• Foundations for Living

  • 1 And I, brothers and sisters, could not speak to you as spiritual people, but only as fleshly, as to infants in Christ.
  • 2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to consume it. But even now you are not yet able,
  • 3 for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like ordinary people?
  • 4 For when one person says, “I am with Paul,” and another, “I am with Apollos,” are you not ordinary people?
  • 5 What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.
  • 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.
  • 7 So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.
  • 8 Now the one who plants and the one who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
  • 9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
  • 10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each person must be careful how he builds on it.
  • 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
  • 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw,
  • 13 each one’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each one’s work.
  • 14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.
  • 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet only so as through fire.
  • 16 Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
  • 17 If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.
  • 18 Take care that no one deceives himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise.
  • 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the sight of God. For it is written: “He is the one who catches the wise by their craftiness”;
  • 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are useless.”
  • 21 So then, no one is to be boasting in people. For all things belong to you,
  • 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come; all things belong to you,
  • 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.