1 Corinthians Lesson 3 1 Corinthians 3:1-23 Written about late 56 or early 57 AD

Transcription

1 1 Corinthians Lesson 3 1 Corinthians 3:1-23 Written about late 56 or early 57 AD In the previous lesson, we saw how Paul recounted becoming determined to just present the simple gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified. This may have been partially a result of his experience of trying to present a rational argument in front of the intellectual elite at the Areopagus in Athens with little effect. We also looked at the significant statement that if Satan (the ruler of this world) had understood how the cross would mean his irrefutable defeat, he never would have worked to make it happen. We also studied the concept of both the Holy Spirit and the human spirit. Finally, we examined how Paul s statement that We have the mind of Christ in verse 16 at that time could have only referred to the Old Testament, and how it emphasizes how important studying the Old Testament is for the Church Age believer. Having just pointed to the untapped mysteries of the Old Testament, in the next verses we see Paul lament how little he had been able to teach the Corinthians in his previous ministry to them. 1 Corinthians 3:1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly mere infants in Christ. Paul had already pointed to the deeper wisdom that was available if they would mature in the word and abandon the wisdom of the world: 1 Corinthians 2:6a We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age. 1 / 9

2 Unfortunately, at least to the bulk of them, he had only been able to address them as infants. 1 Corinthians 3:2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. Paul had been in Corinth only a year and a half. He had been dealing with infant Christians then. Unfortunately, even now after he had been gone nearly four additional years, he told them that they were still immature and unready for mature wisdom. I can t help reflecting how apt the analogy of feeding baby milk is for most modern Christians in their intake of the word of God. Like a baby, when they get hungry they cry out in distress and want to be breast fed milk. Once they are fed, they fall asleep. 1 Corinthians 3:3b For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? The proof of their immaturity is the jealousy and quarreling over the non issue of water baptism which Paul had first referred to in 1 Corinthians 1: Corinthians 3:4 For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not mere men? Such quarreling betrayed a practical ignorance of the realities of God s kingdom, and that they were living by human viewpoint. 1 Corinthians 3:5 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. 2 / 9

3 In the heavenly view we are all merely servants who God has sent to serve one another as we have been gifted. The only one we should celebrate and glorify is God. And when we finally learn to glorify Him alone, He is pleased, not because our glorification of Him adds anything to Him, but because it means we have finally learned to live in the truth. When we live in the truth, we are blessed and truly free. John 8:31-32 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. 1 Corinthians 3:6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, [a] but God made it grow. Even though Paul was a persuasive speaker, he realized that it was only through the power of the Spirit that the spoken word became a living word in the lives of Christians. 1 Corinthians 3:7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. No speaker, can ever claim that it is his eloquence, technique, special effects, or even music backup that makes his message effective for God. Great crowds who are impressed by the speaker are impressed by the wrong thing. A Christian speaker s only responsibility is to speak God s truth accurately so that the Holy Spirit can use it to change the lives of those who want a relationship with God. 1 Corinthians 3:8 The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. Neither Paul who planted, or Apollos who watered, were worth any special admiration. Their reward was to be from God, not from men. Often, the admiration of congregations can instill the deadly poison of pride in pastors and teachers. 3 / 9

4 1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God s fellow workers; you are God s field, God s building. Corinth had merely been the workplace of both Paul and Apollos, who had been the farm laborers and brick masons sent by God. 1 Corinthians 3:10a By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. Paul s gift and privilege from God had been to lay the foundational faith of many of the Corinthians and of the Corinthian church by giving them an accurate presentation of the Gospel of salvation. All who would follow Paul in building them up were also merely servants sent by God. 1 Corinthians 3:10b But each one should be careful how he builds. Here Paul added a word of caution. Some would come that were careless or bad builders. Ever since his missionary journey with Barnabas seven years earlier Paul had discovered that there were those who were either ignorant Christians or false Christians who were ready to make keeping the law the foundation of salvation. They had managed to deceive many of those in the Galatian church. 1 Corinthians 3:11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. The theme of this whole section (1 Corinthians 3:9-17) is that as Christians, we are to use our gifts to keep adding to God s Temple. But this was not the stone temple in Jerusalem where the Jews worshipped. The Temple Paul was referring to was the Temple that Jesus Christ built with His birth, life and death. The foundation of that Temple could only be Jesus Christ. At salvation we have become a part of Him and His Temple. [b] After that we can build with the materials of our choice. We can build with noble materials like gold, silver, or costly stones, or vulgar materials like wood, hay, or straw. 4 / 9

