Listen for God’s word to you from 1 Corinthians 3…
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
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. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. 9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.
10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw,13 their 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 person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.
18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”[a]; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”[b] 21 So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas[c] or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.
Pastor and Bible commentator, David Prior, has written,
One of the major failures in the Corinthian church was their wrong view of Christian leadership. This has already become apparent in 1:11-16. They were far too ready to put the spotlight on individuals, to play one off against another, to compare this person with that person. They needed straight teaching on the nature and the function of Christian leadership. Actually, to use the word ‘leadership’ is to beg the question. As Paul proceeds to show in chapters 3 and 4, such a concept, if seen through secular spectacles, is virtually absent from and fundamentally alien to the New Testament. Because today there is such a focus in secular circles on the need for leadership, and often one particular model of leadership (according to one’s political leanings), it is important that the church rediscovers what the Scriptures really teach about genuinely Christian leadership. These two chapters give us many clues.
In correcting the false and boastful wisdom of the Corinthians, Paul’s fertile and imaginative mind calls into play several vivid metaphors…
Specifically, Paul brings into play eight metaphorical pairs to talk about Christian leadership and followership in these two chapters. We will talk about five of them this week and three of them next week.
I. Babies & Adults (3:1-4)
The first metaphorical twosome is “babies and adults” in verses 1 through 4. Paul is not afraid to speak boldly. In fact, he does not shrink back from using a negative word, a word of correction, when he feels he must. Here he calls the Corinthian Christians “infants in Christ”.
Literally, the word means one who is not yet able to speak. That had to come as a blow to the Corinthians who prided themselves on their word-gifts. They were drawn to great orators like Apollos. But Paul tells them they are not even able to speak yet. That’s how young they are in the faith.
Paul extends the metaphor further. He says that because they are infants, he is forced to feed them milk instead of solid food. Metaphorically this refers to the fact that Paul feels compelled to go over the basics of the faith with the Corinthians. They are not yet ready to take in mature doctrine.
I remember so well when we had our first child, and we were feeding him for the first time. I actually found the whole experience rather shocking. Our son took to nursing almost automatically. It came natural to him. Even drinking from a bottle was not difficult. But then when he was old enough, we prepared to give him his first bite of food—baby cereal. I remember sticking the spoon with the baby cereal in his mouth and what did he do? He spit it out!
I thought, “Something is wrong here. Why did he just spit the cereal out?” Well, it was something new. He wasn’t ready for it at first. He found it surprising. But then, after a few tries, our son was not only eating but enjoying the baby cereal.
In this passage it is as though Paul is saying to the Corinthians: “You are not ready for baby cereal. You are spitting it out because you are not mature enough. All I can give you is milk.”
Then Paul adds yet another metaphor. He says that the Corinthians are not able to walk like grown up men. I well remember when our first son walked for the first time. It was in the middle of a church meeting in our living room. I was suddenly speechless and thrilled. James had taken a few fumbling steps across the living room floor. But if he were to show up at our house walking like that now, I would probably not be happy. I might be tempted to think he was drunk!
The point is clear. The Corinthians are not all that they ought to be. Who doesn’t love babies? They are cute. We love to cuddle them and take pictures of them. We are thrilled with all their firsts, including their first steps. But when an adult is acting like a baby, when an adult seems incapable of eating or walking or acting like an adult, we call that a tragedy.
II. Spiritual or fleshly?
So, the Corinthians are spiritual babies, not adults, not mature. But Paul also uses another pair of words to describe them. He says they are not spiritual but rather “fleshy” or fleshly.
Now, it is important to understand what this Greek word sarx means. Many readers have made the mistake of thinking that Paul is putting down the body, as though the human body was evil in and of itself. But that is not Paul’s point. There is another Greek word for body; that is soma. But that is not the word Paul uses here. He uses the word sarx. So, what does Paul mean by this word? What does he mean by flesh?
I get a daily email from Pope Francis. It is not a personal email, mind you, but it is an email I often enjoy for it contains various devotional thoughts from messages the Pope has delivered recently.
Just as I was working on this passage, I received an email from the Pope with this statement…
What are the works of the flesh? They are behaviours that are contrary to the Spirit of God… Flesh is a word that indicates the person’s earthly dimension, closed in on itself in a horizontal existence, following worldly instincts and closing the door to the Spirit who lifts us up and opens us up to God and others. But the flesh also reminds us that everything gets old, that it all passes, withers, while the Spirit gives life.
That is a great definition of what I think Paul means by flesh. And he says that the Corinthian Christians are more fleshly than spiritual. That is not good.
What is characteristic of the Corinthians as fleshly, as babes in Christ? Paul uses two more words to describe them. He says that among the Corinthians there is jealousy and strife. Those are not the characteristics of a mature Christian.
III. Planting & Watering (3:5-9)
The next metaphorical pair Paul uses is planting and watering.
Paul says that the way the Corinthians talk about their leaders reveals how immature they are. The way they talk shows that they don’t understand Christian leadership at all.
Why? Because the Corinthians are talking in a partisan manner. They say things like, “I am a Red Sox fan.” Or “I am a Yankees fan.”
