You were people of the flesh, you were “carnal” your translation might say.īut he doesn’t only say that they were acting according to the flesh. You weren’t full of the spirit and thriving in holiness. When I came to you, he’s saying, you weren’t ready for the big leagues. He says at the beginning that he could not address them as spiritual people, picking up the theme from chapter 2. Verse 1 says, “But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.” The tragic root of their disunity and their problems is their own immaturity. The root of their disunity, which we see in the first two verses. Let’s look at the tragic root of their problems. The tragic root of their problems, and the bitter fruit. Two observations for us to see: the tragic root, and the bitter fruit. I’ll begin tonight by saying that I have but two simple points drawn from these verses. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. So, that’s where we are headed, let’s begin by reading 1 Corinthians 3:1-4:īut I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. The church today, and we as individuals, need constantly to be on guard against these bad fruit, these works of the flesh. Fussing and fighting and bickering and posturing and gossiping and grumbling. We see this every day: in the world, in churches, in our homes, and in our own hearts. The Corinthians believers had been acting in a way that was contrary to the Spirit, as we will see.īut of particular note for us is that the Corinthian temptation to worldliness, to acting according to the flesh rather than the spirit, of being divisive and contentious rather than being a peace-maker, that temptation is all around us today. Then we get to chapter three, which takes the theme of the Spirit, of being made spiritual and having true wisdom revealed to us, and compares that with what is found in Corinth. Thus, if the Spirit’s prior work is the only reason we’ve come to embrace Christ, then what is to come of our pride and boasting? It is brought to nothing. The spirit reveals true wisdom, because true wisdom is only spiritually discerned. The only way we come to see the cross as the wisdom of God and foundation of the Christian life is by the work of the Holy Spirit. This may seem like he’s going down a rabbit trail, but it is an important part of his argumentation against divisions. The cross is what explains to us who God is, who Christ is, who we are, how we are made right with God, and how we ought to live.īut he then goes into another discussion in chapter 2 about the Holy Spirit. The cross is what demonstrates true wisdom, as opposed to worldly foolishness. The foundation of Paul’s argumentation has been a clear understanding of the cross. To counter this congregational drift, Paul has been seeking to reset their priorities, to re-anchor them to what is of first importance. They had let worldly values and worldly desires creep into their minds and hearts, and the church had been suffering for it. They had drifted away from the central anchor of the Christian faith. The Corinthian believers had gotten distracted. From chapter 1 verse 10 all the way into chapter 4, Paul is making a sharp and direct case against the quarreling and division going on in the Corinthian church. First Corinthians chapter 3.Īs we have noticed through our study of this letter, Paul is here in the middle of an ongoing train of thought. The text to which I’d like to turn our attention this evening is found in First Corinthians chapter 3. Please turn with me in your bibles to the New Testament.
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