God is not the author of confusion. He only says one thing, one message, and His message does not change. While He may change His mind to give mercy over judgment, that is consistent with His character. However, we live in days where there is a lot of confusion about what God said. It seems nearly everyone is looking everywhere else except at themselves about where that confusion is coming from. We know ultimately it comes from Satan, however, when we first believed the lie. When we have our own sin to deal with, we are just as easily culpable of rejecting what God said and then blaming God or other Christians for it being “confusing.”
I have written about an absolutely vital doctrine called the perspicuity of Scripture. This is the teaching that the Bible is simple, clear, not confusing, and straight to the point. God said what He said, and He meant what He meant. He gave everything we need for life and godliness, which includes every aspect of our lives. However, there are some things that God left in the seed form and didn’t have full “codification” if you can call it that. The Councils and Reformation were among the movements and courts that sought to bring clarity to certain doctrines because they were under siege. I will address two of them briefly here.
In early church history, false teachers came in and attacked the deity of Christ directly, namely via a man named Arius. While Christ’s deity was clearly taught by the Apostles and in Scripture, because it was under siege, Athanasius and others would codify who Jesus was as fully God and fully man at the same time, giving birth to the Nicene Creed. Later, by the 1500s, the Roman Catholic Church went full apostate and began selling indulgences so sinners could “buy” their way into heaven. Martin Luther and others realized that Scripture taught salvation by grace alone and not by works, so they began the Protestant Reformation. A big part of that was going back to what Scripture taught on the topic at hand to bring clarity and confirmation of what had always been taught.
But before these two events, there was another church conflict that Paul himself needed to address regarding speaking in tongues. Charismatics teach this is angelic language that requires a full interpretation for us to understand. Cessationists teach that this is regarding different known languages. I won’t deal with that here. Regardless of the interpretation, what Paul emphasized in 1 Corinthians 14 was order and clarity. If anything is from God, it brings clarity and it has order. It may be strange and different than what we are used to, but there is order and structure.
Several years ago, John MacArthur hosted the infamous Strange Fire Conference. He took on the Charismatic/Word of Faith Movements and put them to the test. In his sermon during the conference, he made this point in testing any movement. This would be a good test for any “revival” such as the Asbury Revival earlier this year. MacArthur’s test is, does this movement or this teaching bring clarity to Scripture? Where there is confusion, does what someone brings give us any clarity on the matter? God does not leave things in confusion for long unless man wants to stay confused. MacArthur claimed that the Charismatic Movement has brought nothing beneficial to the body of Christ. It was totally extraneous and did very little to actually build the body of Christ, to lead her towards holiness and purity and righteousness. What it has offered instead is personal interpretations, giving “new revelation,” a lowering of Scripture as the authority, and the lust/desire for earthly things to be the goal and purpose of the faith. While there are Charismatics who are genuinely saved, MacArthur claims that the teachings of the Charismatics have not benefited anyone spiritually.
There are numerous other teachings along this line. In origins, the teachings of “millions of years” have benefited no one Biblically. These old earth ideas have brought no one closer to Christ, no one to a holier lifestyle, no one more separated from the world. While there are some who have done such things, it is always despite those teachings not because of them. If you listen to the arguments, they bring nothing out of Scripture to support their position. They always have to muddy the waters so they can insert their teachings. Many people say, “I can be a Christian and still believe in millions of years.” No one ever says, “I can be a Christian and still believe in the virgin birth” or “I can be a Christian and still believe the earth is young.” Why not? Because those actually are what the Bible teaches. Ideas outside the Bible are the ones that get this treatment. This argument alone is evidence that “old earth” is unbiblical; it’s evidence that people want to be religious and keep their idols, too. Critical Race Theory, Progressive Christianity, LGBT ideology, Christian Nationalism, ecumenical approaches, etc. are also in this camp. In all these teachings, you won’t find the seeking of clarity, structure, and order for the church. Instead, you will find confusion, the lowering of Scripture, and the elevation of man’s opinions.
Throughout church history, there are only two directions people go: towards Scripture or away from Scripture. They either elevate Scripture and lower man’s opinions, or vice versa. Now, because we are fallible people, even in our seeking of clarity, we can still get things wrong. The Reformation didn’t solve all the issues they were facing. One of the reasons why I am a young earth creationist and give none of the other models any space is on this issue of clarity. From the non-YEC arguments I hear, not one of them goes along the lines of “This is what Scripture is saying and here is where I am getting my position from.” There is no, “The Bible doesn’t teach that there, it actually teaches this, this and that because of this word, phrase, and context.” The best I have heard is “It doesn’t necessarily say ‘x’.” I never get a straight answer when I ask in response, “So what does it say?”
