1 Corinthians 3:1-4

Butler's Comments

SECTION 1

Commence With Spiritual Feeding (1 Corinthians 3:1-4)

3 But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. 2I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, 3for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men? 4For when one says, I belong to Paul, and another, I belong to Apollos, are you not merely men?

1 Corinthians 3:1-3 a Babyish: It is of first importance to note that while in chapter two the contrast is between uninspired human beings (or psychikos, physical, finite man) and the inspired apostles (or pneumatikos, spirit-guided one), the contrast in chapter three is between Christians who are carnal or fleshly-minded (Gr. sarkikois) and the spiritual maturity they should have attained (pneumatikois). Chapter two deals with divine revelation given by God to some and not to others. Chapter three deals with spiritual maturation which all Christians may attain through study and practice of the written word of God. The use of different Greek words in the two Chapter s makes the difference apparent.

There is, course, an essential connection between the two Chapter s. Paul is connecting his claim (in Chapter s one and two) for the divinely inspired authority of his teaching to the spiritual problem (in chapter three) of the Christians in Corinth. Had they fed themselves on apostolic revelation more than on Greek sophistries, they would not have the problems of immature, fleshly-minded attitudes toward Christian ministry.

There was something wrong with the feeding the Corinthian church was getting. We are what we eat. is an adage some apply to the physical person. The same principle holds true in the spiritual person. Jesus stated this principle very clearly in his great sermon on the Bread of Life (John 6:25-71). Unless a man feeds on the Bread of Life he will have no spirituality in him, and Jesus plainly said that his words were spirit and life (John 6:63). Jesus said his own food was to do the will of the Father who sent him (John 4:31-34). If Jesus found it necessary to feed his mind and life on the will of God, so must we! The explicit work of the Christian ministry is the feeding of the flock of God (see Acts 20:28-32; John 21:15-19; 1 Peter 5:2) to bring it to spiritual maturity (see Ephesians 4:1-16; Colossians 1:24-29; Hebrews 5:11-13).

What is spirituality? Paul clearly defines spirituality as setting the mind on the things of the Spirit (see Romans 8:5-8). Spirituality is not emotionalism. Spirituality is not measured by quantity of good deeds. Spirituality is fundamentally a mind-set. No matter how emotional we may become or how many religious ceremonies we perform, if our motives or our reasons for doing them are carnal (worldly) and selfish, we are not spiritual. Jesus called the very religious Pharisees hypocrites because their reasons for being religious were self-serving (cf. Matthew 6:1-8; Matthew 23:1-39).

If spirituality is setting one's mind on the things of the Spirit, where do we find the things of the Spirit in order that we may set our minds on them? That is precisely what Paul is talking about in I Corinthians, Chapter s 1 and 2the things of the Spirit are revealed in the teachings of the apostles. The apostles have the mind of Christ and of God because they are the ones to whom the Spirit of God has revealed them! The things of the Spirit are not found innately in man's heart. The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt (see Jeremiah 17:9). God has not put his mind in every man in some subjective way. God has put his mind in his Word in an objective way through the revelation given to the apostles. Now any man who wants to assimilate the mind of God into his mind may do so by assimilating the objective word of God. This assimilative process involves, of course, putting the things of the Spirit to practice in one's life. We cannot have Christ in us unless we do his commandments (1 John 2:24; 1 John 3:24). But we cannot know what the will of God for us is until we read, understand and believe the revelation of God made to us in human language by the apostles.

Paul declared to the Corinthians that he had to address them as infants (Gr. nepiois) in respect to their spiritual maturation. It was clear to him that they were not setting their minds on the things of the Spirit because they were still thinking as worldly-minded people would. Paul does not mean that he was talking to non-Christians for he plainly calls them brethren. He means simply that having made their initial commitment to Christ and having been baptized into him (cf. Acts 18:8), they did not feed themselves on God's word enough to bring them to a state of spiritual growth commensurate with their opportunities and privileges. They had not trained their faculties by practice and study of the apostolic message to be able to distinguish good from evil as well as they should (see Hebrews 5:11-14). They were allowing their ways of thinking and living to be dominated more by the habits of their pre-Christian life than by God's will.

Do not wonder that Paul still called them brethren. Spiritual maturation comes, like physical growth, slowly. We would not throw away a baby brother in our physical family because he did not grow into physical manhood overnight. But we do insist that a baby brother eat, learn, exercise and grow. And we make all kinds of personal sacrifices to see that he does. So must we tenderly feed and strengthen our spiritual brethren, no matter what stage of spiritual growth they may manifest. All of us are spiritually deficient when we compare ourselves to Christ, our Elder Brother. The leadership of the church cannot relax its dedication to the ministry of bringing all members to spiritual maturity in Christ. There may be many causes for Christian immaturity:

a.