No, that’s not what they said. But you get the point. Many of you, I am sure, enjoy watching sports. And it is natural for you to root for your home team. But such tribalism when applied to Christian leadership is, according to Paul, totally out of place. If we really understood Christian leadership, we wouldn’t boast about following this Christian leader or that one.
I have lived in places and served in churches where, as a pastor, I learned very quickly what pastors my parishioners watched on television or listened to on the radio. And heaven forbid that something I said should contradict their favorite famous pastor. Frankly, it was hard to stand up to any comparison between my preaching and that of the famous preachers on television or radio.
Thankfully, I have not experienced the same thing here. But this sort of team spirit, tribalism really, does crop up in the church from time to time.
Paul says that this is not the right way to look at Christian leadership at all. The Corinthians should not be saying, “I am an Apollos fan!” Or “I am a follower of Paul!” Rather, he says, they should recognize that each Christian leader is given his or her work by God. One plants a seed and another one waters it.
I have seen this at work in my own life, and I am sure you have seen it in yours. Spiritual seeds were planted in my life by my parents, by Robert Schuller, by Billy Graham. But God used different people in my life to water those seeds. He used people like the many pastors under whose teaching I sat before becoming a pastor myself. God watered the seed of his word using people like C. S. Lewis.
But here is the thing. It is not as though C. S. Lewis is better than Billy Graham. Or vice versa. What is most important is not the human instrument God uses. What really counts is Godhimself; he alone is the one who alone can bring life, who can cause a seed to germinate and grow.
So, that is how we should look at Christian leaders according to Paul. We should not look at them like celebrities or sports heroes, but like gardeners. And every gardener is a little bit different; there are some gardeners who plant while others water.
IV. The Foundation & The Builders (3:10-15)
The fourth metaphorical twosome that Paul offers by way of talking about Christian leadership is “The Foundation & The Builders”.
Paul thought of himself like a builder, but a very special kind of builder—one who laid a foundation. Others, he said, were building on his foundation. This was a very appropriate metaphor for Paul to use because he was indeed getting churches started, or to use his earlier metaphor, we might say—planted.
What did Paul consider to be the foundation of the church? We might better ask: who did he consider to be the foundation? The answer is: Jesus Christ.
C. S. Lewis put it this way…
The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.[1]
So, Jesus is the foundation of the Church, and the whole purpose of the Church is to draw people to Christ. It is not as though the church has many different purposes. The church has one purpose—Christ.
If Jesus is the foundation, then it is very important how one builds on that foundation. One should not add to the foundation anything that is extraneous or superfluous to Jesus. One day, Paul says, the quality of workmanship on the part of the Christian leader will be revealed. If, as a pastor, I build on the foundation of Jesus Christ using gold, silver, or costly stones, that is alright. That will survive the test of fire. But if I build on the foundation using wood, hay, or straw, that is not going to survive a fire. The Day of fire Paul is talking about is, of course, the Day of Judgment at the end of time.
My ancestors came to Virginia colony from England in 1640. One of my ancestors was a vestryman at the Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg. At that time, that was a wood church. Like many colonial churches built of wood, it burned to the ground. And, also like many other churches, it was replaced with a stone church.
The materials one uses to build a physical building matter. Some materials survive better than others. Just so, the materials we use to build the spiritual building of the church make a difference. It is my assumption that you come to worship here wanting to hear a word from Jesus and about Jesus. You do not come here to catch up on current events, or to hear the latest philosophical ideas.
When I was in seminary, I did a summer internship at Billy Graham’s home church in Montreat, North Carolina. I preached a number of times in that church. On the back side of the pulpit, facing the preacher, there was a plaque with the words of John 12:21 emblazoned upon it: “Sir, we would see Jesus.” That is my goal as a pastor and preacher—to help others see Jesus, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.
V. Wisdom & Folly (3:16-23)
This leads to the final metaphorical twosome Paul presents in this chapter: wisdom and folly. Paul begins this section by making a very important statement: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”
Our purpose as a church is to build up people, not to maintain a physical building. And the way we build up people is by giving them Jesus. Our physical building is just a vehicle for accomplishing the Lord’s work. In fact, the Lord’s work in Yarmouth could be accomplished without this building. The real temple is not this beautiful building constructed in 1870. God’s temple is people. When we mess with God’s church we are messing with people’s lives. When people introduce dissension and division into the Church, they destroy the temple of God in a double sense: (1) they make it impossible for the Spirit to operate and (2) they split up the Church and reduce it to a series of disconnected ruins.
To do anything like that is sheer folly. And yet that is what some in Corinth were doing by boasting about their favorite leader. They were reducing the church to factions. To do so, Paul says, belongs not to heavenly wisdom but the worldly variety. The trouble with worldly wisdom, intellectual pride, is that it is always disputatious and exclusive, whereas God wants us to be loving, accepting, and inclusive.
The Corinthians thought of themselves as very wise, very urbane, no doubt. But, Paul says, such wisdom is merely following the standards of this age and is really foolishness in God’s sight.
“Why boast about following this leader or that one?” Paul asks. “Why boast in such a way when all things are yours?”
I am reminded, once again, of a statement by Lewis. This one is from the end of Mere Christianity…
Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
That sums up the key to successful Christian leadership, and really, to a successful Church. Focus on Christ and you will get him, and with him, everything else thrown in.
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