Test what you hear. One analogy I have heard is with music. Every teaching makes a sound. If the sound fits the whole piece, then we have music. But if each sound does its own thing, then it is just noise. The teachings that bring clarity have the vision of the whole and understand the whole piece. The teachings that want self’s opinions and to give man a say in how reality operates will never harmonize with each other, let alone Scripture. This is also why we need to have a Gospel worldview, not just a Biblical worldview. If we truly understand and believe the Gospel, then we’ll align all our teachings to give rise and support to all the images and logical conclusions of the Gospel, and it will make our readings of Scripture clearer.
Seek clarity, not confusion. That will often require you to put your understanding of things aside and let God speak clearly to you. You can still use your head, but even your brain and thinking need to be submitted to the will of God, otherwise you will only have confusion and no idea what is going on. Trust the Lord; He makes great music if you listen.
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This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.
- 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Paul had been talking about human leaders of the church and how the people should focus on Jesus Christ and the gospel message rather than the people who teach that message. He wraps up all of those thoughts with the section of this letter that we’re looking at today.
Paul and all the other people who were spreading and teaching the gospel message should be regarded as servants of Christ (verse 1a). It’s important here to dig into the word “servant.” The Greek word originally derived from a rower on a ship, but it generally means an attendant or a servant. Often, we confuse the word slave with the word servant, but a slave is definitely not what Paul means here. This word for servant here refers to someone who is under an authority figure but they are functioning as a free person, not enslaved. Paul, Apollos, and the other leaders are under the authority of Jesus Christ. They are fully responsible to Jesus Christ and to Him alone. Other than that responsibility, they have freedom.
The word “entrusted” refers to the idea of a person managing the affairs of a household. This person was often a slave who would have significantly less freedom than a servant. The leaders had been “entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed” (verse 1b). These “mysteries” are the things that we cannot understand through our own human wisdom but only through the power of the Holy Spirit. While they had freedom under the authority of Jesus Christ, they were enslaved to what the Holy Spirit was revealing to them about God.
This is emphasized in verse 2 where Paul writes that it is required for him to be faithful. God has called Paul to proclaim the gospel message, and Paul absolutely must remain faithful and trustworthy in that calling. He cannot depart from it!
Because the only authority truly over Paul is God, he does not care what happens to him in human courts of law (verse 3). No human’s opinion matters to him, not even his own. This lines up with his writing in Romans 8:31-33: “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.” If God is for Paul (and He clearly is), then it doesn’t matter who might be against Paul. No one can bring any charge against him that actually matters in this world.
Paul makes an important distinction in verse 4. His conscience may be clear, but he is not innocent. Even though he is doing what God has called him to do and he is being continually led by the Holy Spirit, Paul is still a sinner. Paul still had human temptations and disobeyed God in various ways, even though the “big picture” of his life is obedience to God. He knows that God is the one who will judge him. He doesn’t care at all about human judgment; only the Lord’s judgment matters to Paul, since the Lord is the only authority that is truly over him.
Paul then jumps forward to describe the final judgment day in verse 5. Paul commands them to not judge anything before that appointed time; again, humans are not the final, authoritative judge of one another, that’s God’s job. Only God will be the true and accurate judge of all humankind because only God knows all of our thoughts, words, and actions. Even the things that we have hidden from other people will be exposed when Jesus comes again to judge all of humanity. Everything will be exposed!
But Paul also makes sure to put some good news in there. On that final judgment day, not only will our sins be judged, but we will also receive praise from God for the good that we have done and how we have been obedient to Him in our lives.
Why does Paul bring this up? He saw that the Corinthian church was judging one another, and Paul is telling them they need to stop that. While we are encouraged through the Scriptures to hold one another accountable for the purpose of helping one another grow in our faith, that is very different than judging one another. We can encourage one another and help correct our brothers and sisters in the faith when we see them going astray, but only God has the true authority to judge.
We, too, are to live our lives as servants of Christ. We have the freedom to live how we want to, but to be obedient to God, we are required to live within the bounds of the gospel message and the mysteries that God has revealed to us in the Scriptures. We are servants of Christ, under the authority of Christ and Christ alone.
