1st Corinthians 3 verses 1 to 4, but I brethren could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh as babes in Christ.

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it, and even yet you are not ready, for 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?

For when one says, I belong to Paul and another, I belong to Apollo. Are you not merely men?

This is one of those texts that in one truth is both a hope and a warning.

I think it's intended to be a tender-hearted hope for stumblers and bumblers and imperfect Christians striving toward maturity and I think it's intended to be a

warning towards casual drifters in the Christian life.

The main concern of Paul, as we've seen again and again in these chapters, is to knock the props out from under pride. You saw how this text ended, didn't you?

We were back where we began in chapter one. I'm of Paul. I'm of apollis. In other words,

there's jealousy, there's strife, and what is the foundation of

jealousy and strife? Self-assertion, pride, wanting your own little turf to be thought better

than somebody else's, getting the praise of men.

So Paul's business again and again in these verses has been to somehow dismantle the foundations

of pride in the Corinthian community and wisdom, human wisdom that people

have been boasting in especially has really taken it on the chin.

And so we saw last week that in order to avoid a misunderstanding, namely that all wisdom is written off,

Paul says in verse 6 of chapter 2, I do impart a wisdom.

Though it is not a wisdom of this age,

it's a wisdom of God.

And then he says down in verse 15 of Chapter 2 that only spiritual people can grasp this wisdom.

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