Grow up. 1 Corinthians 3.

Bickering, fighting, lining up behind conflicting leaders, talking up one teacher, talking trash about another, caught up in the clever words of one person ignoring the real truth at the expense of the community. What's the solution?

Paul spends a good deal of time in these first three chapters of his letter describing both the causes of the strife in the church, and the contrast between those causes and the right behavior and understanding that would eliminate the division. Boiled down, the cause of the strife is rooted in leaders (and followers) enamored with their own cleverness -- what Paul calls the wisdom of the world. Earlier on the blog, I talked about rhetoric, the art of persuasion in speech and writing, as a highly valued technique of the Greek world, and how it became important in and of itself -- better to win the argument than arrive at the truth. In chapter 2, there are several clues to let us know that Paul is talking about rhetoric when he criticizes the wisdom of the world -- the use of eloquence in verse 2 and persuasive in verse 4. He also contrasts the way in which he demonstrated his message, through the power of the spirit, from the tradition demonstration used as a rhetorical technique.

If the source of the strife is this fascination with the fanciest arguments and best debaters, what's the solution? Paul reveals it in chapter three by repeating something he said earlier. My paraphrase -- just grow up. He says it in a roundabout way, but that's the message.

So, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but instead as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready. In fact, you are still not ready, for you are still influenced by the flesh. For since there is still jealousy and dissension among you, are you not influenced by the flesh and behaving like unregenerate people? (1 Corinthians 3:1-3 NET)

Earlier, Paul had said this, "Now we do speak wisdom among the mature..." and went on to describe that wisdom as the wisdom of God in opposition to the wisdom of the world. So he would speak wisdom with the Corinthians if they would just grow up. Mature spiritually. Think with the mind of Christ. But they haven't yet, and that's the source of their problem.

What's especially interesting to me, is that Paul doesn't offer much advice on how to grow up. But we can observe a couple of items. One is that Apollos is watering. That watering came in the form of apostolic teaching, Apollos having been trained to do so by Priscilla and Aquila. It's also the case that the growth comes from God, so we have to recognize that it isn't all under our control. Beyond that, however, we need to look elsewhere for help in understanding how to mature spiritually. What we can take away is the fact that growth is essential in the kingdom.

Sidebar -- God's temple #1.
I want to point out that due to the quirk in English when it comes to the word you, Paul's thought about God's temple in v.3:16 is often misunderstood. "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?" The yous in this verse are plural, while temple is singular. What Paul is saying is that God's temple is built from all of people of the church, His spirit dwells within us collectively, not individually. In the South, he might have said that "you all are the temple."