Now, that does not mean that we have free reign to disobey earthly authorities. God has set up systems of authority for us humans here on Earth so that we don’t all live in utter chaos. We are to obey the authorities that God has placed over us because we are following Him as the ultimate authority. But we should not live in fear of human authorities since it is only God’s judgment that should truly matter to us. As Jesus taught in Matthew 10:28, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
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As Christians, we are commanded to go out and preach the Word and make disciples of all peoples. Paul emphasizes to preach the Word – not to preach opinions, not to preach culture, and not to preach your own additions or subtractions. We are to preach the Word, explain it, and showcase the practical living of the truths of it. Yet what has happened today is a near complete abandoning of this command of how we are to preach. While expository preaching keeps a preacher on the text and topical preaching enables a preacher to address specific issues a church needs to deal with (both are valid), most preachers are not preaching what the Bible says but what they want to say or what they think the audience wants to hear.
In the ancient days, when a king sought to send out a message to his people, he would send a herald to proclaim the message to the masses. The herald had a clear job: to proclaim the message, answer a few questions, and never ever give a different message. If it was discovered that a herald was changing the message the king gave, it was a death sentence. The kings weren’t the first to do this either; the Bible did it first.
In Deuteronomy, God sets the standards for how a prophet (a person who claims to speak for God to man) should deliver the message and those who professed to speak “Thus says the Lord” when the Lord did not speak. They were to be put to death. God took those who used His name very seriously. The preacher behind the pulpit, the missionary, the evangelist, the author, those in any para-ministry, the apologist, and anyone who has a platform and proclaims the faith and proclaims the Gospel is under this category. I am included, too. The bigger the platform, the stricter the standard is held. While there is room for growth and maturing, just as there was for the prophets, it is absolutely imperative that when we profess to represent the faith, we represent it correctly and we proclaim what God said, not what we want Him to say. Any person who has ever understood the severity of this job does not want this job. They know how serious it is to preach and how they will be held accountable to God for how they represent Him. We can’t mess around with this.
The first sin came about because of not taking God at His Word and by adding and subtracting to it. In Genesis 3, the serpent came in and asked, “Has God indeed said…?” What was Eve’s response? “We can eat from any tree, but from the tree in the middle of the garden we may not eat nor touch lest we die.” Go back to Genesis 2 and see what God actually said. He said do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He did not say to not touch it. Eve added to God’s command and thus did not believe it. But Eve mentioned the tree in the middle of the garden: singular. There was not just one tree in the middle of the garden; there were two. The Tree of Life was also there. God gave Adam and Eve a choice: the Tree of Life or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve left out the Tree of Life in her answer. So with that noted, it is reasonable to suggest that Adam and Eve created their own barriers from BOTH trees, lest they be tempted from the wrong one. Because they did not believe what God said and both added and took away from His command, they were easy prey for Satan to lead them to temptation and into sin.
When we change the message from what God said even in the slightest manner, we set ourselves up for severe trouble. Now, please don’t read what I am not saying here. I am not saying we can only directly quote Scripture and that is all we can say when we have a platform. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that we cannot make the message something different. We do have freedom to explore, dig deeper, and explain and apply the text. But all of that has to be done within the framework from which it is given.
There is a controversy about the show The Chosen. It is a fictional supposition about how the ministry of Jesus may have looked. There are people who object to such things because they are “adding to Scripture” things that were not there. I have two problems with such notions. 1) They aren’t calling their work “Scripture,” so they aren’t adding anything to it at all. That said, those watching it should know that it is not Scripture and still let Scripture be the standard. 2) These people who are reading commentaries, writing commentaries, preaching, and effectively doing the same thing.
So what does it mean to “add” or “subtract” from Scripture? It does not mean we cannot explore what and how things may have looked like from the people who lived through the Bible’s accounts. People say that the geological models of the Young Earth Creation position are “adding” to Scripture because the Bible does not speak about volcanoes and earthquakes during the Flood. I find such arguments extremely weak and frankly extremely hypocritical. Who is objecting to such models? Those who are turning to the outside, the secular community, sources completely outside Scripture, and whose work takes no input from Scripture (or minimal at that). THEY are the ones “adding to Scripture” because they are going completely outside the Bible to answer questions they believe the Bible is silent on. They do not stay within the framework or the facts that are explicitly given. Could the Young Earth geology models be wrong, be incomplete, or have problems? Absolutely. But the alternate models have much bigger problems, namely the willful denial of the history of Scripture. Even those who believe that a flood happened in Noah’s day believe that if such a flood does not fit ALL the details that are explicitly given, it is not Noah’s Flood and it demonstrates unbelief in the account of Scripture. The Flood describes a global event and ANY model that does not have those details is taking away what God did say and adding what He did not say. While it is possible such people may be saved, the Biblical standards showcase that such people are not fit to be heralds of the faith because they are not accurately representing what God said.
