Build with Care or Be Destroyed-1 Cor 3:10-17

𝑨𝒓𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒃𝒖𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐–or 𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒓𝒈𝒖𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒔𝒎𝒔? On what are you building your church / your life?

WARNING: build carefully on Christ—NOT on “systems/slogans.” Paul directly attacks those responsible for the divisions. His singular concern is that those leading the church take heed because their present work will not stand the fiery test to come, having shifted from the imperishable foundation (1 Cor 3:11) of the gospel of Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23; 2:2). 3:10-15 is one of the most significant passages in the NT that warn–and encourage–leaders and all Christians for building the church of Christ. To this day Christians have built the church out of every imaginable human system based on worldly wisdom [sophia]–philosophy, psychology, politics, techniques, slogans, systems, methodologies, etc. The problem is that these “systems/methods/slogans” become functionally, emotionally and practically more important than the gospel itself.

Division, dissension and discord in the church (1 Cor 1:10) is deeply troubling to Paul, for his single aim is to build community. He laid the foundation (1 Cor 3:10) and is concerned that other contractors are botching the subsequent construction job. The quality of construction matters urgently, as the community is God‘s building (1 Cor 1:9) AND the place where God dwells (1 Cor 3:16), thus taking the place of the Jerusalem Temple as the place where God’s glory resides. When division occurs, the temple of God is dishonored. But the Spirit’s presense should produce unity rather than conflict.

The 4 particulars in 1 Cor 3:9-10 are:

1. God is the owner (1 Cor 3:9).
2. Paul is the founder (1 Cor 3:10a) – the expert builder who laid the “superstructure” (1 Cor 3:11).
3. The building is the church (1 Cor 3:10b).
4. “Someone, each one, no one, anyone” are their leaders (3:10-12).

Our Construction Work Will Be Tested by Fire (3:10–15). After 1 Cor 3:9, Paul shifts to a new metaphor: “You are God’s building” leads to a new concern: urgently construct the church with integrity. Paul is like a head building contractor who carefully lays the foundation of a building and then lets out the rest of the work to subcontractors. If their work is not “up to code,” or if they fail to use suitable materials, there’ll be dire consequences.

In California earthquakes, buildings that are properly constructed to withstand the shocks remain standing, but others that are not been built according to sound principles of seismic engineering come tumbling down, with sometimes tragic results. Rather than earthquake, Paul uses the image of fire, a traditional OT image for God’s judgment, but his point is the same: A cataclysm will come to test the structural integrity of our construction work, so build with great care. Our building should not be hasty, nor just for show; we must build our community solidly from the ground up in a way that is designed to endure.

Paul compares himself to a “wise” (sophos) master builder (1 Cor 3:10). Sophos means “skilled.” Here it has a double sense in the present context. Paul is both the skilled artisan and the wise teacher who lays down the one foundation that is truly in accordance with God’s wisdom rather than the wisdom of the world, thus contrasting himself ironically to the Corinthian devotees of wisdom.

Warning. Paul’s foundation-laying was “according to the grace of God given to me.” His apostleship is commissioned by God (Rom 1:5), and is a manifestation of God’s grace for the community. Thus, a warning must be sounded for his successors: “Let each one take care how he builds.” Shoddy workmanship on top of the sound apostolic foundation won’t work. “Someone else” who is building on Paul’s foundation (1 Cor 3:10) may or may not be a specific individual who is the hidden target of Paul’s warning. Paul’s point–“Let each one take care”–is a stern warning to all who teach or exercise leadership and influence in the church.

The one foundation is Jesus Christ–not wisdom, knowledge or experience. Christ is the content of Paul’s preaching/life (1 Cor 1:23; 2:2). Christ crucified is the foundation of the church. The church must conform to the pattern of that foundation. Otherwise it’ll be crooked and unstable. One cannot expand this foundation by adding “a new wing founded on wisdom,” or “on the foundation of scientific knowledge,” or “on religious experience that dismantles the foundation and reconstructing it.” The fixed basis for the construction of the church is the kerygma of Christ crucified.

