City Life Starter

The Word: I Corinthians 3:1-8

1And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.

2I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,

3for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?

4For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men?

5What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.

6I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.

7So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.

8Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

By Scott Fiddler

When reading the New Testament it is important to remember that chapter headings were not part of the original text. So, a new chapter does not necessarily delineate the beginning of a new thought. Paul ends I Corinthians 2 by telling the Corinthians there is a difference between those who are spiritual and those who are natural, and that those who are natural cannot understand spiritual matters. He tells them that because they have received the Holy Spirit they have access to the mind of Christ. In other words, they should be in the spiritual category, not the natural category.

Paul continues this line of thought in Chapter 3, verses 1-2, by telling the Corinthians that when he originally taught them after they became Christians he did not teach them as if they were spiritually mature; instead, he taught them as if they were spiritual infants. He gave them baby food, not food for the mature Christian. Then in verse 2, Paul tells them, to their shame, that they are still spiritually immature and not able to receive things the Lord has for them. Paul says he knows this because of the way the Corinthians were acting—they were jealous and factious. See v. 3-4.  The Corinthians’ barrier to being able to receive deeper spiritual knowledge was not a cognitive problem but a conduct problem.

In other words, there were things Paul wanted to them hear and understand, good things, perhaps life-changing things, but the Corinthians would not have been able to understand those things because, as their conduct revealed, they were not spiritually mature enough to process it. Jesus illustrated the same concept in John 16:12 when he told his disciples, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”

Then in verses 5-8 of I Corinthians Paul attempts to address the faction problem so the Corinthians could get on to spiritual maturity and be in a position to understand and receive the things of the Spirit Paul wanted to share with them.

Application

We don’t usually think of holiness as a means to spiritual knowledge. We think we need more knowledge and then we will become more spiritual, but we have it backward. Jesus said He would disclose Himself to those who kept His commandments. See John 14:21.

The bottom line: if we want to know Jesus in a deeper way, if we want to go deeper in the Spirit, the path is the way of obedience.