Some will say I over emphasize on Genesis and don’t emphasize the Gospel enough. Those who get Genesis wrong rarely get the rest of the Gospel right. We now have preachers who say that God loves homosexuals just as they are and will not make them change their ways. We have replaced God’s method of evangelism and teaching within the church with secular models of age-segregation. We have replaced God’s method of responding to the Gospel of repentance and faith to just saying a prayer. We have removed God’s teaching of holiness and purity and added to God’s love and mercy that we will be rich here on earth, enjoying pleasure all now. And as one preacher said, “Americans’ theology is 3000 miles wide and only 6 inches deep.” He’s not wrong. Why? Because we have taken away what God actually said and added what we want to hear instead.
It is a very dangerous thing to give God’s message. We must learn how to rightly divide the Word and preach it correctly. Those who have a problem with this need to step down. They need to be silent and not speak. The consequences for speaking about God wrongly are deadly. Take God seriously. Take His Word seriously. Any departure from it is sin. If we profess His name yet depart from His Word, no good thing will ever come of it.
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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.
- 1 Corinthians 3:18-23
In the previous section of this letter, Paul talked about building our faith on the foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to make sure we build only on that foundation, no matter who the teacher is who is helping us grow in our faith. He builds on that in this section, giving some warnings about how we are to act as we mature in our faith.
Paul had previously written about the contrast between wisdom and foolishness in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, and he returns to that idea here. In that section, Paul pointed out that the cross is foolishness to those who don’t know Jesus as their savior, but for those who believe, it is true wisdom. Here, Paul calls us to “become ‘fools’ so that you may become wise” (verse 18). Jesus often made seemingly contradictory statements like this one to prove a point, and Paul uses that technique here too.
In the case of being a Christian, being a fool according to the world is good because it means we are following God. God often calls His people to do things that look foolish in the world’s eyes, but following Him anyway shows Godly wisdom. That’s where it’s essential that we have our faith foundation built on Jesus Christ, so we can discern whether that truly is God speaking to us or if it is the world or our own selfishness. We need to trust God that when He tells us to do something, even if it seems foolish, we should do it anyway.
This idea of wisdom versus foolishness is a common contrast used in the Bible, as it shows how different we are to be as Christians than how the world operates. We can easily fall into the trap of thinking we are wise as we gain more knowledge of the Christian faith, but we are still fools when it comes to the vast knowledge of God! Even the grandest wisdom and knowledge in this world is still foolishness when compared with God (verse 19).
Paul uses two Old Testament references to support this idea in verse 20. First, he quotes Job 5:13 saying that God “catches the wise in their craftiness.” Anything that mankind plans on his own is no match for God’s plans. We can plan and scheme all we want, but there is nothing as worthwhile as the gospel of Christ, and everything that we do outside of God is destined to fail.
Then, Paul quotes Psalm 94:11. God knows all of our thoughts, and He especially knows that if we claim to have the world’s wisdom, that is completely futile. Anything that even the wisest human can come up with is still like foolishness when compared with the vast wisdom and knowledge of God.
Because of all that, we need to keep our focus on God! We easily get enthralled with human leaders because they are like us and we can see them and interact with them as fellow humans. But Paul specifically says that we should not boast about human leaders (verse 21). Everything belongs to God, so why should we boast in anything except Him? It all comes back to God – specifically to Jesus Christ and Him crucified, which has been Paul’s theme of this letter.
Even Paul himself or other leaders, such as Apollos or Cephas (also known as Peter), are not worthy to be boasted about (verse 22). Everything belongs to God, including those teachers, the world, life, death, the present, and the future. Everything should be viewed through the lens of God’s great wisdom and His great plan for humanity – or as much of that as God has revealed to us. Everything belongs to God, but He graciously gives it all to us for our benefit, so that a small portion of God’s wisdom may be revealed to us.
Paul states that all things are yours, then in verse 23 he tells us who the “you” is that he’s referring to: “You are of Christ, and Christ is of God.” While God gives us all things, it is important to remember that the world is not centered on us as Christians. All things only belong to us because they belong to God, through the relationship that we have with the Son of God, Jesus Christ. God and Jesus are one, and Jesus was sent into the world to bring us as believers into that relationship as well.
The key for us to remember from this passage is that as believers, our focus needs to always be on God. It is God’s wisdom that is true wisdom, not the wisdom that this world gives us. God knows everything, and He knows that without Him, anything that we scheme or plan will fail. God has graciously given us access to some of His wisdom, and we need to embrace that as we live our lives on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ. It is all about Jesus Christ and Him crucified; that is true wisdom!
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It has been a while since I wrote about Evolution. I’ve addressed it with issues about Creation and why we should not accept millions of years, but I haven’t address Evolution in a while. This year, as I have been reading the Bible straight through again and from the start, I caught something that I hadn’t seen before. I always knew it was there but hadn’t made this connection so clearly.
