other commentary says that the imagery is all symbolic. Gold/Silver/ precious stones represent good doctrine, and the wood, hay, stubble represents worldly wisdom. That could be the case, but it is more confusing than it needs to be. Especially because if Gold and Silver and Precious stones represent doctrine, and that doctrine endures, we should just say that doctrine is important. I personally think it’s important enough that it should probably be lumped together as part of the foundation.

But I think that trying to identify exactly what Gold/Silver/Stones/Hay/Wood represent totally misses the point Paul is making here. What physical material we use to build on the foundation is kind of passing away. Paul says that On the Day , Capital D , the final day, the quality of the work will be tested by the fire. Not the building materials. The quality of the work will be tested. We have other scripture that describes the absolute end, the Final Day when God comes to Judge the world. All things seen are passing away, and what is left unseen is eternal. Whether it is Gold or Straw, it will be consumed by the fire. If we build a church using Gold, is that better than straw? Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes a straw construction is sufficient, and using Gold is a waste of something precious that could have served the congregation better deployed elsewhere. We want to build a church on Jesus Christ. We want to have our brothers and sisters leave the time of worship filled and instructed with God’s Holy Spirit, enlightened by the study of his Word. It doesnt matter if the walls are stucco, concrete, drywall, plaster. If there’s Gold or silver trim on the walls. Does it matter if there is a fancy projector or an old beat up one, or a chalkboard? All of these physical things that we see are passing away. What is going on in your heart and mind as God’s word transforms us, that is everlasting. I once went to Italy with my family, and we went to a bunch of different churches in the big cities, Duomos. And they had the most beautiful tilework, art, sculpture. It was majestic and magnificent. There is some transcendent and priceless art in nearly every city. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with Michaelangelo’s painting The Creation of Adam, is amazing to behold. But on the final day, that physical stuff will be no more. What will remain? The way that painting was used by God to teach people or inspire people to study Him. The beauty that the artwork tried to capture will remain, when we come face to face with God. We will come to a place where the beauty that we thought we saw was a mere shadow compared to the majesty of the true God. So as a church we should think about that Day. And what we are doing here, what are we building?. Of course we should be wise about how we spend our resources, but Not just what materials are we using to build, but what is our foundation, or Who is our foundation? and what are we trying to accomplish. Paul had just written in verse 9 that the people, the congregation was God’s building. So, maybe we should be talking about people here. If leaders and pastors understand true doctrine, but we are focused on the things that will pass away, we might be building up a church of people who are unprepared to see God face to face, we may escape the fire, but everything we think we built will be lost. If We have placed our emphasis on building a facility that looks pleasant, or sounds nice when we play the worship songs. – But we aren’t preparing people for that Day. ? We may be saved, but we would suffer a great and terrible loss. The people we thought we were in fellowship with might not know God or be known by Him! If we don’t provide instruction and build something that’s eternal, we are wasting our time here. I believe on that final day, there will be brothers and sisters in Heaven who attended churches that were built of straw, hay, gold, silver, you name it. The materials will be gone, but what remains is their soul! And whatever endures the fire is everything that was correctly placed on the foundation, so Jesus Christ is essential in everything. That means that having doctrine that is compatible with the foundation is essential.

16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

You yourselves are God’s temple. God’s spirit dwells in us. Later in this letter (1 corinthians 6:19-20) Paul says that our bodies are God’s temple. We will discuss the implications of that more later when we are in chapter 6, and think about and consider how we treat our physical bodies. Right now, Paul is making the case that the congregation of the church is a temple. And the context here, is referring to the body of the church, the group of believers together. Vs 17 says you together (you plural, ustedes juntos) are the temple of God. This is profound, because a temple is supposed to be God’s dwelling place, or a place to meet with God. Throughout the history of the Bible, the place where God’s Spirit dwells is a Most Holy place. In Leviticus 16, God told Moses that Aaron could not come into the most Holy place behind the curtain whenever he chooses. Going into God’s Holy presence was not something even a priest like Aaron could do on Aaron’s terms. They had to approach God on God’s terms, and basically that involved having a sin offering and purification. In 2 Samuel 6, There was a man named Uzzah who touched the ark of the covenant irreverently, trying to prevent it from falling. He was immediately struck down by God, because of his irreverence. Now, when we meet together as believers, there is something supernatural and something sacred if we together are that temple. Our services and time of worship might seem routine and casual sometimes, but in reality, that’s not worship! Worship means humbling yourself before the Almighty God, exalting the great and majestic Creator of the universe, and finding yourself in the presence of the Most Holy one. And when we truly worship, the Holy Spirit is dwelling in our midst. We should never allow ourselves to take this lightly, and never do anything to destroy God’s temple. We can destroy God’s temple actively if we treat each other poorly, if we embitter or discourage each other. but we can destroy God’s temple passively if we take each other for granted. Which means we should be reminded to encourage each other, we should edify each other, we should warn each other, we should teach each other. We should cherish each other.

18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”[a]; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”[b] 21 So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas[c] or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

Paul closes chapter 3 by reminding the church that the wisdom of the world can not compare to God’s wisdom. He’s said this before, but he is reminding them. And saying it a bit more forcefully. Don’t deceive yourselves! This is something that we can be prone to do. We lie to ourselves if we follow our own wisdom. We try to be crafty in following God our way. Or if we try to use our own worldly wisdom to ignore or discount God’s wisdom. That is a futile thing! One of the most noteworthy demonstrations of the Corinthians self deception is this ridiculous boasting about human leaders. Paul reminds them. All things are yours! Your leaders that you are magnifying and puffing up? They are serving you. You follow Cephas, great! Well Paul and Apollos also serve you! Your leaders belong to you. The world belongs to you! Life and death, and the present and the future, it all belongs to you. Everything and everyone is yours. Now, we read this, and that may sound a bit dangerous to tell people that, because they might be tempted toward license or sin, right? Everything is yours! Wow I feel so powerful because the world and the present and the future and life and death are mine! That’s the first thought. But hold on, remember. You are Christ’s, and Christ is of God. So you are not your own! You belong to another. We will go deeper in this later in the letter, but the caveat. So yes all things are yours, but you are God’s so really more precisely, everything of God is yours, Everything that honors Christ is yours, any Leader follows Christ and understands that leadership is service is yours. The portion of world that exalts God and honors Him are yours. The wisdom of the world that denies or discounts God, Not Yours! The present and future that God’s planned out for you are yours. Your own dreams of the future, might not Be yours! Life and death are yours, but as Paul has written elsewhere to Philippians. to live is Christ, and to Die is Gain.