Dual Panel1MY brothers, was unable to talk to you as spiritual men: I had to talk to you as unspiritual, as yet babies in the Christian life.
2And my practice has been to feed you, as it were, with "milk" and not with "meat". You were unable to digest "meat" in those days, and I don't believe you can do it now.
3For you are still unspiritual; all the time that there is jealousy and squabbling among you you show that you areyou are living just like man of the world.
4While one of you says, "I am one of Paul's converts" and another says, "I am one of Apollos'",are you not plainly unspiritual?
5After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? No more than servants through whom you came to believe as the Lord gave each man his opportunity.
6I may have done the planting and Apollos the watering, but it was God who made the seed grow!
7The planter and the waterer are nothing compared with him who gives life to the seed.
8Planter and waterer are alike insignificant, though each shall be rewarded according to his particular work.
9In this work, we work with God, and that means that you are a field under God's cultivation, or, if you like, a house being built to his plan.
10I, like a masterbuilder who knows his job, by the grace God has given me, lay the foundation; someone else builds upon it. I only say this, let the builder be careful how he builds!
11The foundation is laid already, and no one can lay another, for it is Jesus Christ himself.
12But any man who builds on the foundation using as his material gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hey or straw,
13must know that each man's work will one day be shown for what it is. The day will show it plainly enough, for the day will arise in a blaze of fire, and that fire will prove the value of each man's work.
14If the work which a man has built upon the foundation stands this test, he will be rewarded.
15But if his work is burnt down, he loses it all. He personally will be safe, though rather like a man rescued from a fire.
16Don't you realize that you yourselves are the temple of God, and that God's Spirit lives in you?
17God will destroy anyone who defiles his temple, for his temple is holy[and that is exactly what you are!]
18Let no one be under any illusion over this. If any man among you thinks himself one of the world's clever ones, let him discard his cleverness that he may learn to be truly wise.
19For this world's cleverness is stupidity to God. It is written: He that taketh the wise in their craftiness.
20And again: The Lord knoweth the reasonings of the wise, that they are vain.
21So let no one boast of men. Everything belongs to you!
22Paul, Apollos or Cephas; the world, life, death, the present or the future, everything is yours!
23For you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.