2.6 KiB
The Problem of Immaturity
Chapter 3
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For my part, brothers and sisters, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ.
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I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready,
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because you are still worldly. For since there is envy and strife among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans?
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For whenever someone says, "I belong to Paul," and another, "I belong to Apollos," are you not acting like mere humans? The Role of God's Servants
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What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given.
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I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
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So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
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Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
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For we are God's coworkers. You are God's field, God's building.
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According to God's grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it.
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For no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ.
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If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw,
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each one's work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one's work.
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If anyone's work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward.
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If anyone's work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved--but only as through fire.
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Don't you yourselves know that you are God's temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
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If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is holy, and that is what you are.
The Folly of Human Wisdom
- Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool so that he can become wise.
- For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written, He catches the wise in their craftiness**;
- and again, The Lord knows that the reasonings* of the wise are futile.*
- So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours--
- whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come--everything is yours,
- and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.