1 Corinthians 3: Carnal Christians in the Church

Chapter 3 is a turning point in this letter from Paul to the Corinthian church. Prior to this chapter, Paul did not directly address the carnality in the church, other than citing the disunity among church members. As we start chapter 3, however, Paul sets the stage for the correction and admonishment that he is about to give his readers in the rest of the book.

He begins this chapter by directly addressing the carnality he has observed in the church and listing the charges against them (vv. 1-4):

“¹ Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. ² I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. ³ You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? ⁴ For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere human beings?”

Paul distinguishes the Spirit-filled Christians from those who rely on the flesh and living by their own power or wisdom. He calls those Christians “…worldly.” The worldly Christian here is not the nominal believer, but one who is involved in dividing the church into rival factions.

The Corinthian Christians had not shown a great deal of maturity since the church’s founding. Paul, after learning of the church’s problems, knew he needed to address the church members sharply because of the depths of carnality into which they have sunk.

He acknowledges that the Corinthians are indeed Christians, but adds they are woefully immature. Their behavior is not what is expected of Christians. Instead, they are acting like the unsaved culture around them. The church members were involved in sin, carnality. They were self-centered, and their thinking and behavior was not consistent with what is expected of anyone who belongs to Christ.

According to Paul there are three types of people:

One type is what Paul calls “…the natural man…” or the “…the person without the Spirit…” (see 2:14). This is someone who does not and cannot understand spiritual matters and therefore rejects God. Here is how Jude describes them in Jude vv. 17-19: 

“¹⁷ But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. ¹⁸ They said to you, ‘In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.’ 19 These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.”

The second type of person, Paul says, is what he calls “..the spiritual man…,” whom he briefly describes for us in 2:15-16: “¹⁵ The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for, ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’” The person with the Spirit has been renewed by the Spirit and is not subject to being judged by mere human standards and is able to understand and judge with spiritual wisdom.

The third kind of person is what Paul calls “…the carnal man…,” who are people who are worldly or secular in their world view. He mentions those in the opening verse of this chapter: “¹ Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ” (v. 1). Carnal people are indeed Christians, but they live according to the old desires of the flesh, rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to change them and guide their thinking and behavior.

Paul emphasizes that the difficulties in the Corinthian church are due to the members’ carnality. He holds them accountable for their carnality and spiritual immaturity, especially in light of all the time he had spent in Corinth helping them to grow more spiritually mature.

There is a note of sadness and disappointment in v. 2, where he tells his readers: “I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.” The Corinthians had shown little or no progress toward spiritual maturity since Paul had finished teaching them in his 18-month stay with them in Corinth. As we will see in the rest of the letter, this led to real problems in the church.

In vv. 3-4, Paul begins to get specific in his criticism, telling them: 

“³You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? ⁴ For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere human beings?” 

The Corinthians claimed to be in Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but they are not acting like it.

Paul continues in v. 4 to emphasize that we must not exalt church leaders. While we are to respect them, recognize their roles and authority, and even admonish them when they themselves are carnal or worldly, we are not to exalt them and treat them like they are cult leaders. God calls some Christians to be in leadership roles in the church, but He calls them as servant-leaders and not to become famous or be exalted by the church or by the world.

Paul could hardly be more forceful in vv. 5-7, where he scolds his readers for exalting certain leaders: 

“⁵ What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. ⁶ I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. ⁷ So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”

The church leaders they so revered were merely servants of the Lord and doing the work to which each of them was called.

Paul uses an agricultural metaphor in vv. 6-7, something with which all his readers would be familiar. The farmer plants the seed and waters the plants, but he does not have the power to give life. That power is God’s alone.

He points out in vv. 8-9 that Christians are all on the same team: “⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. ⁹ For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, in the sense that they both have the same goal. There should be no jealousy between Christians who are in differing roles in their service to Christ. As far as the value of different kinds of ministries is concerned, we are on the same level.

Planting and watering in Paul’s metaphor, mean witnessing discipling, both of which exist to enable God to make the church grow. They both are needed in the church, and the people participating in these ministries “… will each be rewarded according to their own labor.” This is an important point. We will each be rewarded for our willingness to be used of God.

