Ambrosiaster — Commentary on Scripture

1 Corinthians 3:6

To plant is to evangelize and to bring to faith, to water is to baptize with the approved form of words. To forgive sins, however, and to give the Spirit belongs to God alone. We know that the Holy Spirit is given by God without the laying on of hands, and it has happened that an unbaptized person has received the forgiveness of his sins. Was such a person invisibly baptized, considering that he received the gift which belongs to baptism?

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:7

In relation to God’s honor, human honor is nothing. As far as the ministry is concerned, a man may be honored in the way that a servant is honored.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:8

Even though they are equal, the one who preaches the gospel is still greater than the one who baptizes and will receive a greater reward.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:10

The wise master builder is one who preaches the same gospel as that which was preached by the Savior. Afterward other people build on the foundation, sometimes well and sometimes badly. We need to pay attention to make sure that what we build coheres with the foundation, because if it is crooked or lightweight it will collapse, though the foundation itself will remain intact. Even when people have taught badly, the name of Christ endures, because it is the foundation, although the bad teaching collapses.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:11

Nobody can lay another foundation, because even if some people are heretics, they do not teach except in the name of Christ. They cannot commend the inventions of their error in any other way. So through the dignity of his name they try to make contradictory and absurd ideas acceptable.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:13

In the fire, bad teaching will become clear to everyone, though for the moment it is deceiving some.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:14

If anyone’s work proves lasting, he will receive his wage. He will be just like the three brothers in the fiery furnace, destined to receive as his wage heavenly life with glory.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:15

To suffer loss is to endure reproof. For what person, when subjected to punishment, does not lose something thereby? Yet the person himself may be saved. His living soul will not perish in the same way that his erroneous ideas will. Even so, however, he may suffer punishments of fire. He will be saved only by being purified through fire.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:16

It is necessarily the case that God lives in his own temple. Note that because he says that the Spirit of God lives in us, the word God must be taken to refer to the Holy Spirit [in this verse].

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:17

Paul says this in order to prick the consciences of those who have corrupted their bodies through evil living, especially the man who was having an affair with his father’s wife..

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:18

Here Paul is returning to what he said [in the first chapter].

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:20

Knowing that their thoughts are vain, God rebukes their wisdom in order to prove that they are foolish, showing that what they thought was false is true and vice versa.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:21

Human reasoning is unwise and weak, so one should not glory in man but in God, whose word cannot be altered. Whatever human beings think apart from God is foolishness.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 3:23

We are Christ’s because we were made by him, both physically and spiritually.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 4:1

Paul says this because some of the Corinthians were denigrating him. He did not preach anything different from the apostles. By calling himself a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God, Paul implicitly points out who the false apostles are. He denies that what they preach is of Christ, because it is not in accord with apostolic tradition.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 4:3

It is obvious that Paul was not worried about himself because he had a clear conscience.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 4:5

God will judge in his own good time. A judge is insulted if a servant presumes to pronounce a verdict before the judge makes the decision known.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 4:7

Paul wrote this to people who thought that it was better to be baptized by some people rather than by others, who had been led astray by their eloquence and who by some trick believed that perverse teachings were right. In fact, everything these people had they had received from the apostle.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 4:10

Those who love Christ are fools as far as the world is concerned.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES

1 Corinthians 4:14

Paul is acting here like a good physician who alleviates the pain caused by his operation to remove the disease, so that the sick person will let himself be cured.

COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES