Welcome back to Episode Four in Series One, as we study 1 Corinthians Chapter 3.

Recap and Background

Paul started the letter by identifying the main problem in Corinth - the church was divided, immature and very weak. He needed to respond to that.

In the second episode, he reminded them of the foundation of the gospel; whatever your problems are, the gospel can potentially unite people together into a strong church community. In the last episode, Paul emphasised the work of the Holy Spirit in the individual believer, to bring us to a position of maturity in our faith: to help us to understand the faith, to understand God’s will for us and to give us, as Paul said in the final verse of Chapter 2, ’the mind of Christ’ - the ability to think as if you are following directly the will of God for you.

In this fourth episode, he is focussing again very specifically on the question of local church leadership. The whole character, maturity and ability of a local church depends very heavily on its leaders. He identified the problems in Corinth existed because the local pastors and elders were ineffective.

We can tell that from the context. People were saying, “I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Peter, I follow Christ,” as he mentioned in an earlier chapter. None of those are people were leaders in that local situation. Why were they not following their local leaders? That is the only way that the local church can grow. Paul now comes back to this issue. He looks more specifically at what the leaders' responsibility in the local church is. He points out the risks if local leaders do not build well their churches.

Following the Leaders of the Church

“Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly - mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul’ and another ‘I follow Apollos’ are you not mere human beings? 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. I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. For neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labour. For we are co-labourers in God’s service; and you are God’s field, God’s building”.

1 Corinthians 3:1-9, NIV

Paul mentions himself and a man called Apollos. Paul came to Corinth alone to plant a church. He met a couple, Priscilla and Aquila, there, and they formed a team and planted the church together. Paul was the preacher; Aquila and Priscilla provided hospitality, support, pastoral care and finance. Paul probably lived in their house. Later, his friends Timothy and Silas joined him. So, there were five in the central team. They built the church during the period that Paul was there. It was about 18 months of hard work, and the church was established by the time Paul decided to leave. He left with Priscilla and Aquila, who he asked to go with him to the city of Ephesus, to work over there.

After Paul had left and was in Asia Minor, or what we would call Turkey today, local leaders were looking after the church. Another leader came to Corinth, and his name was Apollos. He came from Egypt, and was a very gifted preacher and a strong leader. He supported the church in Corinth and the book of Acts tells us that he was a great help to them. He protected their doctrine and protected them from the challenge of the Jewish people, who were complaining and accusing them of misusing the Bible. He was obviously a very good preacher, and we think he was a good evangelist. He stayed for a period of time. Then he left. Probably later, Peter came, because Peter is mentioned in Chapter 1, as somebody that the people followed as well. He was just passing through and preached for a time. The Corinthians had the experience of many capable leaders who came and went after a time. But clearly the people were following what they remember of the ministry of somebody in the past, and not really living in the present, and so they had become divided. They were not willing to follow the local leaders - the pastor and the other elders that had been appointed in the church. That is the problem that Paul is identifying here. He is discouraging them from following people who are not in the church and who are just very gifted leaders passing through. He said, “I planted the seed and Apollos watered it.” Paul preached the gospel first; Apollos made the church grow but it was God who was actually the dynamic power behind that church growth. If the leaders have gone to other places, you can’t really follow them. The same applies in the modern church, we can’t really follow a preacher who we see on the television, on our phones, on the internet, or on a video channel, who is not the pastor in our local church. Some people follow them more than they follow the pastors in their local church, and Paul spoke against this practice. He said it was unhealthy and would lead to division; it would lead to confusion in the local church.

The Only Foundation is Jesus

In the next very important passage, he explained in what way pastors and leaders should build up the local church. What should they be doing? He pointed out that some pastors do a really good job; some do a bad job, and their motives are not good - what they do in the church is not good; the results are not good, and there are serious consequences of that process.

“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their 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 person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. But if it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved - even though only as one escaping through the flames.”