Inadequate study of the Bible in the corporate worship of the church; superficial sermonizing, unhermeneutical Bible studies.

b.

Low expectations for individual growth. Teachers and preachers may not expect their Bible students to be able to think deeply. Expect the most from every brother.

c.

Failure of the church leadership to provide opportunities for all members to share in the Lord's work (each part working properly. Ephesians 4:16).

d.

Failure of the church leadership to accept their call from Christ to exercise firm, but gentle and merciful, moral guidance to church members.

e.

Just plain unwillingness on the part of Christians to give up thinking and doing worldly things. If any one is willing to do Christ's will, he will mature (see John 7:17).

There was something seriously deficient in the process of Christian maturation within the Corinthian church. Whether it was the fault of those charged with the feeding or of those being fed (probably both) we are not certain. It is certain that it had to do with the teaching and believing of the most fundamental Christian doctrine of allthe resurrection of Jesus Christ (cf. comments on 1 Corinthians 15:33). They were still infantile in their thinking. They were still acting like children, apparently able to be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. (Ephesians 4:14).

1 Corinthians 3:3 b - 1 Corinthians 3:4 Biased: The party spirit is a sign of spiritual immaturity. Only the carnal (worldly-minded) think of structuring the church in terms of human superiority and arrogance. Paul tells the Corinthian Christians they were behaving like run-of-the-mill (non-Christian) human beings who, through jealousy and strife, scheme and plot to promote their own fame and fortune.

Probably the most crucial issue Jesus had to deal with in his ministry on earth was the nature of the kingdom of God. Most people conceived of the kingdom as a place to establish worldly fame and to promote their own advancement. This involved jealousy and strife by:
a.

Mary, the mother of Jesus (John 2:3-4)

b.

Disciples of John the Baptist (John 4:25-30)

c.

Thousands of followers (John 6:15)

d.

The twelve apostles (Mark 9:38-41; Luke 9:49-50)

e.

The disciples wondering who is the greatest (Matthew 18:1)

f.

Jesus-' own half-brothers (John 7:3-4)

g.

Those dining at the Pharisee's home (Luke 14:7-14)

h.

James & John (and their mother) asking Jesus for chief honors (Matthew 20:20-28; Mark 10:35-45)

i.

Pharisees in their love for the places of honor in synagogue (Matthew 23:5-12)

j.

Twelve apostles at the Last Supper arguing about who would be greatest among them (Luke 22:24-28)

k.

Peter, refusing to let Jesus wipe his feet as a servant (John 13:5-11)

These instances do not take into account the multitude of inferences (from Acts through Revelation) that such jealousy and strife arose among the early churches. The life-style of the person whose highest hopes begin and end with this present world and a fleshly existence is one of immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like (see Galatians 5:19-21). Those who belong to Christ have put such a life-style to death (crucified it). Christians, who believe there is a higher plane on which to live than bodily functions and who believe there is another world coming, live a life-style of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. They trust Jesus Christ that this is true and real because he lived such life-style to perfection on earth, was slain because of it, but rose from the dead to vindicate it forever.

Jesus-' statement, He who would be greatest among you, let him be the servant of all (Matthew 20:27) is proven true by his resurrection from the dead. Those who say, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos are not living in the light of Christ's truth.

Applebury's Comments

His Spiritually Immature Converts (1-4)

Text

1 Corinthians 3:1-4, And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not with meat; for ye were not yet able to bear it: nay, not even now are ye able; 3 for ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal, and do ye not walk after the manner of men? 4 For when one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not men?

Commentary

And I brethren.Paul continues his rebuke of the sin of division. When he was at Corinth, he found some who were more interested in their own wisdom than in the word of the cross. Some of his converts were spiritually immature. They were divided over loyalties to men. They had evidently failed to heed the plain message of God's wisdom which Paul preached to them. But he calls them brethren for they were in Christ even though they were only babes so far as development was concerned.

not spiritual, but carnal.Spiritual implies inadequate appreciation of what it means to be a new creature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). It is not to be equated with mere emotionalism. It begins with an intelligent grasp of the facts of the gospel as proclaimed by the inspired apostles. It is conviction and determination to act in accord with the teaching of Christ. It also implies the stirring of the deepest emotions of which the human heart is capable, that is, Christian love, joy, and peace. See Romans 14:17.

