1. The Standard Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 3.15 and its Problems

The Greek word ἔργον has a range of meaning that has not been fully accounted for in the interpretation of 1 Cor 3.13–15. In the standard NT Greek lexicon BDAG the first entry for ἔργον is ‘that which displays itself in activity of any kind, deed, action’ while the third entry listed is ‘that which is brought into being by work, product, undertaking, work’.Footnote ¹ The English word ‘work’ possesses the same ambiguity that ἔργον does: it can refer either to human activity or that which results from it. The two meanings are undoubtedly linked and can often shade into one another. Nevertheless, the distinction is important, especially when it is observed that modern interpretation of 1 Cor 3.13–15 has focused on the former meaning to the exclusion and neglect of the latter.

The significance of this lexical distinction is most starkly revealed in the interpretation of 1 Cor 3.15. It reads, ‘If any man's work (ἔργον) is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire’.Footnote ² Commentators understand ἔργον here to refer to the defective activity of the builder. The standard interpretation is well stated by Joseph Fitzmyer:

This interpretation, though widely accepted, remains problematic for at least three reasons. First, it separates ministerial deeds from non-ministerial ones, since most commentators understand the building materials in this metaphor to represent the work of Christian preaching, teaching, or evangelism.Footnote ⁴ These activities are presumably distinguished from conduct in the ‘personal’ realms of sexuality, finance, and worship/idolatry. Yet throughout the Corinthian correspondence—and indeed in all his letters—Paul consistently integrates ministry and ‘personal life’. For instance, can the distinction between a person's ministerial deeds and their deeds more generally considered be maintained in the face of 1 Cor 4.1–2, 9.19–27, or 2 Cor 1.12?Footnote ⁵ How would Timothy distinguish between the two in reminding the Corinthians of Paul's ways in Christ (1 Cor 4.17)? When Paul claimed that Titus walked in the same spirit and steps as Paul did (2 Cor 12.18) did he intend a reference to Titus's aboveboard ministry or to his personal life of integrity? It is difficult to imagine the possibility for Paul of a person with rotten deeds in ministry who nevertheless still maintains a healthy personal faith at the core.

A second related problem for the standard interpretation of 1 Cor 3.15 is that it also separates a Christian from at least some of his post-conversion deeds at the final judgment. This is how the emphatic pronoun αὐτός is typically understood in the phrase αὐτὸς δὲ σωθήσεται: ‘he himself [once separated from his unacceptable ministerial deeds] will be saved’. Once again, this reading seems to swim against the tide of Pauline theology in which the nature of a person's deeds always correlates with God's final verdict (see, e.g., 1 Cor 6.9–11; Rom 2.6–11; Gal 6.7–10). Furthermore, for Paul, a person's deeds are arguably viewed as an integrated whole everywhere else in his letters—a person is bearing fruit that leads either to death or to life (Rom 6.1–7.6; cf. 2 Cor 5.10).Footnote ⁶ Those who espouse the standard interpretation sometimes concede that their perspective on 1 Cor 3.15 is conspicuous within the Pauline letters: ‘Nowhere else in Paul or the NT is there such an emphasis on judgment as the revealing of individual works as in 1 Cor 3:13’.Footnote ⁷

A third problem is that the consensus interpretation risks trivializing the importance of the gospel for Paul, since building with wood, hay, and straw (1 Cor 3.12) is often interpreted as ministry done according to human wisdom as opposed to the gospel. For example, Karl Donfried writes, ‘The laborer who has built a house with cheap materials, that is, ministered to the Corinthians via short cuts, with worldly wisdom rather than the cross of Christ, that man will be pulled out of his rubble heap just in the nick of time’.Footnote ⁸ Gordon Fee states, ‘For Paul the “gold, silver, and costly stones” represent what is compatible with the foundation, the gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified; what will perish is sophia in all of its human forms’.Footnote ⁹ Later Fee contrasts those who ‘stay with the gospel as Paul preached it’ with those who ‘persist in pursuing sophia’.Footnote ¹⁰ Even John Calvin draws this contrast: ‘The teaching which is described as “wood, stubble and hay” does not conform to the foundation; teaching, that is, which is fabricated in men's minds, and then thrust upon us as oracles of God’.Footnote ¹¹ Such interpretations do not explain adequately how those who build with wood, hay, and straw are any different from preachers of a false gospel, whom Paul elsewhere so unequivocally condemns (e.g., Gal 1.6–9; cf. Gal 2.10). In fact, if Paul's evaluation of his sophistic opponents in 2 Corinthians 10–13 is organically connected to his critique of the sophistic tradition in 1 Corinthians 1–4 and 9, as Bruce Winter contends,Footnote ¹² then it becomes unintelligible why Paul would assure salvation for those who undermine the gospel in 1 Cor 3.15 while pronouncing doom in 2 Cor 11.1–15 for those who do the same. Of the latter Paul intones, ‘Their end will be according to their deeds’ (2 Cor 11.15). Why would the end of those in 1 Cor 3.15 not be according to their deeds? If it is maintained that the builders in 1 Cor 3.15 are saved because they build upon the foundation of Christ, one might ask how it is possible to build upon the foundation of Christ in opposition to the gospel of Christ. Such a reading would seem to collapse upon itself.

