You Belong to Christ

3 Brothers and sisters, I couldn’t talk to you as spiritual people but as people still influenced by your corrupt nature. You were infants in your faith in Christ. ² I gave you milk to drink. I didn’t give you solid food because you weren’t ready for it. Even now you aren’t ready for it ³ because you’re still influenced by your corrupt nature.

When you are jealous and quarrel among yourselves, aren’t you influenced by your corrupt nature and living by human standards? ⁴ When some of you say, “I follow Paul” and others say, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting like ⌞sinful⌟ humans? ⁵ Who is Apollos? Who is Paul? They are servants who helped you come to faith. Each did what the Lord gave him to do. ⁶ I planted, and Apollos watered, but God made it grow. ⁷ So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is important because ⌞only⌟ God makes it grow. ⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have the same goal, and each will receive a reward for his own work. ⁹ We are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field.

You are God’s building. ¹⁰ As a skilled and experienced builder, I used the gift ^[a] that God gave me to lay the foundation ⌞for that building⌟. However, someone else is building on it. Each person must be careful how he builds on it. ¹¹ After all, no one can lay any other foundation than the one that is already laid, and that foundation is Jesus Christ. ¹² People may build on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw. ¹³ The day will make what each one does clearly visible because fire will reveal it. That fire will determine what kind of work each person has done. ¹⁴ If what a person has built survives, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If his work is burned up, he will suffer ⌞the loss⌟. However, he will be saved, though it will be like going through a fire.

¹⁶ Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him because God’s temple is holy. You are that holy temple!

¹⁸ Don’t deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise in the ways of this world, you should give up that wisdom in order to become really wise. ¹⁹ The wisdom of this world is nonsense in God’s sight. That’s why Scripture says, “God catches the wise in their cleverness.” ²⁰ Again Scripture says, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are pointless.”

²¹ So don’t brag about people. Everything belongs to you. ²² Whether it is Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life or death, present or future things, everything belongs to you. ²³ You belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.