In Genesis 1:26-27, God makes mankind in His image. This alone makes man stand out from the rest of the created beings. Only man is a reflection of God and His character and shares what are called “communicable attributes.” While animals do have emotions, they are not the same as human emotions. There are some similarities, but we are different. Animal emotions are instinctive, whereas man’s emotions are often a choice. We don’t recognize it often, but we can actually choose how we react emotionally to certain situations. Yes, there are cases where certain emotions are triggered, especially with fear and even more so with PTSD. But overall, while humans and animals may share the ability to have emotions, we do not share how they are expressed and triggered.
Man is the only created being that has morality. Dogs may be man’s best friend, but dogs do not process “right and wrong.” They process “happy” and “sad.” They process “treat” and “game,” but they do not process moral issues. Same with cats, same with birds, same with apes. Only man has morals and is held accountable for moral choices.
But I caught something in the zoomed-in account of the creation of Adam and Eve in the context of animal and human relationships that I had not seen with clarity until now. Adam was created first out of the dust of the earth. After Adam was created, God placed him in the garden, gave him a few instructions, but then said it was not good for him to be alone. So, to showcase how unique Adam was from all other creatures, God brought forth all the animals for Adam to name. But none were compatible with him. God didn’t have an oversight error here; this was all intentional. God put Adam to sleep and created Eve, using a rib as the base. God could have easily done something else, but he wanted the relationship between Adam and Eve to be different from everything else. This relationship is all about the Gospel, where Jesus is the last Adam and we, the born-again Christians, are the bride of Christ. Jesus is Adam, or rather who Adam was supposed to be. And we are Eve, as Eve was supposed to be.
But it is the fact that all the other animals were incompatible with Adam that stood out to me in the context of the origins debate. There are numerous old earth teachers who say that Adam and Eve were singled out from a population of hominids that evolved from the ape/human common ancestor, according to Evolutionary theory. In their version, Adam and Eve were merely singled out of a population, and what God made was not two individuals but rather populations. They struggle with the idea of all human life coming from two people, not understanding how genetics actually work (yet thinking they do). God didn’t say He made a population; He said He made man, a specific man, and this man was incompatible with any other animal species that God had made.
If Evolution was true, then this statement from God would be a lie. If apes and humans had a common ancestor, then Adam and his ‘nearest relative’ would have been compatible because he would have come from another creature. This would nullify the need to take Eve from Adam’s rib as a special creation to come out of Adam. Today, because Evolution has so muddied waters about what is what, few people can tell if a bone we find is ape or human. I have asked multiple old earth creationists how they deal with finding human fossils that are older than Adam when they proclaim that Romans 5:12 applies to only man. They all dodge this, and one even went as far as saying that we don’t even know what humans are or if those were actually human (when every scientist on the planet knows they are, independent of their claimed ages). They will question just about everything, especially the interpretation of Scripture, but they will not let the dating methods actually be questioned, even in light of the very doctrines they profess. They are so determined to hold onto what they think “science” says that they will even openly question God’s record to do so. Beware, because this deception is extremely powerful and extremely deadly.
Mankind and animals are not compatible. They never have been and never will be. There is no evidence anywhere that actually showcases this even to be an option. Many may try to cite the “Chromosome 2 Fusion” claim, however this “fusion” (which has no evidence it actually happened) took place, according to the evolutionary timeline, AFTER apes and humans already split. So even if such a fusion ever did take place, this would be a pure human issue in genetics, and this is actually evidence that apes and humans were NEVER related. And before anyone claims that this is just the mythology of the Ancient Near East, it’s not. The rest of the Ancient Near East taught something completely different than what the Bible teaches. But 1500 years after Genesis was written and 4000 years after Adam actually experienced this separation of man and animals, Paul relayed the same truth when defending the physical resurrection of the Christ. He knew biology too. He was educated. Paul made distinctions between the flesh of land animals, of birds, of fish, and of man. They are not all the same. They aren’t compatible with each other. They are only compatible with that which is their same kind. And every single observation in biology and all of recorded history backs this up. There has never been a single scientific study that actually showcases the different kinds ever being linked together in reality. It’s all speculation, extrapolation, and man making connections that aren’t there in the real world.
The Bible is not a scientific textbook. That’s a good thing, too, because textbooks themselves often go out of date, constantly need revision, and still contain lies refuted decades ago because the editors don’t actually update them but just repeat them. The Bible has never needed to change because it contains the record of God who cannot lie. However, it still makes statements here and there that do deal with scientific topics. In every single claim it makes and touches regarding science, in every study when full and thoroughly checked out, the Bible has always had it right. We can trust this book. Mankind and the “great apes” have never been compatible. We have never been related. We humans are a unique creation, made in the image of God and those who submit to Christ and do things God’s way (which includes repentance of your sin and submitting to Him in faith) will get to enjoy paradise with Him forever.