1 Corinthians 3:10-15, NIV

This is a most profound and challenging passage about church leaders and pastors, and their responsibility. They need to be wise builders. Paul says in verse 11, that they can’t lay any other foundation than Jesus Christ. What does that mean? The foundation of Jesus Christ is the gospel - the message we looked at quite closely in the second episode. The implication of what Paul is saying here is, you can have a form of Christianity that is not based on the biblical gospel, and he warns against that. What kind of a gospel, or alternative gospel, could this be that Paul has in mind, or that we might experience in our churches in the modern world? Some people preach a form of Christianity, which is more about doing good works to try and achieve salvation than about the fact that salvation has been achieved by Jesus Christ. This is what we call legalism. This has been studied in the Collection on the book of Galatians. If you want to find out more about Paul’s teaching about this, have a look at that Collection. Paul speaks strongly against it. The grace of God is given freely through Jesus’ death on the cross and through our repentance from sin. We can’t lay another foundation. Another false foundation we can lay is to say that the gospel is about prosperity: all you need to do is to fulfill certain obligations - give money to a particular ministry in faith - and God is going to bring prosperity into your lives. This is not the message that the Apostles teach in the New Testament. Another false message might be that all religions lead to God - Jesus is only one way, there are many ways to God. This is completely the wrong foundation because there is only one way to God and that is through Jesus Christ. Paul points out that the foundation is very important. We must keep the gospel at the centre of everything in the church - keep explaining and reiterating it at every opportunity. It is also a false teaching, if the teaching in the church is purely about the status of the individual leader, who is perhaps considered to be an outstanding prophet who can predict the future and even the end of the world. This is not the foundation that Paul laid in the New Testament churches.

Building on the Foundation

The best way to build on that foundation is to teach the Bible seriously and systematically: teach through different books of the Bible and teach through different themes of the Bible. Don’t just choose a few passages. Allow the Scripture to speak for itself.

Church leaders build on the foundation of the gospel, and Paul says they could use gold, silver and costly stones, or wood, hay or straw. The interesting thing about these six different elements is that three of them can withstand fire - gold, silver, costly stones; and three of them will be destroyed by fire - wood, hay and straw. Later, he goes on to point out that the work of church leaders is judged by God because they are given a great responsibility. If they have built on the wrong foundation, their work will be like wood, hay and straw when it is burnt; it is destroyed. But if their work is built with gold, silver and costly stones, it is not destroyed at a time of judgment.

When Paul refers in verse 13 to ‘the Day,’ he is referring to the Day of Judgment when Christ comes again. He explains that a leader’s ministry will be assessed by Christ at that time. That is an awesome and powerful reality that should make people who are church leaders very humble and very cautious and thoughtful about how they lead the church, because the fire will come which will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burnt up, the builder will suffer loss and yet will be saved, even though ‘only as one escaping through the flames.’ This is a serious warning about the nature of church leadership. It is a servant ministry, based on Christ. It is under his authority. It is shepherding, caring for, loving, and teaching the church. It is not about the individual person receiving honour or receiving large amounts of money, turning it into a business for their own benefit, exploiting the church and manipulating people. All those things will be severely judged by Jesus Christ on the Day of Judgment according to Paul’s teaching here. This is an assessment of people’s ministry; it is not about whether they are going to be saved because they are saved by Jesus Christ and His blood, but they are saved, ‘as if one escaping through the flames.’

Imagine you are asleep in your house, and your house has two floors. You are asleep upstairs in the house and in the middle of the night, there is a cry from downstairs. ‘Wake up! Your house is on fire.’ You and your family want to come down the stairs quickly, but you can’t because the fire is already on the ground floor and the smoke is coming up the stairs. But some people outside have prepared some mattresses on the street, and they say ‘Jump!’ You have one alternative - you must jump, and you jump holding your children in your hands. You safely get out of your house and then turn around and look at the whole house. Within minutes it is destroyed. That is the experience that church leaders will have who did not build that church on servant leadership, laying the foundation of the gospel as the centre of the church. They will be saved, but they will look at their life’s work like that man may have looked at his house and see it burnt up. It is of no value. It is wood, hay, straw.

