1 Corinthians 3

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1 Corinthians 3 confronts a church that had split into fan clubs. Paul says he had to feed the Corinthians milk, not solid food, because their jealousy and quarrelling over "I follow Paul" and "I follow Apollos" prove they are still worldly. Paul and Apollos are only servants: one planted, the other watered, but God made it grow. The church is God's field and God's building on the one foundation, Jesus Christ; whoever builds on it with gold or with straw will have the work tested by fire, rewarded if it survives, lost if it burns, though the builder is saved. The Corinthians are God's temple. So stop boasting in men: everything is yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Apri commento del capitolo

1 Corinthians 3 is Paul talking to a church that had turned its teachers into teams. Some said they followed Paul, some Apollos, and they argued about it, and Paul's response is not flattered. I could not talk to you as grown-ups, he says; I had to give you milk, and you are still not ready for anything else, because a church that competes over its preachers is behaving like everyone else in Corinth. Then he shrinks the preachers down to size. What is Apollos? What is Paul? Waiters, servants, through whom you came to believe. I planted, Apollos watered, and neither of us is anything, because God made it grow. You are God's field. You are God's building. From there Paul builds the image up. He laid the foundation, and there is only one foundation anyone can lay, Jesus Christ; other people are now building on it, and they had better watch what they use. Gold, silver, and precious stones, or wood, hay, and straw: the Day will come with fire and show which was which. Work that survives will be rewarded. Work that burns will be lost, and the builder himself will get out, but only like a man running from a burning house. Then the sharpest line in the chapter: do you not know that you, all of you together, are God's temple, and that God's Spirit lives in you? Whoever wrecks that temple, God will wreck. And having said that, Paul turns it all inside out. Stop boasting about which man you belong to. Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future, all of it belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Passi chiave

1 Corinthians 3:1-4 1 Corinthians 3:5-9 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 1 Corinthians 1:10-13 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Historical and literary context

Paul wrote from Ephesus around AD 54 or 55 to the church he had founded in Corinth about three years earlier. Apollos, an eloquent Alexandrian Jew, had taught there after him, and Corinth's culture of rhetoric and patronage, in which people attached themselves to celebrated teachers, had produced rival parties. Fields and buildings were the two standard images for a community in the ancient world, and the list of building materials runs from a temple's costly stones to the cheap thatch of a house. Fire as a test of workmanship, and the Day of the Lord as fire, come from the prophets. Verse 16 makes the congregation, not a structure, the temple of God, a striking claim while the Jerusalem temple still stood.

How the chapter unfolds

Verses 1 to 4 diagnose the Corinthians as infants and worldly because of their factions. Verses 5 to 9 reframe Paul and Apollos as servants, planter and waterer, with God as the one who gives growth, and the church as God's field and building. Verses 10 to 15 develop the building: the foundation of Christ, the materials, the testing fire, reward and loss. Verses 16 and 17 declare the church God's temple and warn whoever destroys it. Verses 18 to 20 return to worldly wisdom with two Scripture quotations. Verses 21 to 23 conclude: no boasting in men, since all things belong to those who belong to Christ.

Why this chapter matters

"I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow" is the Bible's standard text on ministry as service rather than celebrity, and the church as "God's field, God's building" has named countless congregations. The builder whose work burns but who is himself "saved, but only as if through the flames" became a key text in the medieval doctrine of purgatory and in Protestant debates about rewards. "You yourselves are God's temple" grounded the church's sense of itself as the place where God dwells, and the warning against destroying that temple has been read as one of Scripture's sternest words against dividing a congregation. "All things are yours" is a rare New Testament note of sheer abundance.

Interpretive tension to watch

Whether verses 12 to 15 describe the judgment of ministers' work or of every Christian's life, and whether "saved as through fire" implies a purifying fire after death, has divided Catholic and Protestant interpreters since the Reformation. The temple in verse 16 is the community, but the same image in chapter 6 is the individual body, and readers sometimes swap the two. Paul's claim that the Corinthians are "not yet ready for solid food" has been used to rank Christians into classes, which is closer to the Corinthian error than to Paul. And "all things are yours," said to a church he has just called infants, shows how Paul mixes rebuke and lavish affirmation.

