Building Program
1 CORINTHIANS 3:10–23
In the earlier verses of 1 Corinthians 3, Paul employed an agricultural metaphor to describe the Christian community, and in this chapter he uses an architectural one. In 3:1–9 he described the community as “God’s field.” With the transition statement in verse 9, the community is now referred to as “God’s building.” Remember that Corinth was a booming city. An agricultural metaphor may not have connected at a gut-level for some of the Corinthians, just like it might not for today’s urban and modern people. According to David Garland, “The building imagery would be quite familiar to any urban dweller, and Paul beckons them to see themselves as a diverse group (some freeborn, some freedmen, some slaves) coming together with many different skills (some highly specialized—masons, carpenters, engravers—others unskilled labor) to construct an edifice.” In other words, Paul is contextualizing his message for a diverse, skilled, urban community. The architecture of community will be observed through the following three stages:
• The Construction of Community
• The Demolition of Community
• The Restoration (or Rebuilding) of Community
The Construction of Community (vv. 10, 11, 16)
Beautiful buildings speak for themselves. Their beauty naturally allows them to become destinations. Ugly and poorly constructed buildings also speak for themselves; they are the eyesores of our cities. Poorly constructed buildings are not only unimpressive in aesthetics; they are also dangerous. The news is regularly filled with reports of poorly constructed buildings around the world collapsing and thereby taking lives. Paul sees the potential for the same thing to happen metaphorically in the Corinthian community. He takes measures to instruct them about how to build their community in a solid, sturdy, beautiful way. Anything worth building is worth building well. This kind of preparation work is evident in the ways that we live our everyday lives as well. We get all of our ducks in a row when we “build” our careers, we read books about marriage and child-rearing, and we carefully scrutinize our financial portfolios. Why would we not do this with our spiritual lives? Our community?
The Necessity for Sound Construction
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation,3 and someone else is building upon it. Let each one5 take care how he builds upon it. (v. 10)
Paul is the “skilled master builder” who combines the idea of an architect and an engineer. In that cultural context this was the role of the individual who oversaw all the various elements of a construction project from beginning to end. This puts Paul in a place of authority, responsibility, and personal interest. All of this is “according to … grace.” He’s not simply a hired hand, and he’s not paying off a debt—he does his work “according to the grace … given.” Paul is not a removed, outside observer, but is part of a co-construction project with the Corinthians. His initial role was to lay a foundation, and now others have come along to build on top of it.
The superstructure is a communal building project. Paul envisions all of the Corinthians being joined together as part of a highly skilled construction crew. Each member of the crew has particular responsibilities, and the soundness of the building will be dependent on the soundness of each member’s contribution. Each is to “take care how he builds.” So if the individual who is tasked with providing and positioning the support pillars decides to use cheap, flimsy wood instead of steel and isn’t careful to ensure that the supports are placed in the right place, there will be a sagging floor—a hazard to anyone in the building. Each member has to be alert.
The foundation is ultimately what stabilizes and unifies. In the previous chapter Paul mentioned that he might have been the one who planted the seed, but Apollos watered it, and ultimately God made things grow. And in the same way Paul might have laid the foundation, but someone else (maybe Apollos or other leaders in the church) is building upon that foundation. Paul is saying that the church is a communal building project. We need to all participate in building this with our respective responsibilities. Just as we are invested in building our marriages, relationships, friendships, and careers, we need to be equally—if not more—involved in building the church, a community of God’s grace.
“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (v. 11). The foundation provides unity because it is singular in nature. We are not invited to build on our own foundations. It is popular to ask, “What foundation are you building your life on?” But this question is misleading. According to the Bible, there is only one foundation: the person and work of Jesus Christ. This foundation is a stabilizing, unifying, unshakable, immovable force. In the context of 1:10–4:21, the Apostle Paul has in mind Jesus Christ and him crucified (cf. 2:2). Paul does not know anything about who Jesus is apart from what Jesus has accomplished through his dying work. Jesus Christ and him crucified is the singular foundation that establishes the unity for the community-building project and for all of life. It is a sure foundation that can guarantee and secure our greatest longing for unity, stability, and even our identity. Paul is saying that even though we might want to establish our identity on other things, we can be sure that the foundation for this building is Jesus and him crucified. And all of our participation in building is rooted and built upon that foundation.
This foundation is sure—it provides stability. All other foundations are non-foundations in comparison to Christ. In this way, if Christianity is true, it provides the foundation for two of the greatest longings of the human heart: First, the human heart longs for unity and reconciled relationships. No one wakes up thinking, “How can I create discord today?”—“How can I disrespect others and have them turn on me?” We long for shalomic, reconciled, harmonious, holistic relationships. Second, the human heart longs for stability that can withstand life’s storms. No one wakes up thinking, “I hope life throws me a curveball that I can’t handle today!”—“It would be great to experience a trial that will shake me to the core.” We long for steady, normal, pleasant, secure lives. We long for identity; so we spend our lives constructing our own.
Identity Construction
Ultimately we are all looking for an identity that enables us to be secure in ourselves and meaningfully connected to others. We want to know who we are and to be honestly known. Paul claims that being God’s “building” gives us this identity. Verse 16 says, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” In a radical move Paul uses the term used to refer to the very sanctuary in which the presence of God dwelt (i.e., “temple”) and applies it to the Corinthian community. He is saying that when the church joins together on the foundation of Christ, it is the very container in which God chooses to dwell on earth. This is reiterated when he says, “God’s Spirit dwells in you.” All individuals receive an identity as Christ-grounded community builders. All individuals relate to others as fellow Christ-grounded community builders. The result is that God’s Spirit dwells among them. What other incentive do we need to work harmoniously together in community?
