1 Corinthians 3:18-23 - The right attidue to adopt

In the earlier verses, Paul established that believers corporately was the temple of God. As the master architect appointed by God, Paul had laid the foundation of the building on Jesus Christ, the right foundation. There was no foundation of a similar kind. Every believer must now construct this building of God with the right material. They must be permanent and not temporary material that could be destroyed. For God would be testing the building with fire, and whatever is temporary would be destroyed. Paul’s advice was for believers to build to last.

 

To have a building that would last and yet reflect God’s glory, Paul now suggests that believers need to build it with the right attitude. It must not be assembled with the spirit of the world, with arrogance and pride. Instead, it must be built with humility. For pride would deceive a person and prevent one from having a right perspective. To God, human wisdom is foolishness. But to the world, the wisdom of God is foolishness. To be truly wise, Paul urged that believers adopt God’s wisdom which may seem like foolishness to the world. Quoting from Job 5:13 and Psalm 94:11, Paul said that God was the one who would catch and expose the craftiness of men who thought they were wise. For God knows how useless their reasoning are.

 

In verses 21-23. Paul admonished the believers in Corinth to adopt the attitude of unity and have fellowship. He told them that everyone was a member of the fellowship and they belonged to each other, including himself, Apollos and Peter. He then widened the circle to include all believers in the world, both present and future. His final point is this, every believer of Christ belongs to each other because everyone belongs to Christ and Christ belongs to God.  

 

We need to be reminded that each of us is gifted differently. But let’s all also be reminded to bring our gifts to help build the fellowship so that it can reflect the multi-faceted glory of God. We have Christ as our foundation and we each need to responsibly do our part in the construction of His glorious fellowship. Let us play our part today without delay!