Father,

We love you and we worship you! Please let us see you working in our lives. Please give to us the faith to see your workings which are all around us, and give us the marvelous sensation of your presence in our daily lives. Amen

Key word: Carnal

Summary: 1 Cor 3:1-4

Paul describes four types of Christians in chapter three. The first, the natural man, is the man without the Spirit, who needs the Christian new birth (cf. John 3:1-8). The second is the carnal-weak man (1 Cor 3:1), the babe in Christ, who needs growth through receiving the milk of the Word. The third type is the carnal-willful man, the older, yet still immature, Christian, who needs to be restored to fellowship, or to recognize his or her need to live a spiritually healthy life conducive to glory to Jesus. He must take nourishment, and or confess his willfulness, or sin (cf. 1 John 1:9). The fourth is the spiritual or mature man, who has responded to the milk and grown into spiritual adulthood, so that he is strong and able to take the meat of the Word (1 Cor 2:15; 3:2). This is the man God would have every Christian to be. The Apostle Paul parallels the mature man with the spiritual man, and it is evident from a comparison of chapter 2:6 with chapter 2:15 (cf. 3:1; he contrasts babes with the spiritual).

Paul, who is speaking to the church at Corinth, sounds very harsh here. Now a days, calling Christians carnal is about the same as stating flatly that they have no religion at all; let alone a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ.

The Corinthian’s immaturity prevented Paul from feeding them spiritual meat on his first visit. The Greek word for carnal means literally, made of flesh, and this is the equivalent of the expression, in the flesh. The thought behind sarkinos, where we get the word for carnal is the thought of weakness (cf. Matt 26:41), as the word babes confirms. At Paul's first visit, the Corinthians were weak, because they were new believers. The apostle Paul doesn’t blame them. He simply accepts the situation and their condition.

The word fed here does not refer to food of any type it is used only for a liquid. This is another occurrence where the Greek language validates the Scriptural meaning in the verse. Meat here is used to describe any sort of food.

"Divisions" in the King James Version, is not a genuine reading from the ancient manuscripts, although the thought is definitely in the context (1 Cor 3:4).

There is a serious charge of spiritual immaturity which is made here in the statement "neither yet now are ye able" (a strong expression in the Greek). The reason is that they still have carnal thinking. An important word change must be noted right here as well, in the text. The word for carnal here means, literally, characterized by the flesh, meaning after the flesh (cf. Rom 8:4). Inside the foundation of this word is the thought of willfulness, but Paul does understand their limited, spiritual experience and condition. Weakness that is prolonged, however, becomes willfulness. Refusal to respond to the milk of the Word prevents our reception of the meat of the Word.

Who or literally, what. This draws attention from the men to their functions! Paul and Apollos were nothing more than ministers, servants of God. The second reason for divisions in the Church, is the misunderstanding of the Christian ministry. Ministers are simply servants; actually, it is God who works (1 Cor 3:5-9). They are responsible for the proper doctrines as they co labor with Jesus to build the temple of God, the Church (3:9-17). We must not glory in any one man, for each laborer belongs to each believer (3:18-23) and will be judged on their merits by God alone (4:1-5).

This is one of our favorite memory verses in all of Scripture. Delightfully, it keeps us humble when we would like to think of ourselves "higher than we ought to think". Paul planted and Apollos watered, but only God could make the seed grow.

Paul uses a word here that surprised us for the word "planteth" and "watereth". The Greek word speaks about instilling doctrine for planteth and a more practical agricultural word for watering. Ah! The Holy Spirit does strange and marvelous things with words.

In the work Paul and Apollos were one, that is, in harmony. However, in the matter of reward, distinctions will be made, most notably, due to the obedience of each servant to the Lord Jesus. Laborers together with God, may mean, that they were fellow workers with one another who belong to God, or fellow workers with God.

The Greek word for husbandry is georgion (gheh-ore'-ghee-on); it means to cultivate or a farm. We are God’s farm where he will teach us to grow. How marvelous to use the word "building" for building up the body of Christ by calling it a farm! A farm is where we expect to see things grow