1CORINTHIANS 3 (NIV)
- 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 assigned to each his task.
- I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.
- So 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 labor.
- For we are co-workers in God's service; you are God's field, God's building.
- 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 test the quality of each person's work.
- If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.
- If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved - even though only as one's escaping through the flames.
- Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells 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 you are 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 Apollos 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.
