June 4, 1 Corinthians 3
Imagine your favorite meal. See the table in your mind. Is the main course steak or seafood? Maybe you’d prefer peas and cornbread. Whatever you like is fine. How about a nice soup or salad for an appetizer? How about both? Then, what delightful dessert would you select? Would you like coffee with that? Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? Now see yourself—a toothless baby still getting all your nourishment from Mother’s breast or a bottle! So you want some turkey, or ham? Sorry, you’re not even ready for that runny baby cereal yet.
Paul told the feuding Corinthians they were still milk babies when it came to spiritual food. Whatever rich, deep spiritual teaching he had for them would be useless and inappropriate in their present state of development. It must have been a stinging rebuke, being called fleshly and foolish when they imagined themselves spiritual and wise.
A disciple of Jesus is supposed to grow toward maturity. Spiritual maturity is measured more by what controls you than by how much you know. Does God direct more and more of your thoughts, words and actions, or is your flesh still controlling you? Paul warned that quarreling, jealousy, turf wars and preoccupation with division are all evidence of flesh control and spiritual immaturity.
When we denominate ourselves over human teachers or leaders, Paul said we’re missing the point of who the teachers are, and whose we are. The teachers are only servants—field hands who plant and water the crops. It is God who makes us grow and bear fruit, not the workers. God gets the glory, not the field hands. We’re God’s farm. We belong to him. The teacher is a builder, erecting a building on the foundation of Jesus Christ. The human teacher is not the foundation. We are not the human teacher’s building; we are God’s building. If we divide the building by aligning ourselves with one of the builders, we are destroying God’s temple, and God won’t tolerate that. It is serious business to fracture the unity of the church, to injure and insult the holy oneness we have in Christ.
Have you heard a well-meant but misguided application of this text about destroying God’s temple? Some use this passage to argue that God will judge us if we do things that harm our bodies. We could add gluttony and sedentary lifestyles to the usual warnings about tobacco, alcohol and other drugs. But let’s not use this passage as our proof text. The context is about disrupting the unity of the temple of God, the church in which God dwells. The “you” is plural. There is a passage in this letter that teaches us not to dishonor our bodies because God dwells in us, but this is not the one. This is a warning to stop glorying in humans, and an exhortation to grow up in Christ. There’s plenty of conviction in what it really means; there’s no need to go beyond the context.
From The Abiding Companion: A Friendly Guide for Your Journey Through the New Testament,
Copyright © 2010 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—June 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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