5 1 Corinthians 3:12-13 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his 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 man s work. Gold, silver and precious stones were the building materials of the Tabernacle [c] which was figurative of the work of Jesus Christ. If a Christian builds with the truth of Jesus Christ, his work will glorify Jesus Christ and be a fitting addition to the Eternal Temple. However, what the Christian builds with will be tested by fire. The Day spoken of here is known theologically as the Judgment Seat of Christ. It is briefly described in the following verses: Romans 14:10-11 You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God s judgment seat. It is written: As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God. So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. 1 John 2:28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. Revelation 3:11-12 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take 5 / 9

6 your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. These verses indicate that this judgment and reward will take place after the Lord s coming. Christians seem to disagree whether it is after His coming in the clouds at the Rapture, or His coming back to the Mt. of Olives at the end of the Tribulation seven years later. Although I lean toward the second, I don t suppose it really makes any real difference. 1 Corinthians 3:14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. Of course, for the purpose of the analogy, gold, silver and precious stones don t burn and will survive. 1 Corinthians 3:15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. However, wood, hay, and straw (which stand for good or bad works of the flesh) will be consumed. Habakkuk 2:13 Has not the LORD Almighty determined that the people s labor is only fuel for the fire, that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing? However, as a man who escapes through the flames of his burning house brings nothing of his possessions with him, he nevertheless escapes. This verse is one of the great arguments for the doctrine of eternal security. This judgment is not the Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20: That is 6 / 9

7 reserved only for unbelievers. 1 Corinthians 3:16 Don t you know that you yourselves are God s temple and that God s Spirit lives in you? Each of us is already part of God s temple, and we have the power of the Holy Spirit available to us. Whatever the circumstance, no believer has to live his life in the power of the flesh and build with wood, hay, or straw. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we can build in gold, silver, and precious stones that which cannot be destroyed and will survive as our reward and crown. 1 Corinthians 3:17 If anyone destroys God s temple, God will destroy him; for God s temple is sacred, and you are that temple. Furthermore, we should remember that God will protect us because we are part of His Temple. If anyone meddles with us, they cannot destroy our rewards which God has created in us through His Spirit, but they themselves will be destroyed. As the LORD promised in Deuteronomy 32:35, It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them. However, this does not promise that God will protect us from their killing us, torturing us, or just persecuting us. 1 Corinthians 3:18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a fool so that he may become wise. In every era of history, there is a fashion of accepted human wisdom. Each in their turn, the various fashions of human wisdom have passed away. In the last 400 years we have seen neoclassicism, rationalism, romanticism, realism, modernism, post-modernism and post-post-modernism each have their day. None of them have proved to be satisfactory. None of them have ever been congenial to the wisdom of God. In our age, as in most ages, the greatest attack on the individual s belief in God s wisdom seems to occur in the universities. Even when they are originally set up by Christians with Christian ideals, they always prove to be 7 / 9

8 easy for Satan to corrupt. It is a shame that so many young Christians go to the universities still infants in their grasp of Scripture. 1 Corinthians 3:19-20 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God s sight. As it is written: He catches the wise in their craftiness [d] ; and again, The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile. [e] Paul quotes the Old Testament to make his point. Unfortunately, many of the greatest human philosophers and geniuses of history will wind up in the same place as the greatest creature genius of all time, Satan. Not all however. Some of the most revolutionary thinkers in science found the launching point for their discoveries in the word of God. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23 So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. Paul as saying something like this: Don t you understand? You are heirs (Romans 8:17) of the universe because what belongs to Christ is given to you! And what belongs to God belongs to Christ (Hebrews 1:2). In an analogy, I think what Paul is saying here can be illustrated by a hypothetical case of two immature little children who have each just inherited 50 billion dollars. Instead of rejoicing in their good fortune they fall to quarreling with each other because each contends that is superior to his fellow because one has brown shoelaces and the other has black shoelaces! Paul s case in verses can be a little confusing in to us, because Paul first states the result, all things are yours, and then he states the cause you are of Christ. In our system of argument, the cause usually precedes the result. 8 / 9

9 [a] This confirms the account in Acts that Apollos came to Corinth after Paul had left. [b] Revelation 3:12 Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. Compare to 1 John 5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. [c] Exodus 25:1-7 [d] Job 5:13 [e] Psalms 94:11 9 / 9