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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. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one 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.
- 1 Corinthians 3:10-17
In the first part of 1 Corinthians 3, Paul talked about spiritual immaturity and divisiveness and how those would be detrimental to the church. Now, he talks about building a solid foundation for our faith, showing how we can grow in spiritual maturity.
Paul uses the analogy of a building with a foundation to help the Corinthians (and us) understand this concept. The first step in laying that foundation for the Christian faith is for the believer to hear and believe in the gospel message of Jesus Christ. Paul said previously that he brought the gospel message to this particular congregation. As he indicates in verse 10, he laid the foundation, and someone else is building on it. The foundational doctrine is Jesus Christ and Him crucified, as Paul wrote back in 1 Corinthians 2:2.
The foundation is extremely important as it holds up the entire building. If there is a problem with the foundation, then even if the building itself is fine, it could still collapse. The foundation needs to not only be strong in the short term but also in the long term. It is important to stay on the foundation and not wander off of it, or else the building will be structurally unsound. This is true for our faith; we must stay on top of the foundation of Jesus Christ and not wander from Him.
Just because Paul laid the foundation, he is not the only person who can build on it. Apollos has previously been mentioned in verses 4-5 as a teacher in the Corinthian church, and it’s likely that he was the primary teacher after Paul left to move onto other churches. But no matter who is building on that gospel foundation, every teacher should be careful what they are teaching. The new believers may be especially susceptible to false teachings, so any teacher needs to exert extra care.
Paul gives his reasoning for that warning in verse 11: once the foundation is laid, it cannot be laid again. This should mean those who preach the gospel message should do so with care, and they should make sure that the foundation is Jesus Christ and not some other truth.
Once that foundation has been laid, the materials used to build on it are extremely important, as we see in verses 12-13. Paul lists off possible building materials – gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, and straw. Gold, silver, and costly stones were used to build temples in that time period, and they were considered to be good, solid building materials. Common homes were often built with wood, hay, and straw, which were less durable than metals and stones.
Paul notes how the quality of the building will be revealed on “the Day,” which is considered to be Judgment Day at the second coming of Christ. Whatever we have used to build our spiritual building with on the foundation of Christ will be tested. Are we using lesser quality materials – still having faith but not truly living it out? Or are we using high-quality materials – living the Christian life to the best of our ability? Both may have a foundation of Jesus Christ, but one will stand up better on the day of judgment than the other.
Fire is explained to be the test of how the quality of our work will be revealed. In verses 14-15, we see the consequences of that fiery judgment. If our spiritual building survives the fire of God’s judgment, then the builder (the believer) will receive a reward. But if our spiritual building is burned up in that fire, then we will suffer a loss, though we will still escape the fiery judgment.
Gold, silver, and costly stones would hold up much better in fire than wood, hay, or straw that will be consumed quickly and turn to ash. If we have the foundation of faith in the gospel truth of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, we will be able to withstand the judgment and spend eternity with Jesus. If we have a strong building (a strong faith) built with quality materials, we will receive a reward. This equates to being obedient and follow God as best as we can in this life. But if our building is weak (a weak faith), then we can still receive eternal life but we will experience loss instead of a reward. If this idea of judgment is hard to understand, that’s ok; fortunately, none of us are the Judge presiding over this! God is the Judge, so everything is up to Him.
Verse 16 continues this metaphor of a spiritual building, stating plainly that we are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit is dwelling in us. Paul mentions these ideas in Ephesians 2:22 and 1 Peter 2:5. Jesus also brought up this idea in John 2:19-21, calling His body the temple. Because of this, we should take care of our bodies and treat them as God’s temple – revere and respect them. We can also take comfort in knowing that the Spirit is always dwelling inside of us, helping us get through life.
Finally, Paul ends with another warning in verse 17, that if we destroy God’s temple, God will destroy us. God’s temple truly is holy and sacred, and anyone who damages what God considers to be holy deserves God’s anger and punishment.
We can use these building analogies in this passage to continue to strengthen our faith and help us grow in our faith. We need to first make sure that we have the appropriate foundation of Jesus Christ to build on, and that we do not stray from that foundation. Next, we need to consider the materials we’re building with – are we living our lives according to what we’re commanded in the Scriptures, or are we living according to the lusts of the flesh? Finally, we need to keep in mind that we will be judged according to how we live our lives on this earth, even when we have faith in Jesus. We need to treat our bodies and our faith with care, so that we follow what God desires for us, or else we risk receiving God’s punishment.
