People of the Flesh vs Spiritual People

 Psalms 119:1-8; I Corinthians 3:1-9

 The psalmist in Psalms 119 talks about how happiness comes to those who live the law, as he puts it “who walks in the law of the Lord.” Those who did so were the true spiritual people of Old Testament times. Those who fell away from the law by worshipping other gods and living by the flesh versus God’s law became people of the flesh.

Paul in I Corinthians writes to the church there declaring them to be people of the flesh – immature Christians who like infants need to be fed soft (basic) spiritual food. In their immaturity they are not ready for solid spiritual food. How do they show their immaturity? They do so by behaving according to human inclinations. These include jealousy and quarreling amongst themselves along with bragging about who led them to the Lord. “I’m in Paul’s group,” one would look down on those in Apollos group and the other way around. Their envy, rivalry, and divisiveness display their fallen humanity, out of line with the way of the cross.

In the Old Testament mature spiritual people were those who followed the law. The greatest of these commandments was to love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself. In Paul’s time Christians were under the new covenant of love, the example of Christ. Bickering, envying, and boasting had no place under the new covenant of love. Later in Chapter 13 Paul will tell them what true love looks like. It is not envious, proud, and doesn’t boast.

In response to this Paul sets them straight telling how Paul and Apollos are only servants sent by God. He uses an agricultural metaphor saying that he (Paul) planted the seed while Apollos watered. He tells how both have a common purpose and that is to help them grow in their faith from babes to mature Christians. But what Paul stresses is that only God gives the growth. Paul then mixes metaphors talking about how he, Apollos and other preachers are working together to build them into God’s building of spiritual believers – the ones who can be taught with more solid spiritual food.

We need to strive to be spiritual people by living the way of Jesus so that we can continue to grow spiritually, grateful of the teachers God sends our way to lead us into more and more solid spiritual growth. Amen

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