Isn’t it referring to personal holiness?

Watch the complete sermon here: https://www.bridges.church/messages/how-to-have-unity-1-corinthians-1-1-17-3-1-23/

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. This last week, we began our series in 1 Corinthians, looking at most of chapter one and all of chapter three. And there in chapter three, Paul talks about building on the foundation of Christ, whether we use precious metals or wood, hay, straw, that the day will reveal it by fire.

And if what each one has built survives, he will receive his reward. And if it doesn’t survive, if it gets burned up by the fire, then the person himself, the builder, will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

And so we connected that to what Paul was saying about him, Apollos, Peter, the way that they were building on the foundation of Christ, and that God will test the quality of each person’s work. So the question this week is, isn’t building on the foundation actually talking about personal holiness?

Isn’t this one of the verses that shows how we live our lives will be tested by fire at some point? And if we haven’t built on Christ very well with our own personal holiness, we will still be saved, but everything else will be burned up. And I would say that idea of building on Christ in our personal holiness is a fine way to apply what Paul is talking about in this text.

It can relate to that. It’s not wrong, but it’s not really the context of the verse. The context of the passage is Paul is distinguishing between him and Apollos and how they have done things differently and they’ve had different roles. And then it’s immediately after that he says, God will test the quality of each person’s work.

And so it’s really in the context of how they have built on the foundation of Christ in the Corinthian church, among the people that they are working with, like, how Christian leaders build their ministries, is really the context.

But he does say, let each person build or be careful how he builds. And so there is, I do think there can be a wider application, including our personal holiness, that each one of us needs to pay attention to how we’re building, what we’re building on top of Christ in all areas of our lives, right?

Our personal holiness, how we relate to others, how we do our, you know, our own ministries. And each one of us has one, right? All of that is a fine application, but it’s not, it isn’t really the context of the verses.

So hope that’s helpful and we’ll see you next time. Bye.