2. Rebuilding Schlatter's Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 3.10–15

Therefore, despite the consensus of the voluminous commentary erected upon 1 Cor 3.10–15, these verses warrant another inspection. The standard interpretation rests upon the assumption that the building materials of 1 Cor 3.12 and the ‘work’ of 3.13–15 represent ministerial activities (or motives, as we will see). This article will submit that this fundamental assumption is faulty. Rather, it will be argued that the building materials of 1 Cor 3.12 and the work of 3.13–15 represent the ‘product’ of those activities in the form of human persons—in this case, Corinthian Christians. Though this might appear to be only a slight shift in footing, it will be seen that rereading the metaphor from this starting point leads to a substantially different interpretation of the passage.

To my knowledge Adolf Schlatter is the only well-known modern scholar who has ever read the metaphor in the way I propose.Footnote ¹³ In his commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paulus, der Bote Jesu, Schlatter describes the building of 1 Cor 3.10–15 as a living entity that grows as new members enter it: ‘Denn der Bau besteht nicht aus toten Steinen, sondern ist ein lebendiges Gebilde, das sich dadurch erhält, daß es wächst. Da die Zeit sich bewegt, treten neue Menschen in die Gemeinde ein…’Footnote ¹⁴ On the following page he makes this understanding more explicit: ‘Das Fundament des Baus ist der Christus, nicht eine Lehre von Christus. Somit sind auch die mit ihm verbundenen Stoffe nicht Lehren, weder orthodoxe, noch Irrlehren, sondern die in die Gemeinde hineingestellten Menschen. Was wird aus den Menschen, die die Korinther jetzt in die Gemeinde bringen? Das ist die Frage, die Paulus auf die Bauenden legt’.Footnote ¹⁵

Although Schlatter proposes this way of reading 1 Cor 3.10–15, he does little to defend or expound it. Perhaps that is why his suggestion has been virtually ignored by subsequent (especially English-speaking) commentators. Hans Conzelmann only mentions Schlatter's view in passing.Footnote ¹⁶ Fee includes a footnote in his commentary which reads, ‘It is simply to press the analogy too hard to say, e.g., as does Gromacki (p. 48): “Since the foundation is a person, then the materials must also be persons”. That may seem logical, but it scarcely recognizes the nature and function of metaphor. Furthermore, when that interpretation is pressed, it creates some strange conclusions for vv. 14–15.’Footnote ¹⁷ James Rosscup addresses the ‘people view’ in greater detail, offering six points of support before rejecting it.Footnote ¹⁸ As one of the points against this view Rosscup asks, ‘How can the builder so mislead people that they, his products, finally burn in eternal lostness while he himself attains final salvation in 1 Cor 3:15?’.Footnote ¹⁹ Similarly, Yinger writes in a footnote, ‘A few commentators [left unspecified by Yinger] favor viewing ἔργον as the persons converted or influenced by the Corinthian teachers, but it is difficult to imagine that Paul wished to say such teachers could lead others into destruction and themselves be saved’.Footnote ²⁰ Finally, Wolfgang Schrage (followed by Christian WolffFootnote ²¹) asserts that Schlatter's interpretation involves an ‘unmögliche Annahme’ (impossible supposition) that the church members and not the builders would be exposed to the judgment of fire.Footnote ²² As far as my research has indicated, the above dismissals represent all of the scholarly interaction with Schlatter's proposal since 1975.

