Paul turned next to a positive explanation of how his readers should view himself and his fellow workers.
"At issue is their radically misguided perception of the nature of the church and its leadership, in this case especially the role of the teachers."66
"Besides evidencing a misapprehension of the gospel itself, the Corinthians' slogans bespeak a totally inadequate perception of the church and its ministry."67
3:5 Paul, Apollos, and, of course, Cephas were only servants of Christ each serving in his own way and sphere of opportunity under the Master's direction.
3:6-8 Obviously God deserved more credit for the church in Corinth than either its planter or its nurturer. Next to Him the others were nothing. Human laborers are all equal in that they are human laborers with human limitations. Nevertheless the Lord will reward each one at the judgment seat of Christ because of his or her work. Note that it is our labor that will be the basis of our reward, not the fruit of our labor.
3:9 Paul and Apollos were fellow workers forGod. Elsewhere Paul spoke of believers as fellow workers withGod (2 Cor. 6:1), but that was not his point here. The Corinthians were the field in view in the preceding illustration (vv. 6-8). Paul now compared them to a building. He proceeded to develop this illustration in the following verses (vv. 10-17). This verse is transitional.
To help the Corinthians abandon the party spirit that marked their church, Paul stressed the equality of their teachers as fellow workers underGod's sovereign authority (vv. 5-9).
"Everything is God's--the church, its ministry, Paul, Apollos--everything. Therefore, it is absolutely not permissible to say I belong to Paul,' since the only legitimate slogan' is we all belong to God.'"68
"A sermon on our text [3:1-9] would focus on the attitudes of preachers and congregations about one another as they relate to the gospel of the cross. Peruse this brief sermon sketch:
"I belong to Paul.' I belong to Apollos.' Familiar cries in a world of hi-tech religion. See huge Sunday crowds squint under the glare of spotlights as their' preachers dazzle millions of electronic viewers with wisdom and rhetorical charm. Overhear the Christian public admire TV evangelists and big-time clergy: Oh, I like to listen to _____.' Well, he's O.K. but I like _____ better.' You fill in the blanks. Yes, everyone has their favorite preacher nowadays. In spite of all the notorious hucksters, preacher religion' is in. The result? An increasingly fragmented church. I belong to Paul and you don't.' It is enough to make Corinth look tame by comparison."69
3:10 In the new illustration Paul laid the foundation of the church in Corinth by founding the church, and others added the walls and continued building on that foundation. Paul's special mission from God was to found churches (Rom. 15:20). He readily acknowledged that it was only by God's grace that he could do so as a skillful master-builder. He added a word of warning that the quality of the materials and workmanship that went into building the church are very important.
"By laying the foundation he did--Jesus Christ and him crucified--he was the truly wise' master-builder in contrast to the wise' in Corinth, who are building the church of totally incongenial materials and are therefore in danger of attempting to lay another foundation as well."70
3:11 Christ Himself is the foundation of the church (Matt. 16:18; cf. Isa. 28:16; Rom. 9:33; 1 Pet. 2:6). Basing a church on the work of any other person, even Peter, is improper. Paul laid the foundation for the church in Corinth when he preached Christ and Him crucified there. The apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church in a secondary sense only (Eph. 2:20).71
3:12-13 Even though the quality of the foundation was the best, the condition of the building also depended on what others built on top of the foundation. In Paul's day contractors built buildings of durable and or combustible materials, as they do today. In the building of the Corinthian church durable materials were those activities that sprang from reliance on Christ and Him crucified, the foundation. These works contributed to the permanent spiritual strengthening of the believers. The combustible materials were activities that arose out of human "wisdom"in all its forms. These made no lasting contribution though they may have served some temporary need. Examples of the former include instruction in the Word of God, training in evangelism, and the refutation of error. Illustrations of the latter would be the teaching of popular ideas not rooted in Scripture, social work that excluded the gospel message, and the use of time and money for simply temporal purposes. However, Paul's main concern in this metaphor was those doing the building rather than the building itself.
"The six materials in 1 Cor 3:12 are arranged to denote a descending scale by moving from a unit of three good qualities to a unit of three bad ones. The verse uses pictures to represent what Paul calls work' in vv 13 and 14. Paul's main point is to encourage building with quality materials that will meet with God's approval and receive eternal reward. Interpreters sometimes restrict the meaning of the symbols either to doctrine, to people, to activity, or to character. The [proper] conclusion is that Paul in the symbols combines several things that lead to Christ's good pleasure and a believer's reward. These are sound doctrine, activity, motives and character in Christian service."72
God will expose the work of each of God's servants on "the day."This is a reference to the day when the believer will stand before God and give an account of the stewardship of his or her life at Christ's judgment seat (cf. Luke 19:11-27; 1 Cor. 1:8; 2 Cor. 5:10; Phil. 1:6, 10; 2 Tim. 1:12, 18; 4:8; Rev. 22:12; et al.).73Then the fire of God's judgment will test the quality of each person's work and his workmanship, but not his person. The durability or transience of those works will then become apparent.
