1 Corinthians 3: "You are the Temple"

WEDNESDAY NIGHT PRAYER AND PRAISE
"1 Corinthians 3: You are the Temple."
by Pastor Jay Hutchens

All of us have enjoyed having teachers that have given us some good instruction in our past. Somewhere along the way, someone taught us to brush our teeth. Someone taught us to begin to speak and to read. Someone taught us how to dress ourselves. We’ve been taught more difficult things as well. Some of us have had to learn a bit of American history along the way. Some have had to learn long works of literature. Many of us have struggled with trignonometry, algebra, and even – yes, calculus. Yuck!

We can probably even remember the person or more likely, persons, who taught us what we believe about Jesus. Much of my own religious education took place in the Sunday School at a small church of Christ in New Orleans where Mrs. Starr, Mrs. Huffman, Mrs. Laguna, Mrs. Hutchens, Mr. Keaton, Mr. Bergeron and many others took pains to make sure we had some knowledge of what scripture taught.

We could likely even generalize a bit further and identify groups of our teachers rather loosely in terms of “schools”, couldn’t we. Some of us have learned at the “charismatic” school, some at the “social gospel” school, some at the “conservative” school, others at the “liberal” school and still others at what they call the “fundamentalist” school. Each of our teachers and each of our various traditions or “schools” has had a tremendous influence on how what we believe, how we worship, and what words we use to describe what God is doing in our life today. This is not a bad thing at all, as a matter of fact. It’s the way the church is and to my way of thinking adds to our rich diversity and our great ability to minister with spiritual influence to a great many people in our community.

Paul – who had studied as Jerry mentioned last week – at the feet of the well known rabbi – Gamaliel – knew the importance of a good teacher. We detect from Paul just a small dash of pride when he talks about having studied Jewish law with Gamaliel in Acts 22:3 in his speech to the crowd just after being arrested in Jerusalem. They knew who Gamaliel was, they respected him, and knew that Paul having studied with him was no intellectual light-weight.

It’s with an entirely different spirit though that the Corinthians have begun to rally behind various teachers and leaders at their church. And it angers Paul that they would become some manner of hyphenated Christian – a Christian who finds his or her identity in some teacher or teaching other than the crucified and resurrected Jesus. Paul is so upset by this in the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians that he can barely contain himself and comes to use what would seem to us as unusually impolite language to communicate the message to quite simply – GROW UP!

1Co 3:1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as 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 men? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?

What is Paul doing here? His line of thinking is this. First, if the Corinthians are going to act like children, he’s going to talk to them like, guess what… children! Secondly, if in their presumed maturity they are going to quarrel and bicker and be jealous of who learned from whom – which one has to believe resulted in some sort of hierarchy as to who was the most knowledgeable or most righteous of the bunch – then Paul is going to name this for exactly what it is – “worldly” behavior. No doubt Paul is remembering the words of Jesus himself about who would have precedence in the kingdom of God.

Mk 10:41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

To be a leader in the mold of Jesus (and this is certainly what Paul is arguing) means that you will be the greatest servant of all. It’s the Gentiles – the heathen – the “worldly” who clamor after positions of power and authority. But as Jesus – and Paul – state definitively – “not so with you!”

For who are these human leaders? They are only those who have been appointed to the task of teaching by God and in doing so are fulfilling their small role in God’s larger plan of salvation.

1Co 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. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

For Paul, the purpose of those whom the Corinthians have been rallying around is simply to fulfill the task God has assigned him or her. Because the loyalty of Paul and Apollos and others is to God – so too – should absolute obedience and loyalty of the Corinthians be not to their teachers, their schools, their special way of being a Christian – but to God alone and as he will argue – to Jesus alone.
Paul’s role has been to help lay the foundation. He is a “fellow-worker” with God alongside Apollos and Peter (or Cephas). But make no mistake about it – neither Apollos or Peter nor Paul is the foundation. Jesus is the foundation of the church.

1Co 3:10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 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. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

Perhaps the reason the Corinthians are rallying behind their favorite teacher is because they want to honor what that teacher has done. And there is honor to being a “fellow-worker” with God. But the work itself of building the church is God’s. Our own work will one day be shown for what it is. If build on the foundation of Jesus – it will stand. In the end, the work will be tested and we will see whether or not Godly materials were used to build on the Jesus foundation.

This passage is difficult because we don’t know exactly what Paul means when he says that “he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.” It likely means that if built with materials not supplied by God then the builder – whose intentions are good – will be saved though he suffer the loss of that which he has tried to build. In other words, don’t get too attached to your particular builder because in the end the day of judgement will show the worth, not just of the builder who will be saved even though he may suffer loss – but will show the worth of that which is built. And what’s the building that Paul is referring to? It’s the Corinthians themselves. They themselves will stand before God on the day of judgement and have to be refined through fire as it were.

In the next passage, Paul says this outright.

1Co 3:16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

The building that Paul is describing in verses 10-15 is not just any building. It’s a special kind of building. A holy building. In fact, it’s a temple. And using a vivid metaphor here, Paul reminds those individual Christians at Corinth that THEY are the temple of God. If some seek to destroy that temple through divisive teaching, through jealousy and senseless quarelling then that person will be destroyed by God himself. That’s pretty scary if you think about it. If you are a destroyer of the body of Christ, you will become God’s target for destruction. These are very strong words on a very serious matter.

Rather than suffer that fate – the fate of being on the receiving end of God’s righteous wrath – because you are puffed up in your knowledge and in doing so have become divisive – it would better for you to be a fool. In verse 18, Paul picks up on the theme he’s been using all through chapters one and two.

1Co 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. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 21 So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas 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.

What’s the foundation? What’s the core? Who is at the center? Jesus and Jesus alone. If we belong – not to some school or sect or special way of interpreting Christianity – but to Jesus alone then we will belong to God. As Paul will say at the beginning of chapter 4 which Jerry will cover next week – the leaders of the church, the planters of the church, the teachers are only servants of God. They are mere men and women fulfilling their appointed role in God’s plan. The foundation upon which we all must build our spiritual house is Jesus and Jesus alone.

I want to close with that thought of Paul. All of us have come from different backgrounds and have sat under different teachers at various points in our lives. They have been wonderful men and women that have faithfully served God by teaching us and others how we can best serve the Master. In the end, how we will be tested as Paul says in our reading tonight will be with what materials WE USE to build this spiritual temple. Will we build upon the foundation of Jesus lovingly and compassionately submitting to one another out of reverence for Jesus? (Eph 5:21) We will be known, I believe by the measure of submission and love and reverence we show. These things will endure any test we undergo. These things will also be the framework for incredible healing and power in God’s kingdom as we minister that kingdom here in our community.