Judging from such paltry engagement, it would appear self-evident that the building materials of 1 Cor 3.12 and the work of 1 Cor 3.13–15 could not refer to human persons. Nevertheless, in what remains I will bolster this reading by presenting contextual, linguistic, and theological support. Patristic interpretations will also be noted. I will then attempt to meet some potential objections. At the least I hope to show that this reading deserves more careful consideration than it has received.

2.1. Contextual and Linguistic Support

The first line of support comes from the metaphorical language in the immediate context (1 Cor 3.5–17). In 1 Cor 3.6–9 Paul develops an agricultural metaphor: he is the one who planted, Apollos watered, but God is causing the growth. The Corinthians themselves are the field or cultivated land (γεώργιον; 3.9). Whether the term γεώργιον should be considered metonymic or not, it is apparent that the Corinthians are pictured not as the soil but as the plants of the field that are planted, watered, and grown.Footnote ²³ Then in 1 Cor 3.16–17 the Corinthians are twice explicitly identified as God's temple. Thus, we might suppose that in the middle illustration, the Corinthians themselves would be the building, which is exactly what 3.9 claims: θεοῦ οἰκοδομή ἐστε (‘you are God's building’). Commentators sometimes acknowledge this. For example, Roy Ciampa and Brian Rosner label the section heading for 1 Cor 3.10–15, ‘The Corinthians Are God's Building’.Footnote ²⁴ Nevertheless, in their commentary on these verses Ciampa and Rosner adopt the usual interpretation of the building materials as representing evangelistic or pastoral activity.Footnote ²⁵

Yet it is not only 1 Cor 3.6–9 and 16–17 that suggest that we should understand the Corinthians themselves as built upon the foundation. 1 Corinthians 3.11 identifies the foundation of the building as Jesus Christ himself. As Schlatter noted above, it is the person of Jesus not teaching about Jesus that is the foundation.Footnote ²⁶ Despite Fee's protest (above), I believe this distinction is significant and does not distort ‘the nature and function of metaphor’. While Paul may have laid the foundation by preaching Christ and him crucified, his initial preaching in Corinth would function in this metaphor to describe how the foundation was laid, not what was laid. This suggests that while gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw may be built upon Jesus through the labor of God's servants or builders, it is more consistent with 3.11 that these building materials refer to people rather than to ministerial activity per se.

Appreciating the distinction between how the building's foundation was laid and who that foundation is also explains why the foundation itself is not tested. If the foundation was Paul's preaching of Jesus Christ, then it would seem as if that preaching would need to be tested in God's judgment along with all other human works—that the foundation and not only the superstructure would need to be tested by the fire. Ciampa and Rosner recognize this issue but offer a different explanation:

Ciampa and Rosner's explanation seems to contradict 1 Cor 4.1–5. Paul plainly states in those verses that he too will be judged by God, regardless of the confidence he holds. Their explanation may also imply that if Paul's work is not tested, he does not envisage a reward for himself. Furthermore, Ciampa and Rosner's interpretation applies the metaphorical language too narrowly. As in the metaphor of 3.6–9, Paul does not confine his labors to one task alone. It is not that Paul only plants and Apollos only waters, because Paul's letter itself and his intended visits must surely be considered ‘watering’ and Apollos is attributed with a planting role in that some Corinthians were apparently converted through his ministry (3.5).Footnote ²⁸ Paul's division of labor in 1 Cor 3.5–15 is a general, not an absolute, one. It draws attention to his unique role as the founder of the Christian community in Corinth (cf. 1 Cor 4.15).

Therefore it may be that Paul understands the situation in Corinth as follows: after Jesus was laid as the foundation for the church in Corinth by God's grace and through Paul's preaching, Paul himself built upon that foundation by converting and instructing a number of the Corinthians;Footnote ²⁹ then, in his absence, Apollos (perhaps among others) continued the work of evangelism and teaching and thus built more believers upon the foundation. The crucial question then becomes, as Schlatter pointed out, ‘What will happen to those within the Corinthian church at the final judgment?’