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Today is the day we celebrate and recognize the death of Jesus as He went to the cross to pay for the penalty for sin. The crown of thorns is a part of the story that most people think was just part of the crucifixion process and how Roman soldiers mocked the claim that Jesus would be a king. However, there is much more to this crown than we realize, and it goes straight back to Genesis. When I gave the closing keynote to the El Paso Creation Conference’s first conference in 2021, this was one of my key points and the audience said it was the point that resonated with them the most. Of the many times when God has shown me something in Scripture, this one brought me to a place of worship more than most others. Jesus wore a crown of thorns.
To see the significance of the crown of thorns requires returning to Genesis. God created a perfect world – a world without disease, decay, death, or corruption. While things like erosion and digestion would take place, there was no curse upon the creation. No groaning, earthquakes, tornadoes, predation, or anything of the sort. That is, until Adam sinned. When Adam sinned, the curse that was directly attributed to him was a cursed creation. The ground would produce thorns and thistles, and Adam would have to spend more energy getting his food than the energy the food would give back to him. As a result, Adam’s body would age and after 930 years he would die. But I want to emphasize the thorns.
Thorns did not exist prior to sin. Roses, Palo Verde trees, and cacti would not have had thorns on them, nor would actual thorn bushes and such. So God either cursed plants and changed their DNA to produce thorns, or He created plants that would be such things. This would be an exception to the “creation was complete” statement in Genesis 1:31-2:3. How it happened is irrelevant for this discussion. Before sin, no thorns; after sin, thorns. Thorns and thistles were a physical and perpetual reminder of the curse of sin.
Thorns show up several places in Scripture. One notable case is when Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham brought no sacrifice because it was going to be Isaac. Abraham bound up his son, the son of promise, believing God would raise him from the dead, and at the moment his hand came down, God stopped him. There to the side a goat was caught in a thorn bush, and that goat became the sacrifice. The substitute for Isaac was caught in the physical symbol of sin.
Thorns are an annoyance and are used in many places to describe people and nations to Israel who would continually harass them. Because Israel did not drive out all the nations from the land that was to be theirs, those nations would be perpetual thorns, leading them into sin and causing countless trouble for them. Paul continued this analogy to describe his “thorn in the flesh.” We don’t know what Paul was battling, but it was a perpetual annoyance that kept him humble.
Thorns keep coming back. They are weeds that never go away. When you think you have pulled them, they keep coming back. They require a high level of maintenance and give you no benefit whatsoever. This is why Adam would die by the sweat of his brow. In order to get his food, he would have to waste energy dealing with these thorns, and if he didn’t deal with them, the thorns would overtake his crops and choke them out. Jesus used this image in the Parable of the Sower. Soil that has weeds in it will not produce good food, because much of the nutrients will go to the weeds instead of the good food. And why would there be thorns and weeds in the field? Because the manager of that field isn’t taking care of it, letting the world have its way on that ground and person.
Then we get to Jesus. The Romans put a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head to mock Him for His proclamation to be a king. While we think this may be just a trifling extra detail that goes into the crucifixion, understand that every single part of what Jesus went through that day had a point and a purpose beyond merely fulfilling prophecy. Jesus wore a crown made from thorns, the physical image of the curse of sin. Jesus literally wore sin to that cross and died as the “king of sin,” if you could call it that. He became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.
But Jesus’ crown also shows something else: man’s rejection of Jesus’ kingship. The Jews and the Romans rejected Jesus as the King. They knew He was the King, but they rejected Him, so they gave Him a crown of thorns to mock His claim to be the King and the Savior. Sinful man will not bow his knee to Christ, even if it is the most logical thing to do. Sin is the utter hatred, defiance, and treason against God, and sinful man will not accept God to rule over them. The Jews and the Gentiles both rejected Christ. They rejected His kingdom, and they rejected His commands. Yet He still rules today, calling for all to repent of their treason and their rebellion against God before He comes back to crush all those who remain in rebellion. His terms of peace are His terms of peace, and there is no alternative. We have no say, and we cannot negotiate. We can only accept or reject – all or none.
While we are still in our sin, we are thorny people. We’ll try to marginalize it and say we have some rough spots around the edges, but our sins still poke and skewer us, and it’s not fun. People don’t want to touch roses because of the thorns. Jumping cactus is extremely annoying because if you get near it, it shoots it thorns at you. We can all be like jumping cacti if someone hits that button of ours. That’s why we need to submit to Christ, who wore the crown of thorns. When He died, the thorns on us died as well. We need to die daily to self so those thorns don’t grow and so we can be handled gently and not ‘poke back.’
