1 Corinthians 3King James Version
Ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions. I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Each man's work shall be made manifest as by fire. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?
Paul tells the Corinthians that their divisions prove they are still spiritual infants, feeding on milk rather than solid food. He reframes the Apollos-versus-Paul competition using agricultural and construction metaphors: different workers plant and build on the same foundation, which is Christ alone. Every worker's contribution will be tested by fire. The church itself is the temple of God's Spirit, and anyone who destroys it will face God.
Ministers are servants doing different jobs on the same project. Building a community around a personality rather than around Christ is like arguing about which crew poured the slab.
"For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." (3:11) Paul collapses all the faction-loyalty competition by pointing to the only fixed point every faction shares, making the divisions structurally incoherent.
Corinth's skyline was dominated by the Acrocorinth, a massive rock fortress, and by the temple of Apollo at its center. Every resident understood that temples were the most significant buildings in a city. Paul's claim that the scraggly house-church meeting in Gaius's dining room was the actual temple of the living God would have struck his readers as either absurd or breathtaking.
Paul and Apollos are explicitly named as co-laborers, not rivals. Paul planted, Apollos watered. God gave the growth. The unnamed builders who follow them either use durable materials or flammable ones; the fire of judgment will distinguish between them. The Corinthians themselves are the field, the building, the temple.
The temple metaphor carries enormous weight in a city full of temples to Aphrodite, Apollo, and the imperial cult. Paul claims that the Spirit of God now inhabits the community of believers rather than any stone structure. This was a radical relocation of divine presence. Destroying that community through division is not a minor offense; it is desecration. Paul is trying to make the stakes visible.
There is both patience and warning in this chapter. Paul calls the Corinthians infants without contempt, he is describing arrested development, not permanent condemnation. But the warning about destroying the temple is sharp and real. Both tones live in the same passage.
1And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
4For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
5Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
6I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
7So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.
8Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
9For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
10According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
11For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
14If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
16Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
17If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
18Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
20And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.
21Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
22Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
23And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.