This way of reading 1 Cor 3.10–15 also coheres with the use of temple/building imagery in the rest of the NT. Along with a number of other commentators, I consider the building of 1 Cor 3.10–15 to be the temple of 1 Cor 3.16–17.Footnote ³⁰ It is noteworthy that the temple of God is nowhere else used to describe the deeds of Christians but is always used to describe Christians themselves. Two examples are particularly relevant. In Eph 2.19–22 believers are described as a temple ‘being built together’ (συνοικοδομέω; Eph 2.22) and ‘growing’ (αὐξάνω; Eph 2.21; cf. 1 Cor 3.7), ‘built upon’ (ἐποικοδομέω; Eph 2.20) a foundation with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone. Likewise in 1 Pet 2.4–8, a letter that many have thought to show strong Pauline parallels, Christians as living stones are ‘being built up as a spiritual house’ (οἰκοδομεῖσθε οἶκος πνευματικός; 2.5) upon the Lord Jesus who is the cornerstone laid by God (2.4, 6–7). The parallels between 1 Cor 3.10–17, Eph 2.19–22, and 1 Pet 2.4–8 suggest that the temple building materials of 1 Cor 3.12 are human persons, equivalent to the living stones of Eph 2.22 and 1 Pet 2.5. Furthermore, if Paul is drawing the twin imagery of planting and building from Isa 5.2 or Jer 1.10, it is significant that both verses in their original contexts refer metaphorically to human persons or nations being planted or built.Footnote ³¹

Finally, a crucial block of contextual and linguistic support comes from the parallel in 1 Cor 9.1. The last rhetorical question that Paul puts to the Corinthians in 1 Cor 9.1 is ‘Are you yourselves not my work (ἔργον) in the Lord?’ The way that the question is worded, beginning as it does with οὐ, indicates that Paul expects a positive response: the Corinthians are indeed Paul's ἔργον in the Lord. English translations often conceal the parallel between 1 Cor 9.1 and 3.13–15 by translating ἔργον in different ways. For instance, the RSV and ESV translate ἔργον as ‘workmanship’ in 9.1 and the NIV and TNIV translate the question, ‘Are you not the result of my work in the Lord?’ (italics added). This is a highly significant parallel, however, since both passages use the singular form ἔργον and describe the relationship between the Corinthian church and its leader(s). 1 Corinthians 9.1 indicates that it is at least a grammatical and conceptual possibility for Paul that a Christian leader's ἔργον could refer to his converts or the people under his instruction.Footnote ³²

2.2. Theological Support

Another line of support involves Paul's theology of final reward or the loss thereof. Many commentators balk at the notion that a Christian leader could be rewarded if those to whom they minister prevail in the final judgment but could lose their reward if those same people fail.Footnote ³³ Yet this notion is thoroughly Pauline, occurring in at least four of Paul's letters. In 1 Thess 2.19 Paul calls the Thessalonian believers his hope, joy, and ‘crown of boasting’ before the Lord Jesus at his coming. He then exclaims, ‘You are our glory and joy!’ (1 Thess 2.20). A few verses later Paul explains that he had earlier sent Timothy to learn about the Thessalonians' faith ‘lest somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain’ (3.5). It thus appears as if Paul's reward—his joy, boasting, and glory—at the Lord's coming was contingent on whether the Thessalonians persevered in their faith or gave in to temptation and renounced their faith. If they persevere, Paul will be rewarded; if they do not, Paul will lose his reward.

The same dynamics are evident in Paul's letter to the Philippians. Paul exhorts the Philippians to hold fast to the word of life ‘so that I may have the boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain nor labor in vain’ (2.16). Later Paul urges the Philippians to stand firm in the Lord and calls them his joy and crown (4.1). Once again we see two alternatives for Paul on the day of Christ: if the Philippians persevere in the faith, Paul will have a boast; if the Philippians do not persevere, Paul's labor will have been in vain.

Whereas both alternatives are present in 1 Thessalonians and Philippians, in Galatians and 2 Corinthians only one alternative is explicit. In Gal 4.11 Paul worries that he has somehow toiled over the Galatians to no avail. It is not that Paul had ministered according to human wisdom while among the Galatians or had preached from impure motives, but simply that the Galatians themselves were in danger of believing a false gospel, which would have rendered Paul's work in Galatia useless. On the other hand, in 2 Cor 1.14 Paul expresses his hope that on the day of the Lord Jesus the Corinthians will boast of Paul as he will boast of them. This last-day mutual boasting is clearly dependent on the Corinthians acknowledging Paul and staying with his gospel.

These texts above are the only texts in the Pauline corpus outside of 1 Cor 3.5–15 that explicitly describe Paul's anticipated reward (or loss) in relation to his spiritual children.Footnote ³⁴ The interpretation I am proposing for 1 Cor 3.10–15 accords with these texts; the standard interpretation of 1 Cor 3.10–15 has to resign itself to a vague sense of variegated reward that seems unrelated to these other Pauline texts.

