1 Corinthians 3: Building With What Will Last

Paul opens chapter 3 by refusing to flatter the Corinthians: he couldn’t speak to them “as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ” (3:1). The evidence is their factionalism resurfacing — “I follow Paul” and “I follow Apollos” again — which Paul reframes with a gardening image before he moves to a construction one.

Read it in the terminal: bible 1corinthians 3

Planting, watering, growing

“I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase” (3:6). Paul flattens the hierarchy Corinth had built between its favorite teachers: planting and watering are both just labor, and neither one makes anything actually grow. Credit for growth belongs to nobody in the field but God.

One foundation, many builders

The image shifts to a building site. “no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ” (3:11) — but what gets built on that one foundation varies wildly, and Paul says the variance will be tested, because “the fire itself will test what sort of work each man’s work is” (3:13). Gold, silver, and precious stones survive; wood, hay, and stubble burn off. Same foundation, very different outcomes.

You are the temple

“Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” — 1 Corinthians 3:16

The warning that follows — against destroying that temple (3:17) — reads less like a threat and more like Paul insisting the stakes of factional pettiness were higher than anyone in Corinth realized.

Questions for study

1. What are you currently building on the one foundation that might not survive the fire test in verse 13?
2. Where do you see yourself competing for credit — planting or watering — for growth that was never yours to claim?
3. Does thinking of yourself, individually or corporately, as “God’s temple” change how you treat conflict within a church?

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