1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23 (NRSV)
Read 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23 on biblegateway.com
Verse 10According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it.
Verse 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.
Verse 16Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? Verse 17If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Verse 18Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. Verse 19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," Verse 20and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile."
Verse 21So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, Verse 22whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future-all belong to you, Verse 23and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Devotion
Today Paul writes to the Corinthian people using the plural "you." Y'all, Paul says, are God's temple. The thing is, the Corinthians weren't so stellar. They were particularly not stellar at living together in community. And yet, Paul says, the community is precisely the place where God dwells.
A little uncomfortable, isn't it? To think the church community is a holy people—indeed, so holy that damaging the community invites the wrath of God? Last I checked the church is filled with some pretty unholy characters. These people don't always love as God loves. They insist on being right about their politics and their theology and their liturgical vestments, all the while ignoring their neighbors. And they've got history, these people. They've been through some stuff. Thing is, I'm one of them too. Thanks be to God that God gives each of us a community—all of us called to see each other as holy. May we be worthy of their sight.
Prayer
We thank you, O God, for being present where two or three are gathered. Even the most human two or three. Even when I'm there. Open our eyes to see the ways you dwell in our congregations and in our communities. Amen.