My proposed reading of 1 Cor 3.10–15 also presents a plausible reason for why the quality of the building materials may only be tested on the day of judgment. Those who contend that the building materials represent work done either according to human wisdom or according to the gospel cannot explain why the fire of the final judgment must test this work. It appears as if the contrast between human wisdom and God's wisdom was obvious to Paul in the present and should have been obvious to the Corinthians. Otherwise, how were the Corinthians to evaluate Paul's first coming to them (1 Cor 2.1–5)? If already obvious, then, why would there be need for future testing? The standard interpretation involves the reader in a tension described by Conzelmann: ‘To be sure, there is a tension between the metaphor and the thing intended. The material can be evaluated without more ado. On the other hand, the value of the “work” of the “fellow-workers” will be disclosed only in the future’.Footnote ³⁵

Perhaps sensing this tension, Anthony Thiselton has argued forcefully that the future testing of ministerial deeds must include a testing of the builder's motives, which are in principle not fully knowable to anyone but God:

This proposal builds upon Gerd Theissen's influential reading of 1 Cor 4.1–5 in his book Psychological Aspects of Pauline Theology in which he posits for Paul ‘an unconscious dimension within the human being. Within this dimension lie not only repressed unconscious deeds but also unconscious plans and motives.’Footnote ³⁷ Theissen's work seems to have impacted not only Thiselton but also Ciampa and Rosner through Thiselton.Footnote ³⁸ A thorough response to this reading of 1 Cor 4.4–5 is not possible here. Suffice it to say that while Paul entertains the possibility of self-deception for unbelievers (Rom 1.21; 2 Cor 3.15; cf. Eph 4.18), he seems to think that he can know his own heart and that others, judging rightly, can know his heart as well (2 Cor 3.2; 5.12; 6.11). In 2 Corinthians Paul pleads that he has acted with sincerity (1.12; 2.17; cf. 1 Cor 5.8; Eph 6.5; Col 3.22; 1 Tim 1.5). Even in 1 Cor 14.25, when the secrets of the unbeliever's heart become ‘manifest’ (φανερός; cf. 1 Cor 3.13), it is not that previously unconscious motives are made known to the unbeliever but that hidden sins are exposed and made public to all.Footnote ³⁹ Therefore, while I agree with Thiselton and others that ‘the builders of authentic work [and, I would add, “inauthentic work”] will not know definitively “how they build” until God's own definitive verdict declares this and it becomes publicly visible at the last judgment’,Footnote ⁴⁰ this is so not because of ‘the opaqueness and duplicity of the [Christian] human heart’ but because vindication at the final judgment is contingent upon persevering in faith until the end (cf. 1 Cor 1.7–9; 4.1–5; 5.5; 9.23–27). Paul may be confident that his Corinthian children will prove to be gold, silver, and precious stones (cf. 1 Cor 1.7–9), but he cannot know for sure. Their fate depends on how they respond to Paul's letter—and subsequent letters (cf. 2 Cor 13.5).

2.3. Support from Patristic Interpretations

A final line of support comes from the early effective history of 1 Cor 3.5–17. Apparently this passage generated readings in the early church which understood the building materials to be human persons. An example of such a reading can be found in Augustine (354–430 CE), who seems to adopt the interpretation for which I am arguing in a sermon he preached at the dedication of a church building:

It should be noted, though, that in other places (such as in his Enchiridion) Augustine adopts what is now the standard interpretation.

Pelagius (ca. 354–420 CE) clearly states in his commentary on 1 Corinthians that the building materials represent different types of hearers: ‘Gold stands for good respondents, silver for better ones (because silver is stronger than gold) and precious stones for the best of all. Similarly, wood stands for bad people, hay for those who are worse and straw for the worst of all’.Footnote ⁴² This understanding is also evident in the commentary of Theodoret of Cyr (ca. 393–466 CE): ‘The teacher teaches what is right. Some follow him; others do not. Those who follow will be like gold and silver—purified by the fire and shining when they emerge from it. The others will be burned up.’Footnote ⁴³

Perhaps slightly earlier than all these are comments from a homily by John Chrysostom (ca. 349–407 CE):

Chrysostom thus disagrees with the view of building materials as people but the very fact that he knew of some (note the plural!) who maintained it and that he felt compelled to address this reading proves that it has an ancient pedigree. Of course the presence of this reading in the fourth and fifth centuries hardly establishes it as Paul's intended reading, but its early attestation is noteworthy. Among the fathers 1 Cor 3.15 would become a key text in the emerging doctrine of purgatory. Although that development will not concern us here, one does wonder whether this tradition decisively steered the history of interpretation toward reading the building materials as the individual deeds of believers.

