There are many workers, the building is one
1 I could not, friends, speak to you as spiri tual persons but as fleshly people, for you are still infants in Christ.
2 I gave you milk and not solid food, for you were not ready for it and up to now you cannot receive it
3 for you are still of the flesh. As long as there is jealousy and strife, what can I say but that you are at the level of the flesh and behave like ordinary people.
4 While one says: “I follow Paul,” and the other: “I follow Apol los,” what are you but peo ple still at a human level?
5 For what is Apollos? What is Paul? They are ministers and through them you believed, as it was given by the Lord to each of them.
6 I planted, Apollos watered the plant, but God made it grow.
7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who makes the plant grow.
8 The one who plants and the one who waters work to the same end, and the Lord will pay each according to their work.
9 We are fellow-workers with God, but you are God’s field and building.
10 I, as a good architect, according to the capacity given to me, I laid the foundation, and another is to build upon it. Each one must be careful how to build upon it.
11 No one can lay a foundation other than the one which is already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Then if someone builds with gold upon this foundation, another with silver and precious stones, or with wood, bamboo or straw,
13 the work of each one will be shown for what it is. The day of Judgment will re veal it, because the fire will make everything known. The fire will test the work of everyone.
14 If your work withstands the fire, you will be re warded;
15 but if your work becomes ashes, you will pay for it. You will be saved, but it will be as if passing through fire.
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit abides within you?
17 If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. God’s tem ple is holy, and you are this tem ple.
Do not divide the Church
18 Do not deceive yourselves. If anyone of you considers himself wise in the ways of the world, let him become a fool, so that he may be come wise.
19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s eyes. To this, Scripture says: God catches the wise in their own wisdom.
20 It also says: The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is useless.
21 Because of this, let no one be come an admirer of humans, for everything belongs to you,
22 Paul, Apollos, Cephas – life, death, the present and the future. Everything is yours,
23 and you, you belong to Christ, and Christ is of God.
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Comments 1 Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 3
• 3.1 As a good architect I laid the foundation (v. 10). Paul is founder of churches and others come after him, apostles, prophets or teach ers, to preach and encourage the people. Paul is not jealous, but it could be that some of them seek their own prestige, forgetting that the Church belongs only to God. It could also be that the believers compare one apostle with another, and do this readily inasmuch as they are ignorant of what apostolic work really is.
Fire will test the work of everyone (v. 13). This image suggests many things. To Paul as well as to the readers the day of God’s judgment seemed to be imminent and everyone thought that God would purify and cleanse the world by fire. So Paul concludes that whatever we did not do according to the will of God and with the means he wanted will be destroyed by fire. Remember what happened with many apostolic projects that were but a smoke screen (how many tons of documents fit for the fire!). To serve Christ without really pure intentions, will not merit hell of course, but a personal purification will be necessary. This text supports the be lief in Purgatory, that is, a process of purification at the time of death or after death for all whose transformation by the Spirit of God was only half-concluded (see commentary on Mt 5: 21).
• 16. Do you not know that you are God’s temple (v. 16)? Christ is the new Temple that takes the place of the temple of the Jews (Jn 2:19and Mk 15: 38). The Temple of God is Christ because in him abides all the divine Mystery. The Tem ple of God is likewise the Church because in her the Holy Spirit is working. The Temple of God is also each home and each believer (see 6:19) because the Spirit lives in each one of them.
• 18. Everything is yours and you belong to Christ (v. 23). We have here a decisive word on Chris tian freedom.
On the other hand, remember what non-believing philosophers have said: People created God out of their own misery. Whatever was lacking in order for them to feel great and happy, they attributed to a superior being, who had everything. In worshiping him, they felt identified with him and forgot their own misery. This theory is not completely false: in fact people make idols for themselves, be they singers, athletes or politicians; and they feel happy when their idols have and do everything they themselves cannot do or have. They die for causes not their own and they feel proud of people and institutions that exploit them. A Christian is wary of authority becoming idols: he exists and thinks for himself. Even in the Church he is face to face with God with no other intermediary but Christ, and he does not indulge in the cult of personalities.