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3. On Division in the Church

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?

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. 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.

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. 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.

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.

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 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.

3. For ye are as yet carnal So long as the flesh, that is to say, natural corruption, prevails in a man, it has so completely possession of the man’s mind, that the wisdom of God finds no admittance. Hence, if we would make proficiency in the Lord’s school, we must first of all renounce our own judgment and our own will. Now, although among the Corinthians some sparks of piety were emitted, they were kept under by being choked. ¹⁵¹¹⁵¹ “L’estouffement touteffois venant de leurs affections perverses, surmontoit;” — “The suffocation, nevertheless, proceeding from their perverse affections, prevailed.”

For since there are among you. The proof is derived from the effects; for as envying, and strifes, and divisions, are the fruits of the flesh, wherever they are seen, it is certain that the root is there in its rigor. Those evils prevailed among the Corinthians; and accordingly he proves from this that they are carnal He makes use of the same argument, too, in Galatians 5:25 If ye live in the Spirit, walk also in the Spirit For while they were desirous to be regarded as spiritual, he calls them to look at their works, by which they denied what with their mouth they professed (Titus 1:16.) Observe, however, the elegant arrangement that Paul here pursues: for from envying spring up contentions, and these, when they have once been enkindled, break out into deadly sects: but the mother of all these evils is ambition.

Walk as men From this it is manifest that the term flesh is not restricted to the lower appetites merely, as the Sophists pretend, the seat of which they call sensuality, but is employed to describe man’s whole nature. For those that follow the guidance of nature, are not governed by the Spirit of God. These, according to the Apostle’s definition, are carnal, so that the flesh and man’s natural disposition are quite synonymous, and hence it is not without good reason that he elsewhere requires that we be new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17.)

4. For while one saith He now specifies the particular kind of contentions, ¹⁵²¹⁵² “Qui estoyent entr’eux;” — “Which were among them.” and he does this by personating the Corinthians, that his description may have more force — that each one gloried in his particular master, as though Christ were not the one Master of all (Matthew 23:8.) Now, where such ambition still prevails, the gospel has little or no success. You are not, however, to understand that they declared this openly in express words, but the Apostle reproves those depraved dispositions to which they were given up. At the same time it is likely, that, as a predilection arising from ambition is usually accompanied with an empty talkativeness, ¹⁵³¹⁵³ “Cette ration de jetter son coeur sur un homme par ambition, est accompagnee d’un sot babil;” — “This way of setting one’s heart upon an individual through ambition, is accompanied with a foolish talkativeness.” they openly discovered by their words the absurd bias of their mind, by extolling their teachers to the skies in magnificent terms, accompanying this at the same time with contempt of Paul and those like him.