Domande per questo capitolo

Paul calls loyalty to favorite teachers a mark of immaturity. Where does that instinct show up in churches today, and why is it so attractive?
Work built on Christ will be tested by fire. What in your work would survive, and what is straw?
"You yourselves are God's temple" is addressed to a divided congregation. What does it mean to treat the people you disagree with as the place where God lives?

Study with context

Use this as a chapter guide, then press deeper into the text itself. The goal is to slow down observation, notice structure, and ask better questions before jumping to conclusions.

Aggiungi alle note

1 さて、兄弟たちよ。私は、あなたがたに向かって、御霊に属する人に対するようには話すことができないで、肉に属する人、キリストにある幼子に対するように話しました。 2 私はあなたがたには乳を与えて、堅い食物を与えませんでした。あなたがたには、まだ無理だったからです。実は、今でもまだ無理なのです。 3 あなたがたは、まだ肉に属しているからです。あなたがたの間にねたみや争いがあることからすれば、あなたがたは肉に属しているのではありませんか。そして、ただの人のように歩んでいるのではありませんか。 4 ある人が、「私はパウロにつく。」と言えば、別の人は、「私はアポロに。」と言う。そういうことでは、あなたがたは、ただの人たちではありませんか。 5 アポロとは何でしょう。パウロとは何でしょう。あなたがたが信仰にはいるために用いられたしもべであって、主がおのおのに授けられたとおりのことをしたのです。 6 私が植えて、アポロが水を注ぎました。しかし、成長させたのは神です。 7 それで、たいせつなのは、植える者でも水を注ぐ者でもありません。成長させてくださる神なのです。 8 植える者と水を注ぐ者は、一つですが、それぞれ自分自身の働きに従って自分自身の報酬を受けるのです。 9 私たちは神の協力者であり、あなたがたは神の畑、神の建物です。 10 与えられた神の恵みによって、私は賢い建築家のように、土台を据えました。そして、ほかの人がその上に家を建てています。しかし、どのように建てるかについてはそれぞれが注意しなければなりません。 11 というのは、だれも、すでに据えられている土台のほかに、ほかの物を据えることはできないからです。その土台とはイエス・キリストです。 12 もし、だれかがこの土台の上に、金、銀、宝石、木、草、わらなどで建てるなら、 13 各人の働きは明瞭になります。その日がそれを明らかにするのです。というのは、その日は火とともに現われ、この火がその力で各人の働きの真価をためすからです。 14 もしだれかの建てた建物が残れば、その人は報いを受けます。 15 もしだれかの建てた建物が焼ければ、その人は損害を受けますが、自分自身は、火の中をくぐるようにして助かります。 16 あなたがたは神の神殿であり、神の御霊があなたがたに宿っておられることを知らないのですか。 17 もし、だれかが神の神殿をこわすなら、神がその人を滅ぼされます。神の神殿は聖なるものだからです。あなたがたがその神殿です。 18 だれも自分を欺いてはいけません。もしあなたがたの中で、自分は今の世の知者だと思う者がいたら、知者になるためには愚かになりなさい。 19 なぜなら、この世の知恵は、神の御前では愚かだからです。こう書いてあります。「神は、知者どもを彼らの悪賢さの中で捕える。」 20 また、次のようにも書いてあります。「主は、知者の論議を無益だと知っておられる。」 21 ですから、だれも人間を誇ってはいけません。すべては、あなたがたのものです。 22 パウロであれ、アポロであれ、ケパであれ、また世界であれ、いのちであれ、死であれ、また現在のものであれ、未来のものであれ、すべてあなたがたのものです。 23 そして、あなたがたはキリストのものであり、キリストは神のものです。

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