1CO 3
3
Fleshly Divisiveness
1 And I, fellow believers, found myself unable to address you as spiritually mature people, but instead had to speak to you as people still dominated by fleshly desires, as spiritual infants in Christ.
2 I fed you with milk rather than solid food, because you were not yet capable of digesting mature teaching. In fact, you still are not ready even now.
3 This is evident because you continue to be controlled by fleshly impulses. For where jealousy and quarrelling exist among you, does this not prove that you are still fleshly, and that you are conducting yourselves according to merely human standards?
4 For when one person claims, "I belong to Paul," while another says, "I belong to Apollos," are you not demonstrating that you are operating on a merely human level?
5 After all, what is Apollos? And what is Paul? We are merely servants through whose ministry you came to faith, and each of us served in the capacity that the Lord assigned.
6 I planted the initial seed, Apollos provided water and nourishment, but it was God who caused the growth to occur.
7 Therefore, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters has any intrinsic significance; what matters is God who causes the growth.
8 Now the one who plants and the one who waters share a common purpose, yet each will receive his own individual reward corresponding to his own labour and effort.
9 For we are co-labourers working together in God's service; you are God's field under cultivation, you are God's building under construction.
10 According to the grace of God that was given to me, I laid a foundation like a skilled master builder, and now another person is constructing upon it. But each builder must exercise care regarding how he builds upon that foundation.
11 For no one has the ability to lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if anyone constructs upon that foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw,
13 each person's work will become evident and exposed. For the day of judgment will reveal it, because it will be disclosed by fire, and the fire itself will test and prove what quality of work each person has produced.
14 If the work that anyone has built upon the foundation survives the test, that person will receive a reward.
15 If anyone's work is burned up and destroyed, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, yet only as one barely escaping through flames.
16 Do you not understand that you collectively are God's temple and that the Spirit of God lives within you?
17 If anyone destroys God's temple through divisiveness and false teaching, God will destroy that person, for God's temple is sacred and holy, and you are that temple.
18 Let no one deceive himself with false confidence. If anyone among you considers himself wise according to the standards of this present age, let him become foolish in the world's eyes so that he may become truly wise in God's sight.
19 For the wisdom that this world values is foolishness in God's estimation. Scripture confirms this: "He is the One who traps the wise in the schemes of their own cunning."*
20 And again Scripture states, "The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are futile and empty."*
21 Therefore, let no one boast about human leaders or take pride in allegiance to particular people. For all things ultimately belong to you:
22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas; whether the world or life itself or death; whether things in the present or things yet to come—all of these are yours.
23 And you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Notes
19 Quoted from Job 5:13
20 Quoted from Ps. 94:11
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1CO 3: AFINT
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Copyright © 2026 Michael Adeyemi Adegbola. This Scripture text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
