1 Corinthians 3 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~AD 53-55
Location
Corinth, a major port city in ancient Greece (Roman province of Achaia)
Audience
The Christian church in Corinth, composed primarily of Gentile converts with some Jewish believers
Situation
Paul addresses divisions in the Corinthian church where believers were forming factions around different leaders (Paul, Apollos, and Cephas). He had received reports of quarreling and spiritual immaturity among the congregation.
Key Background
Paul had founded the Corinthian church during his second missionary journey around AD 50-51, staying approximately 18 months (Acts 18). Corinth was a wealthy, cosmopolitan commercial center known for its cultural diversity and moral corruption, including temple prostitution at the temple of Aphrodite. The young church struggled to separate from worldly values, bringing secular philosophies and competitive attitudes into their Christian community, which Paul now addresses from Ephesus during his third missionary journey.
Brothers and sisters, I couldn't talk to you as people by the — I had to talk to you as people still driven by like infants in the life of the
I gave you not — you weren't ready for it. And honestly, you're still not ready,
because you're still running on impulses. When there's and among you, aren't you just operating like everyone else — living by purely
When one of you says, "I follow Paul," and another says, "I follow — how is that any different from people who don't know God at all?
So what is Apollos, really? And what is Paul? We're just who helped you — each doing the job gave us.
I the seed, Apollos watered it, but God it
So the one who plants doesn't really matter, and the one who waters doesn't really matter — the only one who matters is God, who makes things grow.
The one who plants and the one who waters are on the same team, and each will be according to their own work.
We're You are God's God's
Using the God gave me, I laid the like a and now someone else is building on it. But everyone who builds on it needs to be careful how they build.
Because no can lay any other foundation besides the that's already been laid — and that foundation is the
Now, if anyone builds on this foundation using or —
each person's work will eventually be exposed for what it really is. The will bring it to light, because it will be revealed by and the will test what kind of work each person has done.
If what someone built on the foundation survives, they'll receive their
If someone's work burns up, they'll lose their reward — but they themselves will be though barely, like someone escaping
Don't you realize that you yourselves are God's and that the of lives in you?
If anyone God's temple, God will destroy them. Because God's temple is as — and that temple is you.
Don't fool yourselves. If any of you think you're by this you need to become a "fool" so you can become truly
Because what this world calls wisdom is to God. As it's written: "He the in their own
And also: knows that the thoughts of the wise to
So stop about which leader you follow! Everything already belongs to you —
Paul, Apollos, the life, death, the present, the future — it's all yours.
and you to the and the to