Carnal in this context refers not to the man of the world but to the spiritually immature babes in Christ. There are two words translated carnal in this section. In verse two, the word means made of flesh. In verse three, it means belonging to flesh. The distinction is interesting. Think of Christians who should live in the realm of spirit being made of flesh and belonging to flesh. This was the result of following the teaching of men rather than the word of the cross.
Neither of these terms suggests the depravity of human nature inherited from Adam. Both made of flesh and belonging to flesh are used with reference to the state of arrested, development which characterized those who failed to make progress in the Christian life.

A similar situation is described in Hebrews 5:11-14; Hebrews 6:1-8. Some had been Christians long enough that they should have become teachers, but they needed some one to teach them the A B C'S of the gospel. They were like babes who had to be fed on milk, not solid food. They were without experience in the word of righteousness. There is solid food in the gospel for the mature Christian, but the people at Corinth were not able to appreciate it.

In chapter two Paul contrasts the natural man with the one who is spiritual. The context shows that this distinction referred to the uninspired man in contrast to the inspired apostles. In chapter three, however, the contrast is between the one who belongs to flesh and the one who is spiritually mature. It is the contrast between arrested development and normal growth in Christians. To equate carnal with natural and to assume that all men by nature are incapable of responding to the teaching of the Holy Spirit which was revealed through the apostles is to completely ignore the context in which the two terms are found.

Paul proves his charge that they are carnal by reminding them of their jealousy and strife. This is the very opposite of love which, if followed, will overcome strife, faction, division, pride, and jealousy in the church (1 Corinthians 13:1-13).

babes in Christ.According to Hebrews 5:13, the one who is inexperienced in the word of righteousness is a babe. He is the one who is fed on milk, that is, who is to be taught the elementary things of the gospel. Solid food is for the mature Christian. It includes such things as the teaching about Christ our high priest; the necessity of pressing on to perfection; the issues of faith, repentance, and the possession of the promises of God. See Hebrews 6:1-12.

Every new Christian is in a sense, a babe in Christ. Some, of course, begin this experience with greater understanding and appreciation of what it means than others. But all start with the basic elements of the gospelbelief in Christ based on the resurrection (Romans 10:9-10); a determination to forsake sin and to live for Christ (repentance); entering into the agreement with Christ to acknowledge Him as prophet, priest, and king (the good confession); and, as the culminating act of being born into the family of God, being immersed in water in the name of Christ for the remission of sins (baptism). How well one grasps the significance of these things may well determine the rate of his spiritual growth in Christ.

The writer of Hebrews chides his readers for still being babes when they had been Christians long enough to have become teachers. Although this condition at Corinth had been produced by jealousy and strife, it is possible that some spiritual immaturity today may arise from other causes. It may be produced by a failure to provide an adequate program of Bible instruction for the whole church. It may be the result of indifference and lack of a real desire to know the rich things of the Word. Too often people have assumed that all the Bible should be as simple as kindergarten lessons. If that were true, it is doubtful if there would ever be such a thing as a fullgrown Christian. Probably one of the greatest causes of spiritual immaturity is the failure of the leadership in the church to provide opportunities for all to share in the Lord's work. Merely attending worship services and training classes will never do it. Each one, if he is to become a mature servant of the Lord, must be led to share in spreading the gospel by at least making friendly, Christian calls that will demonstrate that the church is interested in others. The very finest of diet without exercise will produce weaklings. There is a crying need today for programs that will help people take an active part in spreading the gospel. The usual Sunday morning scolding which the church receives for not doing this will only make the situation worse. Those who can make calls should take the inexperienced along until they too have learned the value and blessing of actually doing something for the Lord. Putting money into the church treasury to hire a paid caller won-'t accomplish the desired end. There are millions of Christians who have never been directly responsible for the conversion of one soul to Christ. I believe this is largely because they have not been shown how and what to do. It will take some organization, planning, and specific information about when, where, why, and on whom the calls are to be made. With adequate Bible teaching and actual work in sharing the gospel with others, there is no reason why churches cannot be filled with mature Christians.

not yet able.It was bad enough that Paul encountered them as spiritual dwarfs; it is a worse tragedy that they remained like that. In view of what is said about them in First Corinthians, it would be necessary for them to get rid of their divisions, immorality, lawsuits before pagan judges, factions that prevented them having the Lord's supper, and all other things contrary to the gospel before they could be looked upon as mature in Christ.

I am of Paul.In spite of all the effort Paul made to exalt Christ, it is strange that some were saying, I belong to Paul. This is the sort of thing that one would expect in the realm of politics, not the church. But because these things were present, the apostle asks, Are ye not men? Evidently the Christian who has God's revealed wisdom in the Bible should stop conducting himself according to the standards of men. If they were Christians of the sort they should be, that is, proving by their lives that they really belonged to Christ, they would be glorifying God in the body (1 Corinthians 6:20).