Section 17

he spoke strongly about the growth in life in chapter three. Paul said to the Corinthians, "You are God's farm, God's building" (1 Cor. 3:9). The farm grows the materials for the building. All the materials that are necessary for the building of God's house are the product of the growth on the farm. Then Paul said that as a wise master builder he laid the foundation and that we all need to be careful how we build thereupon (1 Cor. 3:10). We should build with gold, silver, and precious stones and not with wood, hay, and stubble (v. 12). If you put together all these verses from 1 Corinthians 3, you will see that Paul was telling the Corinthians the proper way to build up the church in their locality. The proper way of building the church is not by miraculous gifts, but by the genuine growth in life which will transform the saints into precious materials for God's temple. Furthermore, Paul said that he fed and planted them and that Apollos watered them (1 Cor. 3:2-6). The feeding, planting, and watering are all for the growth, the growth which will cultivate the talents and gifts that are useful in building up the house of God with the proper transformed materials.

Consider a newborn child. At the time of birth the child has every necessary organ. However, few

of the organs can function at the time of birth, because the child lacks the necessary measure of growth in life. The more the mother feeds her child, the more the child grows. After a certain length of time, the child will be able to walk and after another period of time, he will be able to speak. Eventually, he will be fully grown, and all of his talents will have been completely cultivated for practical use. When he has matured, he will have the required skills, and these skills are the gifts that come out of the growth in life. This is what Paul meant by gifts in Romans 12.

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