(1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17)

1 Corinthians 3:9c You are God's building.

1 Corinthians 3:10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. But let each one take care how he builds upon it.

1 Corinthians 3:11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

1 Corinthians 3:17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Evangelising means laying the foundation, that is, Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer, the Messiah of God for the salvation of all who believe. But the foundation is not enough. Paul says that he worked like a skilled architect. He acknowledges that he always acted with wisdom, but he also acknowledges that he only laid the foundation of faith in Corinth. It is then up to those who come after him to build on that foundation.

There are those who lay the foundation and those who build on it; there are those who dig deep and those who raise the building up to the sky. Without this communion of work, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to work in the Lord's vineyard. However, Paul does not stop at enunciating the principles of communion, but warns: let everyone be careful how they build!

Anyone who should or would want to build God's building without the foundation that is Jesus Christ would work in vain, waste their time unnecessarily, and there would be no salvation. Christ is the cornerstone of God's house. Our faith confesses that He alone is the Redeemer of humanity, the Messiah of God, the Saviour of mankind. Our faith confesses that Jesus is the way to access God and for God to dwell and live in our hearts.

Placing Jesus Christ as the foundation of God's building has only one meaning: placing his cross as the only way of salvation and redemption. And just as there is one foundation, so too must there be one building, one community of believers in Christ. When we forget our calling, which is to attain perfect conformity to Christ and his cross, each of us may be tempted to make ourselves the foundation, the cornerstone. When this happens, it is the destruction of the one building. Small huts arise where each person becomes lord and god over his brothers and sisters. The community of believers itself dies, lacking the principle of unity, and in this way everyone goes their own way and follows winding paths that do not lead to salvation.

For this reason, Paul warns everyone to be careful how they build upon it. But also to be careful to build only on this one foundation, which is Jesus Christ.

Being God's temple means that God dwells in us. The temple is God's dwelling place on earth. Before, the temple was made of stone, a house in the middle of the city of men. In Israel, there was only one temple, only one house of God, just as there was only one people of the Lord. One God, one people, one temple, one presence of God among the people.

"If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is holy, and you are that temple," says Paul. The Christian, therefore, must be the one who brings the living presence of God into the world. Those who see the Christian must feel that God dwells in him. But all this cannot happen unless the Christian is transformed into holiness, truth and charity.

How is the temple of God destroyed? There are several ways to destroy it. Here are a few.

The first way is to live a life that is different from that of Christ, when the body of Christ is made a body of sin and evil. Consider that Jesus Christ, in obedience to God, allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, exposing his body, the true temple of God, to every kind of suffering and deprivation. How can such a holy body be transformed by Christians into a body of sin, vice, and every other kind of evil? Either we believe that with Christ we are one body and that there can be no difference in holiness with Him, and then we truly change our way of life, or else the body of Christ, the temple of God, will be ruined. Sin destroys holiness in us, and by destroying it in us, it also diminishes it in the body of Christ, which then becomes ineffective in its witness and gift of salvation in the world.

The second way is to create an infinity of bodies of Christ, of temples in which we would like the Lord to live. This happens when each person does not build his faith on Christ, but pursues his own thoughts. That is, if you destroy brotherhood, you destroy fatherhood, you destroy yourself as a son: it is perdition. So it is not that I can say: I try to be good, but I am not interested in the community and others. No, because without others you destroy yourself, because you do not realise your true dimension, which is to be a child, that is, a brother. Whenever the body of Christ is damaged, the one who damages it is also damaged. It is only in the body of Christ that we have salvation. Those who place themselves outside the body of Christ also place themselves outside salvation.

So many who say (Luther docet) God yes and the Church no, it is serious! It is true destruction theorised as good.

These images of the building and the temple express what the Church is, which is the way in which it expresses our life as children, that is, brotherhood, and where each person expresses it in full freedom and responsibility for the gift they have received. The Church is a differentiated organism. What is the difference? It is something very important that must be mutually accepted, but with responsibility it must be put at the service of union and not division. Otherwise, I destroy myself. 

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Apocalypse - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ, True God and True Man in the Trinitarian Mystery

The Prophetic Discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All Generations Will Call Me Blessed

 Catholics and Protestants Compared – In Defence of the Faith

 The Church and Israel According to St Paul – Romans 9-11

(Available on Amazon)