Fire of judgement (3:12–15). Contractors employing inferior material will have the quality of their work exposed by the fire of God’s judgment. “The Day” (1 Cor 3:13) is the Day of the Lord, the day when God will examine and judge all human deeds and establish eschatological justice (Rom 2:5, 16; 13:12; 1 Cor 1:8, 2 Cor 1:14, Phil 1:6, 10; 1 Thess 5:2; Amos 5:18, 20; Mal 4:1). Paul’s apocalyptic framework is the imagery of fire as a sign of God’s judgment, which is deeply embedded in the OT apocalyptic traditions (Dan 7:9–10; 2 Pet 3:7). Mal 4:1-2a says, “See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”Paul’s vision of final judgment by fire is not to the fate of individuals but to the ecclesiological construction work done by different church leaders. In 1 Cor 3:12–15 there is not “the remotest reference to the state of the soul between death and judgment” [Robertson and Plummer], nor any reflection on the purifying effect of fire. Paul is not talking about purgatory for individual souls but about the final divine testing of the solidity of the church as constructed by various church laborers.

6 different building materials arranged in descending order of value (1 Cor 3:12), have no special significance beyond the fact that the last 3 are combustible and the first 3 are not. There’s no spiritual meaning of these different materials allegorically. Paul’s point is that some leaders are building with valuable fireproof material (the gospel of Christ crucified) and others are building with ephemeral fluff (human wisdom) that will be consumed by flames in God’s coming building inspection.

The motif of “reward” and “loss” (1 Cor 3:14–15) creates difficulties, because it seems at odds with Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith rather than by works. If salvation is solely through God’s grace, how can Paul also speak of rewards and punishments based on the quality of the work of individuals? Observations:

1. Paul’s doctrine of justification includes God judging the deeds of individuals (2 Cor 5:10; Rom 2:6–10). We must not impose upon Paul a theological abstraction about the meaning of sola fide.
2. Importantly, Paul is not talking about the fate of individual souls at the final judgment but about God’s scrutiny of the building work of different preachers and leaders. Paul has distinct notions of special eschatological rewards for apostolic work (1 Cor 9:15–18, 23, 27; Phil 2:16). Justification by faith is clearly distinguishable from this, as 1 Cor 3:15 suggests: The incompetent subcontractor will be saved (though barely) even though his work is burned up.
3. “…receive a reward” and “suffer loss” [NRSV] refers to wages paid to workers and fines imposed on builders who do inadequate work. Paul is developing the metaphor of construction work. This same language has been found in ancient Greek inscriptions dealing with penalties to be imposed on contractors who do inferior work or fail to meet their obligations. Thus: The fire will test what sort of work each subcontractor has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive his pay; but if the work of anyone is burned up, he will be fined; the subcontractor will be saved, but only as through fire.

Careless builders after the major southern California earthquake of 1994. An apartment building in Northridge, California, collapsed killing 16 people. The builders were taken to court and required to pay a settlement of more than $1,000,000 to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit alleging wrongful death. That’s Paul’s thought. Preachers and teachers who fail to build solid community are responsible for loss and injury to many, and God will hold them accountable. If they’re finally spared and saved as individuals, it’s only God’s miraculous grace: They’ll be like “a brand snatched from the fire” (Amos 4:11).

The Church as God’s Temple (3:16–17) is Paul’s 3rd metaphor. The community is not just any building but the Temple of God, the place where God’s Spirit dwells. Note the plural: “Do you not know that you [plural] are the Temple of God and that God’s Spirit dwells in you [plural]?” (1 Cor 3:16) The Spirit is dwelling not in the individual Christian (1 Cor 6:19) but in the gathered community–the church. This is consistent with the other metaphors in chapter 3. They might think of the many pagan temples in their city, such as the temple of Apollo. But Paul speaks of God’s Spirit dwelling in a temple, not any random gods and temples of the pagan world, but of the Spirit of the God of Israel in the Temple at Jerusalem. This role of the Temple as the dwelling place of God is now imaginatively claimed for the church.

