FOUNDATION BUILDERS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

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. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light.

1 Corinthians 3:10-13a

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Go back to when you were a little child. From the very beginning when you were able to understand things that were said, your parents were teaching you.

They started with basic words for you to speak, Mommy and Daddy typically, since that was who we saw more often than anyone else early on. As we started to walk and explore, our parents were constantly watching us to make sure we didn’t get harmed due to our complete naivety. We also found our parents pointing out right and wrong behavior, something that would continue the whole way to adulthood.

These base fundamentals regarding communication, safety, and morality served to establish a good developmental foundation to continue building on.

As we grew into elementary school age, we began to study subjects and math was always one that was fascinating to me (and still is). After learning about numbers, we learned to add and then subtract. Note we didn’t learn multiplication or division first. Why? Because you have to know how to add and subtract before you can multiply or divide. Or in other words, multiplication and division builds upon the foundation of addition and subtraction before these four operations are used in tandem to do more complex math problems like fractions for example.

Why all this talk about building block concepts?

Because it directly applies to our scripture passage today as we continue to look at Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth.

There we find Paul talking about spiritual building blocks for Christians and his role as a foundation builder. In spreading the Gospel and sharing the good news of Jesus with others, Paul was using the grace God had given to lay a “foundation as a wise builder” and that foundation was Jesus Christ. Indeed, through Paul’s work (and other evangelists like Him), the stone the Jewish builders (the Jewish religious authorities) had rejected had become the cornerstone (Matthew 21:42). Once the Christ foundation is laid, it is to be built upon as the original foundation cannot be replaced. The scriptures tell us that “no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid”.

So what could be built upon the foundation of Christ Jesus?

It was expected that the builder would continue to use solid spiritual materials to build the believer into a formidable servant for the cause of the Gospel. These Christ-approved materials could be the word of God or things imparted by His Holy Spirit. And note that the Lord (the Day) would be inspecting the work of the foundation builders, ensuring that the disciple was being developed properly. Think of the Lord in this role as the spiritual building inspector, checking if the Christian’s spiritual house was built in accordance to His specifications and expectations and not by way of the things of the world, represented in our passage by the use of the words gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw.

When the Lord shines His light on any one person, He can always see our skills and our flaws. This is why all Christian foundation builders need to be extremely careful that they are properly overseeing spiritual construction.

In the end translation, everyone in Christ has had their foundation laid and that foundation is Jesus. Since then, we’ve experienced lots of building upon that foundation and the good news is that the Lord is not yet finished with us. We have been and continue to be works in progress and that’s good news because we all have room to grow as we pursue to be like our Savior in every way while helping others come to know Him themselves while establishing their own firm foundation to build upon.  

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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