3:14-15 If the servant of the Lord has made a lasting contribution to the building of the church by emphasizing the gospel, he or she will receive a reward. If someone has not because he or she has pursued human "wisdom,"that person will not, though he or she will retain his or her salvation. Paul likened the unfaithful servant to a man pulled to safety through the flames of his burning house (cf. Matt. 25:14-30; Luke 19:11-27). The context identifies those who suffer loss as being Christians who seek to build the church with materials that fail to withstand God's assessment. They do not refer to all carnal Christians (vv. 1-4), though carnal Christians may fail to make lasting contributions to the church.74
The rewards in view seem to be opportunities to glorify God by serving Him (cf. Matt. 25:14-30; Luke 19:11-27). The Christian will have greater or lesser opportunities to do so during the Millennium and forever in proportion to his or her faithfulness on earth now.75The New Testament writers spoke of these rewards symbolically as crowns elsewhere (cf. 9:25; Phil. 4:1; 1 Thess. 2:19; 2 Tim. 4:8; James 1:12; 1 Pet. 5:4; Rev. 2:10; 3:11). It is perfectly proper to serve Christ to gain a crown. We will one day lay it at the feet of our Savior. It is a symbol of a life of faithful service that we performed out of gratitude for His grace to us (cf. Rev. 4:4, 10).76
The testing in view here provides no support for the unbiblical doctrine of purgatory. It is the believer's works that God subjects to the fires of testing, not the believer personally. God applies the fire to determine the quality of the works, not to purify the believer.
"[The] whole subject of rewards for the believer is one, I am afraid, rarely thought of by the ordinary Christian, or even the average student of the Scriptures. But it is both a joyous and solemn theme and should serve as a potent incentive for holiness of life."77
"The Bible describes the judgment seat of Christ for one main purpose: to affect the way we think and live--to motivate us to anticipate with joy His return and to live our lives to please Him, not worrying about the way others treat us or what they may think about us. . . .
"Though not the only motivating factor, I am convinced that the doctrine of the judgment seat (bema) is meant to be one of the major scriptural motivations for godly living."78
"It is unfortunately possible for people to attempt to build the church out of every imaginable human system predicated on merely worldly wisdom, be it philosophy, pop' psychology, managerial techniques, relational good feelings,' or what have you. But at the final judgment, all such building (and perhaps countless other forms, where systems have become more important than the gospel itself) will be shown for what it is: something merely human, with no character of Christ or his gospel in it."79
This is perhaps the strongest warning in the New Testament against taking the church lightly and destroying it with the world's wisdom and division.
3:16 The Corinthian church was a temple that God's Spirit indwelt. Paul was not speaking here of individual believers being temples of God, though we are (6:19), nor of the church universal as the temple of God, though it is (Eph. 2:19-22; 1 Pet. 2:5). He meant the collective body of believers that made up the local church as is clear from his use of the plural "you"in the Greek text and the singular "temple."The local congregation was not just any building (v. 9) but a sanctuary (Gr. naos) that God inhabited. The presence of the Spirit alone marked them off as God's sanctuary in Corinth.
The New Testament writers spoke often of the church (a group of believers) as God's temple. They did not make the distinction between the holy place and the holy of holies that existed in the Israelites' physical temples. They viewed the temple as a whole. However here Paul did distinguish the place of God's dwelling, the temple building itself (naos), from the temple precincts that surrounded and included the sanctuary (Gr. hieron).
3:17 If any servant of the Lord tears down the church instead of building it up, God will tear him or her down (Acts 9:1-4). He usually does this by sending temporal discipline in one form or another (cf. 5:5). The Greek word translated "destroys"(phtheiro) also means "defiles."It is a very serious thing to destroy or defile a holy temple, and that is what the local church is. In the ancient world destroying a temple was a capital offense. The church is holy in that God has set it aside to glorify Himself even though it is not always as holy in its conduct as it is in its calling.80
Paul ended his discussion of the local church (vv. 5-17) as he did to stress the importance of the work that all God's servants were doing at Corinth. He also did so to stress the need for unity of viewpoint in the congregation.
". . . this is one of the few texts in the NT where we are exposed both to an understanding of the nature of the local church (God's temple indwelt by his Spirit) and where the warning of v. 17 makes it clear how important the local church is to God himself."81
