Paul rebukes the Corinthians for spiritual immaturity. Though they are in Christ, they are acting like infants because jealousy, quarrels, and leader-centered factionalism reveal a fleshly mindset.
1 Corinthians 3:1-4
1 Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ.
2 I fed you with milk, not with meat; for you weren’t yet ready. Indeed, you aren’t ready even now,
3 for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men?
4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you fleshly?
Paul corrects their understanding of ministry by presenting himself and Apollos as servants through whom they believed. One plants, another waters, but God alone gives the growth.
5 Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him?
6 I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.
7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
8 Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building.
Paul describes the church as a building on the one foundation, Jesus Christ. Ministers must take care how they build, because their work will be tested by fire on the Day.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15
10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it.
11 For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble,
13 each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man’s work is.
14 If any man’s work remains which he built on it, he will receive a reward.
15 If any man’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.
Paul identifies the church corporately as God’s temple and warns that anyone who destroys God’s temple will face God’s judgment.
16 Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?
17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, which you are.
Paul returns to the issue of worldly wisdom and boasting in men. He commands the Corinthians to abandon self-deception, become fools in the eyes of the world, and recognize that all things belong to them because they belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
1 Corinthians 3:18-23
18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise.
19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.”
20 And again, “The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is worthless.”
21 Therefore 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 things present, or things to come. All are yours,
23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.