Week 4
Series
Description
“Aren’t you living like people of the world?” The apostle Paul wrote these words of rebuke to the church in Corinth, a congregation whose behavior associated them with the culture rather than setting them apart as the body of Christ. They were a group marked by division instead of unity, immorality instead of purity, selfishness instead of love. Although 1 Corinthians was not written to us, its message is for us and invites us to consider: How are we, as a church body, living like people of the world, and how should we repent to be set apart?
Main
Passage
1 Corinthians 3:1–9
Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ. I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world? When one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting just like people of the world?
After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work. For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building.
Related
Passages
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