Spiritual immaturity
1 Brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people but as carnal, as if you are infantile as far as Christ is concerned. 2 I gave you milk to drink instead of solid food because you couldn’t take that— and you still can’t. 3 You are still carnal, with your inflamed passions and rivalry. Are you not carnal like everyone else? 4 When you say “I follow Paul” or “I follow Apollos,” are you not merely human? For those who say such things are carnal.
Each one does their part
5 So who is Apollos? Who is Paul? Only servants through whom you believed as the Master assigned each of us. 6 I planted and Apollos watered, but God makes it grow, 7 so that neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who makes it grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters are each paid according to their own labor. 9 We are co-workers of God on his field, and you are the building.
10 According to the favor God granted me, I laid a foundation as a wise foreman, and someone else is building upon it. But let each one be careful how they build! 11 For no one can lay any other foundation beside the one already set: Jesus Christ. 12 The material someone builds with— gold, silver, gems, wood, hay, or straw— 13 that person’s work will become obvious in that Day. It will be revealed with fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. 14 Whatever is left standing will be the basis for their reward. 15 But if someone’s work is completely burned up, they will forfeit any reward. Yet they themselves will be saved, in spite of the fire.
The temple of the Holy Spirit
16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God has taken up residence in you? 17 If anyone ruins the temple of God, that one will be ruined, for the temple of God is holy, and that’s what all of you are. 18 Don’t be deluded! If anyone among you presumes to be wise in this age, let them become foolish in order to become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. As it is written, “He captures the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Master knows that the thinking of the wise is pointless.”
Do not put people on pedestals
21 So then, no more bragging about people, for everything is yours— 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or what exists or is still to come— it’s all yours. 23 Yet you are Christ’s, and he is God’s.