What serves as the indication that the Corinthians are more focused upon the flesh than upon the spiritual matters at hand is that they are caught up in the party spirit – they’re worried about who belongs to whose church, or who baptized them, or who their leader is. They are struggling with an elitist mentality, worried about whose is better; and Paul’s point is that while you’re all worried about those trivial matters, the heart and core of the faith – that is Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and coming again – is being put on the back burner if it is on the burner at all. This is not acceptable.

Partisanship in the church is an important matter to keep track of, because the church is made up of many that all need to work together to the good of all. Each has a place and each a purpose in the whole. Using the agricultural analogy: some plant, some water; but it is God who makes things grow. Paul turns their focus to the real center again. It is God. All attention must be on God or we’ve missed the target. It all comes down this: we are all servants of God; but God is the central figure and of central importance.

The imagery shifts a bit. Paul now goes from the gardening to the construction of a building. Paul talks about his work in the Corinthian church. He laid the foundation – that was the gospel – Christ crucified, risen, and coming again. Attention now turns to the building upon the foundation which job falls to others – the Corinthians themselves. The question is posed, what will be the substance of the construction upon the foundation? Whatever is built, however, will be tested by fire for its durability. The builder will be judged according to the durability of the building that is constructed.

What are the building materials of the church? What bricks do we use to build the church? These are important questions because if we use the wrong materials for building, the fire will come, and the structure will be tested, and the question will be, will it withstand.

The temple of God: What we often lose sight of in the English language is the collectivity of some nouns. You can be one of those nouns (pronoun). Only in the South do we see a differentiation between the individual and the collective. Their phrase is "you all". Paul is speaking of a collective whole. You is used in the plural sense – you, the Corinthian church. "You all" are the temple of God. Later Paul will speak in terms of individuals also being the temple of the Holy Spirit, in reference to how we treat our bodies. But here, the you is the church of Corinth – the collective whole – the building that is under construction upon the foundation of Christ crucified, risen, and coming, that Paul has laid. The warning that Paul is placing before the Corinthian church – the temple of God – is that nothing may be put up that will destroy that temple, or God will want to know why.