1 Corinthians
Chapter 3
1 Brothers and sisters, I could not talk to you as spiritual people but as worldly, as if to babies in Christ.
2 I have given you milk, not solid food, because until now you were not ready for it, and even now you cannot handle it.
3 You are still worldly because you have jealousy, arguments, and divisions among you. Doesn’t this show that you are worldly and behave like ordinary people?
4 When one of you says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting like mere humans?
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but servants through whom you believed, as God gave to each person?
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow.
7 So the one who plants or the one who waters is not important, but God who makes things grow is.
8 The person who plants and the person who waters are working together, and each will get a reward based on their own work.
9 We work together with God: you are God’s field, you are God’s construction.
10 God has given me grace, so like a skilled architect, I laid a foundation for others to build on. But everyone should be careful about how they build on it.
11 No one can lay any other foundation than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw,
13 Everyone’s work will become clear: the day will show it because fire will reveal it; and the fire will test what kind of work each person has done.
14 If someone’s work lasts which they have built on it, they will get a reward.
15 If someone’s work is burned up, they will lose it: but they themselves will be saved, but only as if through fire.
16 Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?
17 If anyone ruins God’s temple, God will ruin that person; because God’s temple is sacred, and that temple is you.
18 Do not trick yourself. If someone thinks they are wise by this world’s standards, they should become like they know nothing, so they can truly become wise.
19 The wisdom of this world is silly to God. It is said, He catches the clever in their tricks.
20 God knows the thoughts of the smart people, that they are useless.
21 So don’t boast about following people. Everything belongs to you.
22 Whether Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, things now, or things in the future; all belong to you.
23 You belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God.