The Problem of Immaturity
1 For 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. q 2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready, 3 because you are still worldly. For since there is envy r and strife ,s among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans? 4 For whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” t are you not acting like mere humans?
The Role of God’s Servants
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. 6 I planted, u Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building. v
10 According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. 11 For no one can lay any other foundation w than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, x costly stones, y wood, hay, or straw, 13 each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; z the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. a 14 If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved b—but only as through fire. c
16 Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple d and that the Spirit of God lives in you? e 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; f for God’s temple is holy, g and that is what you are.
The Folly of Human Wisdom
18 Let no one deceive h himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, i let him become a fool j so that he can become wise. k 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness l with God, since it is written, m He catches the wise in their craftiness; ,n 20 and again, The Lord knows that the reasonings o of the wise are futile. ,p 21 So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours q— 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas r or the world or life s or death t or things present or things to come u—everything is yours, 23 and you belong to Christ, v and Christ belongs to God.
3:1–4. Yet even the possession of the Spirit and the mind of Christ does not necessarily ensure growth in our understanding of divine wisdom; for the Corinthians, still much as they were when Paul left them, are “babies in Christ” (3:1), unready for any wisdom that passes beyond milk (the proclamation of the gospel) to solid food (the attempt to explore the implications of God’s act in Christ for our present behavior, 3:2; cf. Heb 5:12–14; 1 Pt 2:2). Their “envy” and “strife” demonstrate that they are still under the influence of wisdom that is “worldly” (3:3–4).
3:5–9. Paul now uses three metaphors designed to illustrate the purpose and the effects of authentic Christian wisdom. In the first metaphor (3:5–9), using a familiar OT image of the community as God’s field or vineyard, Paul compares his own ministry at Corinth (in which he “planted” the seed of wisdom through the proclamation of the gospel) and the ministry of Apollos (who watered it through further preaching and teaching [cf. Ac 18:27–28]) to the work of God (who made it grow) (3:5–6). Such a comparison clearly shows that neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, as over against God, “who gives the growth” (3:7). It also shows that the one who plants and the one who waters “are one” (3:8). They should not, therefore, be compared with one another by the community (though each will receive their own reward by God’s ultimate judgment). They should be regarded in the same way, as “God’s coworkers,” at work side by side in God’s field, or on God’s building (3:9).
3:10–15. The last phrase of 3:9 leads to the second image, the community as God’s building (3:10–15). This metaphor further defines the Christian community that is growing in wisdom: it has learned not only to value its teachers equally but also to see the need for continuity between the foundational proclamation of the gospel (laid, in this case, by Paul as a “skilled master builder”) and the subsequent teaching of others (who seek to build on Paul’s initial preaching) (3:10). There can be no attempt to lay a new foundation (3:11). Instead, the superstructure must always be evaluated to see if its materials conform in kind to the original foundation (3:12–13a). For on the “day” (a reference to the OT day of the Lord), the quality of every builder’s work will be revealed with fire, and the builder either rewarded or singed with the flames that consume his or her work (3:13b–15).
3:16–17. The final two verses of this section reveal the reason for this severe judgment in a third vivid image. The building on which Paul and others are at work, the church at Corinth, is God’s temple (see 1 Pt 2:5), for God’s Spirit is alive in its midst (3:16). In a solemn statement of lex talionis (the law of punishment in kind), destruction is promised to anyone who brings about the destruction of God’s temple by breaking it away from its foundation (3:17).
3:18–20. Paul’s criticism of the inadequacies of the “wisdom of this world” (3:19) and his definition and commendation of the wisdom of God are now drawn together and the teaching applied to the tendencies of some at Corinth toward self-deception, self-centered comparisons, and self-aggrandizement. Paul clarifies the kind of self-deception that imperils the Christians at Corinth. His concern is the possibility of self-deception with respect to wisdom because some at Corinth tend to define wisdom and designate those who are wise “in this age” (3:18). In response, alluding to 1:18–31 and applying the contrast developed there between the wisdom of the world and the “foolishness” of the gospel, Paul advises all who are wise by such standards to throw away their “wisdom” and embrace what wisdom “in this age” regards as “foolishness”; for in reality, “the wisdom of this world [has become] foolishness with God” (3:19a). This development, surprising as it may be to those who trust in the continuity of wisdom, was nonetheless anticipated in the OT Scriptures (3:19b–20; see Jb 5:13; Ps 94:11). [Contextualizing the Message]
3:21–4:1. Paul then turns to the situation that gave rise to his remarks on wisdom, the tendency of some at Corinth to make comparisons between their teachers, to boost their favorite above the others, and to boast of their allegiances (3:21–22a; cf. 1:12–17). Alluding to 3:5–9, Paul again asks the Corinthians to recognize that the truth lies in precisely the opposite direction (3:22b–23). It is not the Corinthians who “belong” to Paul, Apollos, or Cephas; rather, along with all things, life and death, the present and the future (Rm 8:38–39), Paul, Apollos, and Cephas “belong” to them, as servants of Christ and “managers of the mysteries of God” (4:1).