church2go

^{1CO 3:1} Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly–mere infants in Christ.

Hey now this is a huge put down. Not Spiritual people – they thought they were. Some thought they were more spiritual than others. And looking at it is a huge slap in the face because this was a growing thriving church. Very successful in church growth, they used their spiritual gifts, they were inclusive of the local people but Paul is hammering them saying they are not spiritual people.

It is possible for the same to be said about a successful church in our society as well. We could be growing, using our gifts, being inclusive and doing so without growing ourselves.

I think too much emphasis has been placed on church numerical growth and not enough on personal and corporate spiritual growth. WE need to be about spiritual growth. That’s why bible studies are so vital as is personal devotions and prayer time.

Paul goes on to say that

² I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.

He is stating that even though they thought they were spiritually mature, they hadn’t got a handle on the basics. The basics of Christian discipleship are hugely important and formational in our Christian lifestyle. If we miss it or skip over them we create an imbalance in our live and development.  This is especially true of people who come to know Jesus as adults. Because we have adult experience and intellect it is assumed that we know the basics, but in this day and age most adults did not have Sunday school, Christian Endeavour, Youth group and kids club to provide the steps and formation. And I don’t believe just playing catch is right. We need to explain the whole thing.

Meaning of Jesus dying, significance of the resurrection, even proof of the resurrection, what is a bible study, how does the bible work, what is prayer, the list of basics goes on until they are no longer the basics. But we can not just miss basics.

We see a result of the imbalance caused by missing the basics  in the next verses.

 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?

Now Paul wants to deal with the issue.

    ^{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.

What a great passage and a great illustration. It is more of a gardening illustration than a contemporary farming illustration. And Christian ministry is like a family garden. Everyone gets in and does their job. But God’s creation does what it does and grows. We just help along the way. That’s church. We help people along the way but God does the work. No one really has any greater importance than anyone else. And as the passage says we have one purpose, or we should have, and that is to make Jesus church grow. That is both numerical and spiritually, both corporate and individually.

Notice the next bit there though. “each will be rewarded,.”

This is a tricky little bit of scripture. So if we do good stuff for God we get rewards!!!

Yes, and what are they? Lets look at this is a few verses time.

Now Paul brings in another illustration. He goes from God’s garden to God’s building.

 ⁹ For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

    ^{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.

I think Paul is setting a scene here, perhaps painting a picture that divisions in the church or squabbles in the church are not spiritual. Dealing with it correctly is.

Notice what he says here – I laid the foundation and someone else builds on it. Well, we have example of that right here. For some of you, Neil Cowling laid the foundation, or Bob Dennis, or Grant Geytenbek, or Eric Dodge or whoever. And for some of you they built on what was already laid. My role is to keep building. Carefully.

While I say the these men have been foundation layers, some of you have been the foundation setters for others here through youth group, kids club personal discipleship etc.

So we keep building.

¹¹ For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

The principle is that we lay Jesus as the foundation. The basic ingredient is the Jesus message.

From there we lay the Christian principles all based on the Jesus message.

¹² If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw,

Notice the ingredients. Gold silver costly stones – that is good quality stuff

Then he mentions wood hay and straw. It sounds a bit like the three little pigs. What they built with was tested and for two of them found wanting – not a good choice of material.

You see our choice of building material is as much a part of the building process as the actual construction.

And what you do with your material will show its quality.

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.

This all sounds really hairy that things will be burnt and tested. But that’s life. Yep, the testing of our faith is done by life. If our faith or religion if you want to use that term doesn’t stand up to our life situations then is it really true? That is why the foundational relationship with Jesus needs to be the most solid thing.

    ^{1CO 3:16} Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?

What a great verse and I just love how Paul pulls all this together. You are the building, you are God’s gardeners, you are the workers but also the building.. God’s temple is hugely important. Both in Jewish culture and greek culture. God’s house. We are it. And the greek word here is naos meaning the inner sanctum, the word for the whole temple building is hieron, Paul is saying that we are the most precious bit of the temple.

He has gone from saying they are not spiritual to saying they are the most precious. Why, because they are spiritual? Absolutely not! They are only Spiritual because of the Holy Spirits presence in their lives. God makes them spiritual through His grace. Ahh isn’t God’s grace unreal.

Now here is where Paul has been heading with this passage.

¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

If God’s temple is us then we are to look after us. And Paul is talking about spiritual stuff here. He is saying look after the relationship to Jesus, the relationship to the Holy Spirit, the relationship to God.

God will destroy people who – here is the biggy – cause divisions, follow a human leader not Jesus, don’t do their job of building properly or watering God’s garden right.

God’s temple is His people and we are to look after it. God’s people are God’s temple and we are to look after them.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 6:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.