April 20 / I Cor. 3:16-23

I Corinthians 3:16-23

I was confused a bit with verse 16: Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? At first glance it seems clear enough with no further explanation. That verse harkened me forward to another verse from a few years back (as I recall someone had shared it with me as to my weight): Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (I Cor. 6:19-20) Those two verses touched me. I printed them out and put one copy on our refrigerator and one copy on our snack-food cabinet. I still regularly recall those verses. Unfortunately, those verses confused today’s verse 16 for me, because my Study Bible pointed out that the “you” in verses 16 and 17 is plural. So at the beginning of today’s reading, Paul is speaking of the Corinthian church as a whole being God’s temple and the dwelling place for God’s spirit. However, if you want to apply that verse to your own body, a few chapters down that road that will work also!

Verse 17 also confused me: If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. At first it seems clear enough, with verse 16’s “you” being either singular or plural – anyone who attacks God’s people will come under judgment. But my Study Bible suggested that this “anyone” who is destroying God’s temple is one of the Christians who belong to that temple, essentially the problem of divisions within the church that Paul had discussed in yesterday’s reading (earlier in this chapter), that is, Christians inside the church creating divisions within the church. Currently there are small bands of protestors in the United States stirring up trouble around the country demanding that we open up our economy, that our wealth is more important than our health (my words). Thankfully I don’t see that division within St. Andrew’s, and I have been on ZOOM meetings with four different groups within our congregation in the past few weeks and those four ZOOM meetings have involved more than 20 St. Andrew’s parishioners. No one is arguing for us getting back together soon. We have a ZOOM Vestry meeting tonight and I’m sure that topic will come up.

Finally, another word… Not all divisions within the body are bad. St. Andrew’s was formed out of one group of parishioners at St. John’s who disagreed with Bishop Sauls and his supporters within the St. John’s congregation. So there is room for disagreement within the body and those who hold true to Scripture need to be willing to walk away if the need arises.

Slava Bohu!