Foundational



1 Corinthians 3:16-23
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. 18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

Seven years ago, I was part of a youth mission trip to Texas. While there, we built a small home for a family in need. It was a huge project but incredibly rewarding. It was also beyond hot! I’ve never spent a whole week in a place where the temperature never dropped below 100o. And there was no air conditioning! Anyway – it was physically miserable but extremely satisfying to hand over the keys to that house at the end of the week. The only thing on the property when we got there was a cement foundation. Now just imagine if we had decided to build the house next to that foundation, or to pour yet another foundation instead of using the one already provided. What a waste of time. So, we constructed that house on the provided foundation and I assume that family still lives there today.

Paul uses this very practical analogy to counteract some of the bickering that the Corinthians were experiencing. They were holding up the person who taught them the faith as their hero rather than focusing on Jesus, the center of the faith. It also occurs to me that in verse 16, Paul is informing everyone that the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Christ Himself – resides within each one of them. They are the newly formed Temple of the Lord. As such, holding up another human being for adulation is a foolish choice.

Moving on with his argument, Paul helps his readers understand that all teaching and practice is to be in harmony with what the founding father has put in place. He clarifies this idea in his letter to the Ephesians.

Ephesians 2:19-22
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

The Apostles and the Prophets laid the foundation for our faith and the beginning of that foundation is Jesus Christ Himself. He alone supports the entire structure of our faith. In calling for radical repentance, Paul is following Jesus’ call for people to die to themselves, to their own egos, and to all personal concern for status and find true life through faith in the Son of God.

John 12:24-26
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

In setting aside our own ego, and our need to be right(eous) in our own eyes, we are find that we are standing on the above-mentioned foundation – laid and supported for us by God Himself through Jesus Christ. Now we are free to let Christ live in and through us, thus achieving more for the Kingdom than we could ever do on our own. I'll close with my "life verse" as it point directly at the Author and Sustainer of my faith.

Galatians 2:19-20
19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

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