Your testimonies are my delight;
they are my counselors. Verse 24
1 Corinthians 3:11-17
We are the temple of God, according to Paul in this passage. There is only one foundation worthy to be built upon, and that is the foundation of Jesus Christ. "All other ground is sinking sand."
What materials do we use to build our temples with? I don't believe this is referring to physical things. Many people use passages such as this to proclaim the evils of alcohol, over-eating, smoking, drug use, etc. In my opinion, this is not what he is referring to. After all, the foundation of Jesus Christ is not physical. It is spiritual. I don't see the physical body of Christ anywhere, do you? It's in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father. Therefore, if the foundation isn't physical, neither are the "building materials."
So what are the building materials, then? Things like prayer, Bible study, worship. Things that build your "temple" spiritually. In the Old Testament, the temple was the place where the people went to worship and pray. But it was also considered to be where God dwelled among his people. We all know from Scripture that God doesn't dwell in a manmade structure. Nevertheless, in a figurative kind of way, the temple is considered to be his dwelling place. Many of us still call our churches "house of God."
So, then, your temple is the "house of God." And God, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, does indeed dwell there. If we "build" our temple with cheap materials, it will not be sturdy. Alcohol may not be inherently evil, but if we spend our lives partying with people who don't know Christ, we are building an inferior temple. It's not the alcohol that's hurting, it's the atmosphere. It's the influence of the people. So the kind of people we hang out with can be "cheap materials."
If we spend our time looking at porn on the internet, we are certainly building a poor temple. Anything that feeds the lust of the flesh is "cheap material."
What are the good materials? We should study the Bible faithfully. We should spend time in prayer. I believe our prayers should be mostly intercessory (praying for others). It's ok to pray for ourselves, but that shouldn't be the bulk of our prayer times. And we should, as Paul commands, "pray without ceasing." What does this mean? Certainly not that we should walk around with our heads bowed and eyes closed. That would be dangerous. But we should alwasy be in an attitude where it would be easy to whisper a quick prayer. Maybe for someone who cuts you off in traffic. Yeah. Have you ever tried tossing up a prayer for that person instead of flipping them off and swearing at them? They can't hear you anyway. But God cerainly can.
Worship is another quality building material. The author of Hebrews, whoever that was, tells us that we should not forsake assembling together. I've met many people who claim to be able to sustain their Christian walk and worship without going to a church. Without fail, their "walks" are pretty well nonexistent right now. God made us to need each other. If we aren't participating in some kind of corporate worship/fellowship setting, our temple is cheap and faulty. There will be no "loners" in heaven. Even those of us who are introverts will be happily part of the group in heaven.
These temples that we carry around are "sacred." They are supposed to be devoted to God. Mine needs some serious work. I have a mixture of quality and cheap materials in mine. All this does is make the good materials less reliable.
Grace and peace, friends.