The Temple in Jerusalem was still standing and active when Paul wrote them. For Jews like Paul, the Jerusalem temple is the central locus of the divine presence in the world. So by transfering this to the community of predominantly Gentile Christians in Corinth, Paul’s making an audacious world-shattering move, decentering the sacred space of Judaism (Jn 4:21–24). How can Paul assert that the church has replaced the Temple? The Spirit of God is present in the church, which is now the place where praise and worship are rightly offered up to God. The Spirit of God is no longer localized in a sacred building, but found in the gathered community of God’s elect people in Christ. Paul speaks of the community as temple not because of what the members of the community are doing (offering sacrifices) but because the Holy Spirit is present in the community: the community is the place where God resides (2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21–22).

God will surely deal severely with those who corrupt or damage the church (1 Cor 3:17) if the church is the dwelling place of God. Those who split the community are offending God and calling down God’s judgment on their own heads. God’s temple is holy: i.e., it’s set apart for the service of God. Those who turn the temple/community into a playground for their own arrogance and spiritual vanity are solemnly warned: “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person.” Paul then ends the section by driving home the image one more time: “You [plural] are that temple” (1 Cor 3:17).

God has chosen to be present in the world in and through a specific community of human beings. The task of apostles and church leaders is to construct that community on the foundation of Jesus Christ in such a way that the Holy Spirit will be rightly worshiped and manifested; and as Paul has already hinted (3:1–4), the Spirit is to be manifested in the community’s unity and harmony. This is no light matter. Those who damage the unity of the community are interfering with God’s chosen mode of presence, and they will certainly incur judgment. Make a distinction between those who build with inappropriate materials (3:12–15) and those who actively destroy the community (1 Cor 3:17), though the line between these actions is perilously thin. One is saved, though with singed eyebrows, while the other is destroyed. Paul’s call to his readers, however, is to avoid both of these fates by building soundly on the gospel of Jesus Christ and forswearing pretentious and divisive claims to elite spiritual knowledge.

Reference:

1. Richard B. Hays. First Corinthians. Interpretation. A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. 1997.
2. Gordon D. Fee. First Corinthians. The New International Commentary on the NT. 1987.

Sermon Divisions:

1. 7/12/20: Always Thank God (1:1-9) [1 Cor 1:4].  Cosmic Epic Calling [1 Cor 1:2].
2. 7/19/20: The Devil Divides, God Unites (1:10-17) [1 Cor 1:10]. All Agree. No Divisions. Perfect Unity.
3. 7/26/20: The Cross—God‘s Way—is Dumb (1:18-25) [1 Cor 1:18]. The Cross Stumbles. The Cross is like a Cop Out. Foolish Cross.
4. 8/2/20: What You Were, Who Christ Is (1:26-31) [1 Cor 1:26, 30]. The Necessity of Lack. No Boasting  [1 Cor 1:31].
5. 8/9/20: Nothing but Jesus (2:1-5) [1 Cor 2:2].
6. 8/16/20: Wise vs. Stupid (2:6-16) [1 Cor 2:6]. True Wisdom is Only for the Mature. The Mind of Christ [1 Cor 2:16].
7. 8/23/20: You‘re NOT Spiritual (3:1-4) [1 Cor 3:1].  Spiritual, Yet Not Spiritual.
8. 8/30/20: Merely Servants (3:5-9) [1 Cor 3:5]. Field Laborers.
9. 9/6/20: Build with Care or Be Destroyed (3:10-15, 16-17) [1 Cor 3:10-11].
10. 9/13/20: Wisdom Doesn‘t Boast (3:18-23) [1 Cor 3:16]. God’s Temple.
11. 9/20/20: Judging Others Blinds You (4:1-5) [1 Cor 4:4]. True Self.
12. 9/27/20: Become Scum (4:6-13) [1 Cor 4:13].
13. 10/4/20: Final Warning (4:14-21) [1 Cor 4:19].
14. 10/11/20: Incest (5:1-13).
15. 10/18/20: Lawsuits (6:1-11).
16. 10/25/20: Sex (6:12-20).
17. 11/1/20: Marriage (1 Cor 7ff).