I Corinthians 3:1-9
Topic: We are laborers together with God
The church is in Corinth was located in the southern part of Greece. The church in Corinth was founded by the Apostle Paul during his second missionary tour, where he had spent a year and an half teaching the word of God to the Christians in Corinth. According to I Corinthians 16:8, the Apostle Paul was in Ephesus when he had heard about the disturbing news about what was going on in the church in Corinth. The news was that there was a division, a split taking place in the church. There was a lot of jealousy, strife, and immorality that was taking place in the church. And it is sad, but true; in many of our churches today there are divisions, splits taking place in many of our churches, and there are lot of churches throughout the world where churches are being affected by jealousy, strife, and immorality by the membership.
You see, in the church at Corinth, instead of loving each other, the church in Corinth had people in there hating one another. According to I Corinthians, the Christians in the church in the Corinthian church was hating each other so much that they were taking each other to court and suing each other in court over some small matters that could have been solved among themselves in the church in love. Instead of living in holiness, there were some people in the Corinthian church that was living in gross immorality. According to I Corinthians 5, there was a young man in the Corinthian church that was having a love affair with his step-mother.
Also in the church in Corinth, instead of sanctifying the elements of God , the people were playing with the elements of God. According to I Corinthians 11, the people in the Corinthian church were using the Lord’s Supper as a time to have dinner and to get drunk, when it was suppose to be the time to observe and remember how our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ had suffered and died on the cross for our sins. You see, in the Lord Supper, the bread represent the body of Christ, and the wine represent the blood of Christ that was shed for the remission of our sins. That is why the Apostle Paul told them thata if they got hungry during the Lord’s supper, they were to eat at home because the Lord’s supper was not a play thing. People was getting sick and was actually dying for playing around with the Lord’s supper. That is why Paul told the church in Corinth that before you take of the Lord’s supper, you need to examine yourself and pray and ask God forgiveness of your sins.
Now in I Corinthians 3, the Apostle Paul explains in his letter to the Corinthians church that they became Christians, when he first came unto them, he could not speak to them as if they already knew the Lord, but as if they were carnal, babes in Christ. You see, the people who lived in Corinth were Greeks, and they were exposed to a lot of Greek mythology, idol worship, vain philosophy, and gross immorality. And with this in mind, when Paul first starting preaching and teaching in the city of Corinth, he came with this one simple message: Jesus Christ and Him crucified and the plan of salvation.
And after the people in Corinth had received Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, the Apostle Paul spent time teaching the new Corinthians Christians the milk of the word. He taught them the milk of the word because they were newborn babes in Christ, and was not yet ready for the meat of the Word. Now the milk of the Word are the elementary principles o the Christian faith such as:
1 The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
2. The plan of Salvation
3. What is the bible
4. How to Pray and worship
5. How to receive forgiveness of sins
6. How to have faith and live for Christ
The Apostle Paul taught them (Corinthian Christians) the basic principles of the Christian faith so they can grow up in Christ and to be able to receive the meat of the word later.
But after hearing the news about what was going on in the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul was greatly disappointed. He had discovered that the Christians in Corinth, whom he had spent a year and a half teaching the Word of God to so they may grow up in Christ, have not yet grown up in Christ and they are still babes in Christ because they were fussing and fighting each other in the church.
Now something is wrong when a child is being fed with mild and food, and have not yet shown any growth since they day of their birth. Usually when a child has not shown any physical or mental growth since their day of birth of birth, the doctors will diagnose the child physically and mentally handicapped.
And it is so with Christians, whenever a Christian who have been in the church for 10, 15, or 20 years in the church, and yet have not grown up in their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, something has handicapped the spiritual growth in the that particular Christian. And whenever a Christian who is jealous with somebody, causing strife, spreading malicious gossip in the church, and hating people, that Christian is spiritually handicapped.
So the church in Corinth was spiritually handicapped by the Strife, jealousy and immorality. Now the question is: What brought about the strife that caused the spilt in the church in Corinth?
The answer: Preacher comparison.
There were some people in the church in Corinth who came to know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior through Paul’s ministry and they thought Paul was the greatest preacher that had ever lived.
And there were some people in the Corinthian Church who came to know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior through Apollos ministry, and they thought Apollos was the greatest preacher that had ever lived.
And because there were some groups in the church who had their favorite preacher, comparing one another to see which one is the greatest of all times, it caused a split in the Corinthian Church because they were arguing which preacher was the greatest. One group was saying that, “I got saved when Paul was preaching, and if you didn’t hear Paul preach, you aint saved because Paul tells it like it is.” Another group said, I got saved when Apollos was preaching here and if you did not hear Apollos preach, then you didn’t get saved because Apollos is such an eloquent speaker.
So the Apostle Paul asked this question in I Corinthians 3:5,”Who is then Paul and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
Now what the Apostle Paul was trying to stress in this verse to the Corinthian church was that Apollos and himself are just ministers or you can say they were both instruments who God had used to preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were nobody big or special. They were just servants of God whom God had used to bring the Word of God.
Then he says, I Corinthians 3:6-7, “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planted anything, neither he that watered; but God that giveth the increase.”
Now what the Apostle Paul was stressing here is that instead of praising Apollos and himself for their preaching ability, they ought to be praising God because it is He who gave the increase. You see, God used Paul to plant the Word through preaching and teaching the Word and Apollos came along and watered the Word through preaching and teaching the Word, but it was God who gave the increase. That is it is God who saved them and gave them eternal life. It is God who saved them and gave them salvation. It is God who saved them and gave them the forgivess of sins. Not Paul, not Apollos, but God! And since it is God who gave them salvation through the preaching and teaching of Paul and Apollos, then it is God who is to be praised and worshipped!!!!!!
In I Corinthians 3:8-9, the Apostle Paul furthermore says, “Now he that planted and watered are one: every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God; ye a re God’s husbandry( graden), ye are God’s building.
What Paul was saying is that Apollos and himself are not in competition with each other. They are not trying to out teach or preach each other, They are not trying to be each other enemies because Paul and Apollos realizes that what ever God has for them, it is for them. What ever God has for Paul, it is for Paul. What ever God has for Apollos, it is for Apollos. Instead competing against each other, and being each other enemies, Paul said that he and Apollos are one, that is, they were co-laborers, they were teammates working together with the Lord. Even though they may not have preached in the same city at the same time, but they were still one in the Lord, they were still co-laborers and teammates working together preaching and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And a co-labores and teammates for Jesus Christ,
we should not be jealous of one another.
we should not be envious of one another.
we should not backbite one another.
we should not hate one another.
we should not tear each other down.
we should not be bitter towards each other.
we should not to be fussing and fighting with one another.
But as co-laborers and teammates for Jesus Christ, we need to love one another.
we need be at peace with one another.
we need to build each other up another in the Lord.
we need be in harmony with one another.
we need to help one another.
we need to accept one another.
we need to serve one one another.
we need to submit to one another.
we need to stop passing judgment on one another.
we need to honor one another.
we need to greet one another.
In the body of Christ, we need to instruct, teach, and admonish one another in love.
we need to speak to one another.
we need to agree with each other in the Lord not to have a falling out
we need to be patient with one another.
we need to encourage one another.
we need to bear with one another.
we need to build each other up.
we need to be kind and compassionate with one another.
we need to be hospitable with one another.
we should forgive one another.
we need to be in unity.
Ephesians 4:3-6 says, “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
