Parallel Bible results for "1 corinthians 3"

1 Corinthians 3

New Living Translation NLT

1 Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ.

2 I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready,

3 for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world?

4 When one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting just like people of the world?

5 After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us.

6 I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow.

7 It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.

8 The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work.

9 For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building.

10 Because of God’s grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now others are building on it. But whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful.

11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ.

12 Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw.

13 But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.

14 If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward.

15 But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.

16 Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?

17 God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

18 Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise.

19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.”

20 And again, “The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise; he knows they are worthless.”

21 So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you—

22 whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you,

23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

The Message Bible MSG

1 But for right now, friends, I'm completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You're acting like infants in relation to Christ,

2 capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I'll nurse you since you don't seem capable of anything more.

3 As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything's going your way?

4 When one of you says, "I'm on Paul's side," and another says, "I'm for Apollos," aren't you being totally infantile?

5 Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us - servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment.

6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow.

7 It's not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow.

8 Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages.

9 What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God's field in which we are working.

10 Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation!

11 Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ.

12 Take particular care in picking out your building materials.

13 Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you'll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won't get by with a thing.

14 If your work passes inspection, fine;

15 if it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won't be torn out; you'll survive - but just barely.

16 You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you?

17 No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred - and you, remember, are the temple.

18 Don't fool yourself. Don't think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times.

19 Be God's fool - that's the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It's written in Scripture, He exposes the chicanery of the chic.

20 The Master sees through the smoke screens of the know-it-alls.

21 I don't want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift -

22 Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future - all of it is yours,

23 and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God.