By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple. 1Cor. 3:10-17
This is one of those passages in the Bible that I have heard preached multiple times both in church but mainly in youth groups and I'm pretty sure it has been taken out of context every time. The first half of the passage goes like this; "If you are a lukewarm Christian or a backslidden Christian, you will get to Heaven, but when God judges your works, nothing will be any good - your works will all be burned up like wood, hay, and stubble. You'll get into Heaven, but you'll smell like smoke." The second part is given as the reason we should eat healthy, work out, not drink, smoke, or do drugs, take vitamins... Why? Because God is living inside our bodies. He used to reside in the temple but now we are the temple He resides in so we need to take care of our bodies. Do you want Jesus breathing in tar and nicotine?
While both of these interpretations and applications hold some truth to them, I'm not sure Paul is talking about either of those here and those messages might be better preached from different texts. What Paul is referring to here in context is that he had laid the foundation, the gospel, to the Church in Corinth, and the church was formed. Then other preachers like Apollos would come along and build on it. They would teach the scriptures, and the believers would grow both in wisdom, knowledge, fruitfulness, and numbers ideally. Apollos was the right kind of builder but there would be others coming along distorting scripture either willfully or just misunderstanding it. Paul was jealous for the church and wanted it to grow into a beautiful bride for Christ not a disfigured one. This passage serves a warning to those who would follow after him to be careful what they taught. If like Apollos, they taught well and true, when Apollos got to Heaven his works would be Like gold or silver. Other teachers who distorted the scriptures and might have even done more harm than good to the churches, when they got to Heaven, their rewards would be absent because what they taught didn't pass the test. This first part of the passage does not appear to pertain to individual believers and their works but rather to teachers and what they taught.
What about the second part? I've even heard of Church exercise classes as "Temple Builders" classes. Does this pertain to us taking care of our bodies because Christ lives in them? Probably not. Paul ends the passage saying "you together are that temple." He isn't referring to individual believers but rather the believers joined together are what Christ is indwelling. Therefore, in context Paul is saying that if someone comes in teaching falsehoods and messing with His church where He is present in our midst, He will deal harshly with them. Christ, like Paul is jealous for His church and will protect it and expose and remove false teachers.
I think this is what the passage is about. Sorry, youth pastors, find another passage to convict your backslidden kids.
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