Finally, although the Shepherd of Hermas makes no explicit mention of 1 Cor 3.10–15, it is intriguing that one of its central metaphors is the great tower or ‘building’ (οἰκοδομή) of God's church (Herm. Vis. 3.2.3–3.10.1; Sim. 9.1.1–9.33.3) built on the Son of God. While there are substantial differences between Herm. Vis. 3.2.3–3.10.1; Sim. 9.1.1–9.33.3 and 1 Cor 3.10–15, it may be significant that the building materials or stones in the former two passages are clearly Christians of differing moral qualities. In Herm. Sim. 9.6.1–9.7.3 the Son of God is even said to test each individual stone and remove it if it is found to be unfit. Likewise, Herm. Vis. 4.3.4 describes those who are tested through fire, endure like gold, and are thus useful for the building. These texts in the Shepherd of Hermas could be very early examples of a Christian writer creatively reworking 1 Cor 3.10–15 on the understanding that the building materials mentioned there actually refer to human persons.

3. Meeting Potential Objections

I have thus offered a few lines of support for interpreting the building materials of 1 Cor 3.12 and the ‘work’ of 3.13–15 as Corinthian Christians. The cumulative effect of this support makes the interpretation a plausible one, worthy of scholarly (re)consideration. Four potential objections, however, immediately rise up against this interpretation.

3.1. The Supposed Parallel in 1 Corinthians 3.8

The first objection is raised in Chrysostom's comments above. Does not 1 Cor 3.8 state that each Christian servant will receive a reward ‘according to his own labor’ (κατὰ τὸν ἴδιον κόπον) and must not that ‘labor’ (κόπος) refer to the servants' activities of planting or watering? 1 Corinthians 3.8 does indicate that the servant will be rewarded according to their role or type of work, if not according to their effort as well, yet κόπος in 1 Cor 3.8 and ἔργον in 1 Cor 3.14 are not necessarily strict synonyms; the former could refer to the servant's activity while the latter could refer to the result of this activity. Furthermore, it is important to observe that in 3.8 the reward is according to (κατά) the labor done but in 3.14 it is contingent upon (εἰ) the work remaining. It is entirely possible that Paul and Apollos would be rewarded differently according to their roles at Corinth but that the reward of both would depend on the Corinthians' perseverance. In other words, if the Corinthians withstand the fiery judgment, Paul would be rewarded as the founder of the community and Apollos, among others, would be rewarded as a waterer/builder; if the Corinthians do not withstand the judgment, neither Paul nor Apollos would receive a reward.

3.2. The Force of the Warning in 1 Corinthians 3.10

A second and weightier objection would be that my proposed interpretation cannot sufficiently account for the warning of 1 Cor 3.10b, ‘Let each one watch out for how (πῶς) he builds upon it [the foundation]’. The remaining verses in the passage appear to flow from this warning. So does not this warning cast its shadow over 1 Cor 3.11–17 in such a way that the entire passage must be concerned with how each builder builds upon the foundation?Footnote ⁴⁵ If it does, the warning of 1 Cor 3.10b appears at first to support an interpretation of the building materials and ‘work’ being the builder's activities or motives. Yet it is possible to account for the prominence of this warning in a different way.

The warning of 1 Cor 3.10 is probably aimed toward Apollos indirectly and the leaders of his ‘faction’ directly since 1 Cor 3.4–6 and 4.6 frame the entire passage.Footnote ⁴⁶ While no reconstruction of the situation at Corinth is indisputable, it seems reasonable from what we know about Corinth, the Second Sophistic movement, and 1 Corinthians itself that the Corinthians were favorably disposed to rhetorical ability and expected to pay for the ‘oral performances’ of their leaders.Footnote ⁴⁷ Moreover, working from 1 Corinthians and material in Acts (18.24–19.1) it seems as if Apollos made an impression as one who was gifted in eloquent speech. It is also possible that he initially accepted support from the Corinthian church for his ministry.Footnote ⁴⁸ Many of the problems Paul is addressing in 1 Corinthians 1–4 and 9 seem to have arisen in conjunction with, if not in response to, Apollos's initial visit to the Corinthians.

