Wise master builder; gold and straw; testing by fire (1 Cor 3:10–15)

builds upon it, that one is not the master builder of the church but builds upon the church. So if you want to see that Paul is a wise master builder, hear him: “From Jerusalem and as far as Illyricum I have fulfilled the gospel of God, making it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ was named, so that I might not build upon another’s foundation.” And he not only laid a foundation as a wise master builder, but also wrote, as it were, architectural books—how the master builder must build a house, what sort the overseer must be, and elders and deacons and the rest of the church’s fullness; for all these were as it were architectural laws. “So another builds upon it,” he says; “let each watch how he builds.” For this also speaks to me, so that I may not build carelessly, knowing that the work I build—what sort it is—the fire itself will test on that day. And I take care lest, building, I build wood, hay, straw. For if I bring worthless souls uncritically into the church, I have brought to the good foundation Christ Jesus wood, and others hay, and others straw; just as again, if some shine out from the building, and shine so much that some are found analogous to what is written about Jerusalem and the temple—chosen stones and crystal stone and sapphire stones and whatever stones are named there—clearly I have built precious stones upon the foundation. And since God’s temple and building must also have gold, as the temple Solomon built is a symbol of a temple having much gold and silver, if another comes being built up and is found more precious than silver, he would be gold. But I fear lest through me wood and hay and straw enter, and wretched I (even if otherwise judged worthy of salvation—since it is written, “yet he himself will be saved, but so as through fire”) be saved in this way as one who became a cause, by not holding the grace nor building well, of filling the building with wood, hay, straw, which the word of God does not want; for the fire will test what sort each one’s work is.

I want also to take another way the saying, “For no one can lay another foundation besides the one laid, which is Jesus Christ,” and what follows. From the time my Lord Jesus Christ sojourned, this foundation has been preached into the world; and the apostles laid this foundation in Judea, and among the nations the apostle of the nations and his fellow worker Barnabas—“for they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we to the nations and they to the circumcision.” So once Jesus Christ the Word of God has been preached and this foundation laid, no one can lay another foundation besides Jesus Christ; and those who build upon it, if they are orthodox through everlasting doctrines and divine thoughts and good words and holy deeds, build upon the foundation gold, silver, precious stone. For gold has often been kept, taken for mind and thoughts; if I speak well, I build silver; if I interpret as I ought and urge hearers well toward a way of life, I build precious stones. Yet as many of those who teach Jesus Christ have missed the truth, they have built upon the foundation wood, hay, straw; and I would say that of those from the heresies the more blasphemous are wood, those who sinned less in teaching are hay, and those with thin and, so to speak, lesser faults are straw.

Come, let us also see it according to the letter. What will be said touches each of us; each of us, having received the word of the gospel, received Jesus Christ as foundation, so that in all he does and says and thinks he may build upon this foundation. So if we think and intend good things, we build gold; if speaking purely we say every word spoken in a holy way, we build as silver; if every deed we do is good, we build as precious stone—and God judges the worth and quality of the stones. Yet if I sin after the foundation, my great sins will be wood, the lesser hay, and the still lesser straw. And I ask whether perhaps †the roots† and the thoughts, when they are mistaken, are wood—for thoughts are a spring of evils; and the words are hay, and the deed straw—for the worth of the deed is lesser than the reasoning. And the one who plants and the one who