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1 Corinthians

About this book
Chapter 3

1 So, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but instead as people of the flesh,⁠ as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready. In fact, you are still not ready,⁠ 3 for you are still influenced by the flesh. For since there is still jealousy and dissension among you, are you not influenced by the flesh and behaving like unregenerate people? 4 For whenever someone says, “I am with Paul,” or “I am with Apollos,” are you not merely human? 5 What is Apollos, really? Or what is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, and each of us in the ministry the Lord gave us. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused it to grow. 7 So neither the one who plants counts for anything, nor the one who waters, but God who causes the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters work as one, but each will receive his reward according to his work.⁠ 9 We are coworkers belonging to God. You are God’s field, God’s building. 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master-builder I laid a foundation, but someone else builds on it. And each one must be careful how he builds. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than what is being laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, 13 each builder’s work will be plainly seen, for the Day will make it clear, because it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test what kind of work each has done. 14 If what someone has built survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If someone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as through fire. 16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?⁠ 17 If someone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, which is what you are. 18 Guard against self-deception, each of you. If someone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become foolish so that he can become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this age is foolishness with God. As it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness.”⁠ 20 And again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 21 So then, no more boasting about mere mortals! For everything belongs to you, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future. Everything belongs to you, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Texts in conversation

Compare 4Q417 1 i 17 and 1 Corinthians 3:1

Dead Sea Scrolls, Wisdom and Instruction · New Testament

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Summary

In 1 Corinthians, Paul says he could address the community only as people of the flesh, not as spiritual people. In the Dead Sea Scroll 4Q417, the author similarly contrasts a people of spirit with the spirit of flesh, suggesting a common tradition.

Passages

4Q417 1 i 17

Dead Sea Scrolls, Wisdom and Instruction · 4QInstruction
15 For it is engraved, decreed by God, against all … […] of the sons of Seth, and a book of remembrance is written before him 16 for those who keep his word. And that is the vision of Hagi for the book of remembrance. And he gave it as an inheritance to humankind, together with a people of spirit, for 17 according to the pattern of the holy ones he formed it. But no more did he give Hagi to the spirit of flesh, for it did not know the difference between 18 good and evil according to the judgment of its spirit. And you, son who understands, look at the mystery that is to be and know
200–150 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 4Q417

1 Corinthians 3:1

New Testament
1 So, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but instead as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready. In fact, you are still not ready, 3 for you are still influenced by the flesh. For since there is still jealousy and dissension among you, are you not influenced by the flesh and behaving like unregenerate people? 4 For whenever someone says, “I am with Paul,” or “I am with Apollos,” are you not merely human? 5 What is Apollos, really? Or what is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, and each of us in the ministry the Lord gave us.
55–57 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Corinthians

References

“... Before Collins and Goff, Frey had followed up on a suggestion of Lange, and argued that some kind of negative notion of “flesh” is to be found in 4QInstruction, where the “spirit of flesh,” does not merely denote human frailty, as in the Hodayot, but an entity which is opposed to the “sons of heaven” (in 4Q416 1 10), to the elect addressees (in 4Q418 81 1–2), and to the “spiritual people” in the pericope we are now discussing. For Frey, the “fleshly spirit” denotes “sinful humanity,” as opposed to the elect or pious ones, but one may respond that in our pericope, the issue is not sin, but rather that the “fleshly spirit” suffers from ignorance. Since Frey followed Lange in assuming that the “people of spirit” were angelic, he did not really contrast “spirit” and “flesh” in our pericope. Goff combined Frey’s suggestion with Collins’ thesis of two types of humanities, by relating the two groups of the 4QInstruction pericope to Paul’s distinction between fleshly (σαρκίνοι) and spiritual (πνευματικοί) types of people, as in 1 Cor 3:1, as well as the distinction between ψυχικός and πνευματικός in 1 Cor 15:42–49. ...”
Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, “‘Spiritual People,’ ‘Fleshly Spirit,’ and ‘Vision of Meditation’: Reflections on 4QInstruction and 1 Corinthians,” in Echoes from the Caves: Qumran and the New Testament, ed. Florentino García Martínez, STDJ 85 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 108.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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4Q417 1 i 17 and 1 Corinthians 3:1

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