What seems equally clear, however, is that Paul did not view Apollos as an opponent or rival.Footnote ⁴⁹ Paul goes out of his way to commend Apollos as a servant of the Lord (1 Cor 3.5), as ‘one’ with himself (3.8), and as a ‘fellow worker’ (συνεργός; 3.9). What Paul applies to Apollos he has also applied to himself (4.6).

Some take 1 Cor 16.12 to be an indication of bad blood between Paul and Apollos: ‘Now concerning brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to come to you with the brothers; it was not at all (his? God's?) will that he come now (καὶ πάντως οὐκ ἦν θέλημα ἵνα νῦν ἔλθῃ), but he will come whenever he has the opportunity’. Yet this theory can be severely questioned. Why would Paul urge brother Apollos to visit the Corinthians if Apollos was his opponent or rival? Why would Paul build up the Corinthians' expectation for a future visit from Apollos if Paul sensed that that visit might undermine his authority? Why would Paul even mention that Apollos could not visit immediately if this was a display of Apollos's defiant autonomy from the Pauline mission? Why is there no trace of Apollos (or Cephas for that matter) in 2 Corinthians if he was Paul's insidious opponent in Corinth (cf. Tit 3.13; 1 Clem. 47.4)?

Therefore the conjunction of these two deductions—that Apollos in some sense caused the problems at Corinth and that Paul viewed Apollos as a partner rather than a threat—suggests an intriguing resolution to their differences and a reasonable explanation for the warning of 1 Cor 3.10. Paul could be warning Apollos and other Christian leaders in Corinth about the unintended consequences of their ministry. Paul himself went to great lengths to prevent misconstruals of his ministry. As he states, he had every right to receive financial support from the Corinthians but forwent this right for the sake of the gospel (1 Cor 9.1–23). Likewise, though it is not inherently wrong to speak eloquently, Paul determined that rejecting the conventions of rhetoric would inhibit misunderstanding among the Corinthians about his message (1 Cor 2.1–5).

While Paul may have learned about the unintended consequences of ministry decisions the hard way, a recently converted Apollos may not have had the benefits of this experience by the time he reached Corinth. Apollos could have easily adapted to the Corinthians' expectations of him without calculating what the effect of those adaptions would be. He probably never intended to subvert Paul's authority in Corinth but that might have been the result of the exercise of his rhetorical abilities. Paul may well have pointed out to Apollos after he left Corinth the negative consequences of his ministry practices. Apollos could have accepted the criticism and Paul could have been eager to send Apollos back to Corinth to set the record straight (cf. 1 Cor 16.12).

In any case, if the impulse behind the warning of 1 Cor 3.10 is to compel legitimate Christian workers to evaluate the consequences of their ministry practices, there would no longer be any need to see those who build with wood, hay, and straw as builders who operate from impure motives or reject the gospel in favor of human wisdom—and yet are saved. Rather, those who build non-enduring Christians upon the foundation of Christ could be those who are unreflective in their own ministry and unwittingly cause professing Christians to stumble. The warning of 1 Cor 3.10 would thus be parallel to the warning of 1 Cor 8.9, ‘But watch out (βλέπετε) lest somehow this right of yours become a stumbling block to the weak’ (cf. also 1 Cor 10.23). The warning in 1 Cor 3.10 could also imply conversely that reflective Christ-like ministry practices, such as Paul's, generally result in Christians who endure (though see again 1 Thess 3.5; Phil 2.16; and Gal 4.11). While no philosophy of ministry results in unmitigated success—it is, after all, God who causes the growth—Paul is confident that a calculated and careful ministry of sacrificial love has the potential for great success (cf. 1 Cor 9.19; 10.33).

3.3. The Supposed Proverbial Expression in 1 Corinthians 3.15b

A third objection now comes to the fore: How does the proposed interpretation explain 1 Cor 3.15b, which one popular English translation renders, ‘he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames’ (NIV; cf. TNIV)? As the citation from Fitzmyer at the beginning of this article demonstrates, the standard interpretation of 1 Cor 3.10–15 is bound up with this understanding of the phrase αὐτὸς δὲ σωθήσεται, οὕτως δὲ ὡς διὰ πυρός. In fact, it has become so routine to interpret this phrase as a proverbial expression roughly equivalent to the English expression ‘saved by the skin of one's teeth’ that some commentators no longer document this sense of the phrase or defend it at all.Footnote ⁵⁰ Other commentators simply cite previous studies.Footnote ⁵¹ The concretization of the standard construal of this phrase was probably aided by the entry for πῦρ in BDAG and Friedrich Lang's article on πῦρ in the TDNT, both of which claim that 1 Cor 3.15 refers to the narrow escape of the builder.