God expects all of us to use our gifts in His work and not to cherish or feel superior because we have a particular gift. In the Corinthian church, people boasted about their gifts and sought the most visible and admired gifts, such as speaking in tongues. Paul will deal with this in great detail in chapter 12, where he explains the different kinds of gifts and that “…in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work…” (12:6).

In vv. 10-11, Paul changes his comparison from planting and watering to building a structure, writing: 

“¹⁰ By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. ¹¹ For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

When Paul founded the church in Corinth (see Acts 18), he set the only foundation that can be laid—the person and work of Jesus Christ. Yet he knew that others would come after him and build on that foundation. God, being the master builder, is the one who is actually responsible for building the foundation and the structure of the church. In Corinth, He did it through Paul’s preaching, evangelizing, organizing, and teaching. These gifts exist among members of each local church, and God chooses many people to do the work of ministry, and not just the pastor and staff members.

We find in the Bible many examples of God choosing people for various ministries. For example, God chose Abraham to be the father of His people Israel, although there was nothing special about Abraham. And consider His choice of Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Joshua. None of them was uniquely qualified by skill or education. But all of them were faithful and were equipped by the Lord to do the work of ministry for which they had been chosen.

In vv. 12-15, Paul explains: 

“¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.”

God makes the point in those four verses that He wants our best efforts in doing ministry. Paul contrasts the best ministry efforts with less effective ones, comparing our best efforts to valuables like gold, silver, and costly stones, and less effective efforts that are of little eternal value to wood, hay, and straw. His point is that any effort that is less than our best or done for the wrong reasons, such as wanting recognition, is of little value and will not endure.

The faithful works, on the other hand, are permanent, worthwhile, and indestructible. They are built on the foundation of the work of Jesus Christ, with ongoing enabling of the indwelling Holy Spirit. His metaphor here is that faithfulness in ministry will be tested or judged, and only those faithful efforts will count and be rewarded.

In vv. 16-17, Paul explains that the Spirit if God is in each of us: 

“¹⁶ Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.”

His challenge to the church is that together all the church members (in v. 16, the word “…you…” is plural) comprise the spiritual temple of God, because the Spirit of God dwells in all of them (see Ephesians 2:22 and 1Peter 2:5). His use of the term “…temple…” in vv. 16-17 reminds us of the Old Testament tabernacle and temple, which represented the manifestation of God dwelling in the Holy of Holies at the temple in Jerusalem. Just as Jesus spoke of his earthly body as the temple (see John 2:19-21), so God’s people can be called individually and collectively God’s temple.

There is a special judgment awaiting those who seek to destroy the church or deny its reality, according to v. 17: “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.” The jealousy and quarreling in the Corinthian church damaged God’s holy temple, which in the New Testament is the body of believers. Divisiveness and quarreling damage any church. It is crucial for individual members of the church to maintain the unity of the body of Christ.

Paul returns in vv. 18-20 to the matter of worldly wisdom versus spiritual dedication and faithfulness. He writes: 

“¹⁸ Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become ‘fools’ so that you may become wise. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’ (Job 5:13); ²⁰ and again, ‘The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.’ (Psalm 94:11)”

The Corinthians highly valued human wisdom and used that as the standard for leadership in the church. The problem was that each person wanted to stand out as more powerful, more talented, and more gifted. To solve this situation, the Corinthians needed to turn from their reliance on human wisdom for the work of ministry and rely on God instead. Spiritual gifts are not intended signs of special favor or position, but as God-given abilities to do the work of ministry, and no spiritual gift is more valuable or has higher standing than any other.

Finally, in vv. 21-23 Paul issues an important reminder to the Corinthians, as well as a reminder to us: 

“²¹ So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, ²² whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas (that is, Peter) or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, ²³ and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.”

There should be no boasting about whom we follow. The problem of different factions in the church following Paul, Apollos, or Cephas, which Paul first mentioned in 1:12, must have no place among Christians.

We all are “…of Christ…,” the Son of God. That is the Christian’s identity.