Christian leadership is a great responsibility and should not be undertaken lightly. But those who humbly serve will not be judged by numbers of converts; they will be judged by their faithfulness to the task that they have been given, and they will receive a reward. So, there is a positive side to Paul’s teaching. If there are church leaders listening to this episode, let me tell you, if you faithfully serve God, even in difficult situations, even when the church is persecuted - maybe you are a house church leader and you are operating in an underground church situation and you don’t have any public recognition; you live in danger all the time - God knows your labour. He knows your work. He knows the cost to you, to look after those ten or twenty people who meet in your house, who you are discipling, and he will reward you publicly. That is what it says here. If you are faithful. Keep preaching the gospel. Keep loving and serving the church.

Clearly, this wasn’t happening in Corinth. Otherwise, Paul wouldn’t be talking about this. All the way through from the very beginning, there was a problem with the local church leaders. There were division, insecurity, conflicts, arguing and bad things taking place in the church, which we will find out more about in later episodes.

The Temple of God

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple. Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think that you’re wise by the standards of this age, you should become ‘fools’, so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’, and again ‘The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.’ So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apostle or Cephas or the world, or life or death, or the present or the future - all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.”

1 Corinthians 3:16-23, NIV

In verses 16 and 17, we have a very important image of the church - one of the most important images in the New Testament - the image of the temple. Paul is thinking of the Jewish Temple, which at that time stood in Jerusalem, right in the centre of the holy city. But the temple now is not a building. In the Christian era, the temple is the people - the gathered community - especially in Paul’s mind, the local church gathered together as they meet for their weekly meetings - in a little hall, an underground church, a house church meeting, in a home, or meeting in a large church building with hundreds and hundreds of other people. It doesn’t matter what size the church community is; Paul sees it as a temple, and the Holy Spirit lives right in the midst of this group of people. He is working in the relationships between them. He is adding people to that community.

Paul says that this community is very precious to God and needs to be nurtured and cared for by shepherds and pastors who really teach them, encourage them and build them up. We need to respect the church in such a way that we are not divided by factions, by leadership failures. ’Don’t you know that you’re God’s temple and God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?’ Paul will develop the idea of God’s Spirit developing in the midst when he talks about public worship between chapters 11 and 14. That is all about the working of the Holy Spirit in the public meeting. We find out more about public meetings in the Early Church in 1 Corinthians than anywhere else in the Bible. God loves each local church very much, and Paul loved this church; he longed for them to have good leaders.

Reflections

First of all, it is a very sobering episode. This is a passage which you probably won’t hear preached very often in many churches in most countries. It is a difficult passage, but the whole point of Word Online is not to avoid difficult passages, because difficult passages are important. They may be uncomfortable, but they help us grow as Christians. This is a real challenge to pastors and leaders. There is a danger of immature Christian leaders and personality cults. I once met a man, many years ago, who claimed to be a very gifted Christian leader. He came into a church and wanted to take over. He claimed he had great experience. I felt uncomfortable around this particular man and found that his experience of leadership wasn’t that great from the past. He carried on and people began to follow him. It became known that he had bad business practice in his business, and he ended up in prison. He lost his ministry and his credibility completely. That is the kind of situation that Paul is addressing here. We can’t have selfish character attitudes in Christian leadership.

The other thing to learn is that our job as church members is to follow our local pastors and leaders and to be strongly committed to the local church. My final comment is to remind people who are in leadership or pastoral leadership in churches, that as you are faithful, you will certainly get a reward. It is promised here in this passage. Christ will honour you for your faithful service, even if others don’t recognise it and it isn’t very big or influential in your culture. God sees your heart and he honours the attitude of service and laying down your lives for the local church.