But there is a tension here that we simply cannot afford to ignore. Rather than functioning as unified constructors of God’s superstructural community, the Corinthians were making the activity of building itself a cause for division, discord, destruction, and demolition. And we know that they are not unique in this. We see the same kind of destructive divisions at work in the church today.
The Demolition of Community (vv. 12–15, 17)
Churches are often the location where dysfunction and discord are most evident. Paul goes on to state in this text that there are several ways a community can be demolished.
One way a community is demolished is through a disregard for the foundation (v. 11). Though there are no other true foundations, many refuse to believe this and seek them anyway. Rather than recognizing that Jesus and him crucified is the only sure foundation, we consider our own foundations to be more reliable and more unshakable. We seek foundations in political causes, philosophical ideologies, consumerism, rugged individualism, etc. We can look like we’re building, but when our work is out of accord with the foundation—the gospel—our building-like activity is actually destructive.
One popular foundation in modern culture is emotions. This is not to demonize emotions as a whole because people cannot just be cerebral and rational. There needs to be recognition that all people have an inherent personal nature, and therefore there is nothing wrong with having affection—in fact, we need affections. But when it comes to our foundation, we cannot merely rely on our feelings, as that will lead to sensationalism or emotionalism. If we rely on our feelings, that may explain why our lives seem to be too rocky. Something happens one day, and we feel great about ourselves. Then the opposite happens the next day, and our entire lives seem to crumble. Many have come to believe that our own conscience is now being determined by our own feelings and creation (intrinsic), rather than on something/someone that is apart from us (external), namely Jesus Christ. Consequently, we must admit that we are extremely fickle people. If we simply operate out of our own experience and our own feelings, we would be laying down our foundation on something that is very shakable rather than on the firm foundation of Christ.
The second way a community is demolished is through the use of shoddy building materials. Verses 12 and following state:
Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Note that Paul is not talking about salvific categories. He is simply talking about two sets of materials. One is imperishable (gold, silver, precious stones) and the other is perishable (wood, hay, straw). In essence, he is saying that to build a community with imperishable materials would be to live life according to the gospel as led by the Holy Spirit. Paul is urging the Corinthian believers to stay away from combustible materials like wood, hay, and straw—foundations that appear to work well for a time but are clearly finite because they will inevitably destroy the Christian and the church. In other words, the foundation of a truly healthy church must be the imperishable gospel of Jesus Christ. So how can we be sure that we’re not using shoddy materials but are instead building on the sure foundation of Jesus? Paul tells us that the final judgment will make this plain: the materials we build our lives with that are not imperishable will be “burned up” or “consumed” at the end (katekaio, v. 15; cf. Matthew 3:12; 13:30, 40), revealing shoddy building materials. But if we are building on the foundation of Christ with materials of imperishable integrity like the gospel, the fires of judgment will reap an imperishable reward at the end. Thus, the person and work of Jesus Christ is both the foundation and the building materials for every healthy Christian person and Christian community. Therefore, these building projects, as it were, built on and built with the materials of the gospel, have intrinsic value both in the present and the future.
The third way to demolish the building of God is to demolish yourself.
If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy10 him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” (vv. 17–20)
God takes his dwelling place, his building, his people very seriously. He reserves destruction for those who oversee the destruction of his temple, his people. God has called his people to be craftsman, to build, cultivate, and craft his temple, but he will catch “in their craftiness” and “destroy” those who work against this plan, according to their own wisdom. Though they might think themselves wise, it is the height of foolishness, because they are actually working against themselves.
“If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself.” Paul is basically saying that if an individual turns on his community, he is really turning on himself—and it is conceptually irrational to do. We cannot expect someone to thrive in isolation. We must be part of the building to receive the benefits of the foundation. One brick cannot say to another brick, “I don’t really like being so close to you; it’s making me uncomfortable!” The building will only stand because they stick together. They must be unified, meshing, and interdependent. Being a rugged individualist will only lead to self-cannibalization. In other words, any push for independence from the community is really a push toward one’s own demise. Furthermore, there is already a foundation and a blueprint. To deviate from the foundation (Christ) or the blueprint (Scripture) is to create a faction that ultimately brings destruction to God’s temple. We must see ourselves as co-builders, determined to maintain unity, not foremen with competing ideas of how the project ought to be developed.
We need to recognize that we are part of a bigger cause. If we are only driven by self-fulfillment and self-authentication, then we can never be a helpful co-builder. We would only be concerned about our own bricks, our own building blocks, and we would not be concerned about the rest of the building. When it comes to buildings, temples, walls, the bricks are usually layered on top of one another. We cannot all of a sudden say, “I don’t want to be next to this brick. I don’t like this brick” because the reality is, the bricks are cemented together. Everyone is cemented to the wall.
We cannot be isolated Christians. If we live in isolation, we are living a life that is not natural. We are violating our nature. But we also need to see that beyond violating our nature, without community we will have no accountability or intimacy systems in our lives. Some might say, “That’s why I don’t go into community. I don’t want accountability.” But if we do not want accountability, then we will never have intimacy, and therefore we will always complain about being lonely. And we will not have people to speak the truth in love in our lives at moments when we need it. We were not built to be isolated bricks. Paul uses this architectural or structural metaphor because if we are hurting or if we need protection, then we would go into a building, behind high walls to receive help and/or protection. But how can one be in isolation, weathering the storm, all by himself or herself? The Apostle Paul is saying that the Bible does not support that sort of Christianity.
The trouble is that we are all prone to disregard the foundation, to build with shoddy materials, and to turn on ourselves as we turn on the community. What hope is there? How can the unity, structural solidity, and architectural beauty of God’s temple, his people, his church, be restored and maintained?
The Restoration (or Rebuilding) of Community (vv. 18–23)