Dual PanelServants of Christ
1BUT I could not talk to you, my friends, as people who have the Spirit; I had to deal with you on the natural plane, as infants in Christ.
2I fed you on milk, instead of solid food, for which you were not yet ready. Indeed, you are still not ready for it;
3you are still on the merely natural plane. Can you not see that as long as there is jealousy and strife among you, you are unspiritual, living on the purely human level?
4When one declares, “I am for Paul,” and another, “I am for Apollos,” are you not all too human?
5After all, what is Apollos? What is Paul? Simply God's agents in bringing you to faith. Each of us performed the task which the Lord assigned to him:
6I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it; but God made it grow.
7It is not the gardeners with their planting and watering who count, but God who makes it grow.
8Whether they plant or water, they work as a team, though each will get his own pay for his own labour.
9We are fellow-workers in God's service; and you are God's garden. Or again, you are God's building.
10God gave me the privilege of laying the foundation like a skilled master builder; others put up the building. Let each take care how he builds.
11There can be no other foundation than the one already laid: I mean Jesus Christ himself.
12If anyone builds on that foundation with gold, silver, and precious stones, or with wood, hay, and straw,
13the work that each does will at last be brought to light; the day of judgement will expose it. For that day dawns in fire, and the fire will test the worth of each person's work.
14If anyone's building survives, he will be rewarded;
15if it burns down, he will have to bear the loss; yet he will escape with his life, though only by passing through the fire.
16Surely you know that you are God's temple, where the Spirit of God dwells.
17Anyone who destroys God's temple will himself be destroyed by God, because the temple of God is holy; and you are that temple.
18Make no mistake about this: if there is anyone among you who fancies himself wise -- wise, I mean, by the standards of this age -- he must become a fool if he is to be truly wise.
19For the wisdom of this world is folly in God's sight. Scripture says, “He traps the wise in their own cunning,”
20and again, “The Lord knows that the arguments of the wise are futile.”
21So never make any human being a cause for boasting. For everything belongs to you --
22Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, the world, life, and death, the present and the future, all are yours --
23and you belong to Christ, and Christ to God.