If we are in Christ, when He died, we died with Him; but when He was raised, so we too shall be raised. When Jesus was raised from the dead, He no longer wore the crown of thorns but was instead given the crown above all crowns. Jesus is not just King of the Jews, but the King of all Kings. And if we are in Christ, we too will no longer bear thorns but the righteousness of God. As we celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ this weekend, let us honor and remember what Jesus did that day and submit to His rule and His Kingship.
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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, 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.
- 1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Sometimes, the best way that we as people learn something is to have it blatantly called out and corrected. That seems to be what Paul is doing here with the people of the Corinthian church. He addresses two specific issues in this passage: spiritual immaturity and divisiveness.
Paul first addresses the spiritual immaturity of the people. He had previously been discussing the wisdom of God and how that differs from the world’s wisdom, which set the foundation for this accusation. Now, he lays it on them: “I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly — mere infants in Christ” (verse 1). He has been setting up the contrast between God and the world, and the people were likely thinking they were on the God side of that contrast.
While the people may have been believers in Jesus Christ, they were too immature and worldly. They were not yet living by the Spirit fully in their lives. Perhaps this was because they were still learning about the faith and how to live as a believer, but they can’t continue to live like that. He explains this immaturity with a food analogy in verse 2.
Babies drink milk before they’re able to eat solid food, but if they didn’t grow up and start eating solid food, they would not continue to live and thrive. When Paul first came to them, he had to start with the milk – simply sharing the Gospel truth with them so they would begin that relationship with Jesus Christ. Just like you can’t feed steak to an infant, the people were not ready for deeper Christian teachings just yet.
The problem is that now when Paul is writing to them, they are still not ready for solid food. They have not grown and matured in their faith as Paul hoped and expected that they would. In verse 3, Paul points out some specific ways that he can tell they’re not ready – they’re still experiencing jealousy and quarreling among themselves, and they’re acting like “mere humans.” In Greek, the questions Paul asks here are set up in such a way that expects an affirmative response. He was trying to get the Corinthians to acknowledge their spiritual immaturity. Realizing that they need to grow is the first step toward growth.
In verse 4, Paul points out that they were focused on the human teachers among them, namely Paul and Apollos. We see more about the ministry of these two teachers (and a few others) in Acts 18:1-28. Paul reminds them that he and Apollos are mere human beings just like them. Again, this question is set up to elicit an affirmative response, acknowledging that these men are not superhuman in any way but rather they are human teachers too, though likely more spiritually mature than the Corinthians at that point.
Paul emphasizes this in verse 5 where he reminds them that he and Apollos are only servants of God who have been assigned the task of sharing the Gospel to the Corinthians. Paul’s point here is that no human should be the focus of worship or idolized in any way by fellow believers. Even though they may have more mature faith than the believers at Corinth, they are not to be viewed as better than them.
This sets up the next point in Paul’s argument: divisiveness. If the Corinthian believers were following human teachers instead of God, this would cause divisions in the church. The faction that followed Paul may consider themselves separate from the faction that followed Apollos, for example. But Paul emphasizes their unity in the faith. Paul and Apollos had different roles, but God used both of them for His good purposes (verse 6). Paul may have initially shared the Gospel with them, but Apollos discipled them, and that was all through God’s power and for His glory. It’s not the people who do the work that are important but God and what God does in each believer’s heart and life (verse 7).
It is important to not be divided because of the work of various people in the Church because we are all called to work together on God’s mission (verses 8-9). We are all on the same team, working to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are not separate but need to be working together. We are all part of one body, the body of Christ! We are all coworkers for God in what God is building in this world.
Today, the Church has been divided significantly. It has been estimated that there are over 45,000 Christian denominations globally! Back in Paul’s day, there was one – either you were a Christian and believed in Jesus as Lord and Savior, or you did not. A lot has changed in 2,000 years! People have followed certain teachers and divided the Church because of them, and the Church has divided due to debates on teachings that have some interpretational differences in the Bible. But even with these divisions, we need to remember that we are all on the same mission together; we are all coworkers for God in what He is doing in this world.
We are all called to grow spiritually, to move away from just drinking the milk of the Gospel message and move into the solid food of deeper doctrines. If you want some resources to help you grow into the solid food of your faith, check out our hundreds of blog posts and our book resources available at WorldviewWarriors.org. All the while, we are not to follow human teachers as if they are God but to truly follow, worship, and glorify God and God alone. Desire unity among your fellow believers on the things we agree on rather than divisiveness.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