When one actually examines the evidence for this supposed proverbial expression, however, its grounding suddenly looks rather shaky. The following list, in rough chronological order, includes all the primary evidence cited for this understanding in the sources I consulted:

• • Euripides Andromache 487: διὰ γὰρ πυρὸς ἦλθ᾽ ἑτέρῳ λέχει (‘for she came against her rival with fire’; lit. ‘for through fire she came to the other bed’).

• • Euripides Electra 1182: διὰ πυρὸς ἔμολον ἁ τάλαινα ματρὶ τᾷδ᾽ (‘wretched, I came through fire against this mother’).

• • Psalm 65.12 LXX: διήλθομεν διὰ πυρὸς καὶ ὕδατος καὶ ἐξήγαγες ἡμᾶς εἰς ἀναψυχήν (‘we went through fire and water, but you have led us out to a place of relief’).

• • Amos 4.11 LXX: ὡς δαλὸς ἐξεσπασμένος ἐκ πυρός (‘as a brand drawn from the fire’).

• • Zech 3.2 LXX: ὡς δαλὸς ἐξεσπασμένος ἐκ πυρός (‘as a brand drawn from the fire’).

• • Diodorus of Sicily Library of History 1.57.7–8: …διεξέπεσε διὰ τῆς φλογὸς. σωθεὶς δὲ παραδόξως τοὺς ἄλλους ἐτίμησεν… (‘…he dashed out through the flame. Having been saved unexpectedly he honored the other gods…’).

• • Strabo Geog. 3.5.11 [incorrectly cited by Weiss]: αὐτὸς ἐσώθη διὰ ναυαγίου (‘he himself was saved through a piece of wreckage’).

• • Livy The History of Rome 22.35.3 [not 20.35 or 22.53.3 as sometimes cited!]: damnatione collegae, ex qua prope ambustus evaserat (‘the condemnation of his colleague, from which, though nearly scorched, he had escaped’).

• • Crates Epistle 6: πρὸς δὲ εὐδαιμονίαν, ὡς ἔλεγε Διογένης, κἂν διὰ πυρὸς βαδιστέον (‘as Diogenes used to say, one must walk toward happiness even if through fire’).

• • Josephus Ant. 17.264: οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι διὰ τοῦ πυρὸς ᾗ παρείκοι ὠσθέντες ἐκράτουν τοῦ θησαυροῦ (‘The Romans, having rushed through the fire where it would allow, were seizing the treasure box’).

• • Jude 1.23: οὓς δὲ σῴζετε ἐκ πυρὸς ἁρπάζοντες (‘save others by snatching them from the fire’).

What strikes one immediately is how grammatically and conceptually varied these examples are. This observation in itself speaks against reading 1 Cor 3.15b as a proverb in the strict and formulaic sense of the term. In the list above the references in Euripides and Strabo can be dismissed immediately as irrelevant. The references in Psalm 65 and (Pseudo-)Crates use ‘fire’ metaphorically to refer to tribulation but neither necessarily connotes a ‘narrow’ escape. The references in Diodorus and Josephus are literal descriptions of actual events and hence are not proverbial. Likewise, the reference in Livy can be set aside because it is in Latin, does not resemble the syntax of 1 Cor 3.15b at all, and includes the adverb prope—just the kind of explicit marker that is missing in 1 Cor 3.15.

The phrase found in Amos 4.11 and Zech 3.2 does seem proverbial and probably does describe a narrow escape. It is unlikely, though, that 1 Cor 3.15b is drawing upon the language of this phrase. First, whereas the phrases in Amos 4.11 and Zech 3.2 are identical, 1 Cor 3.15b only shares one word in common with them, πῦρ. Moreover, there may be an important conceptual difference between ἐκ πυρός and διὰ πυρός.Footnote ⁵² Finally, the reason why the OT phrase has the connotation of a narrow escape is that it describes a ‘brand’ (δαλός) being taken out of the fire. Since brands are highly combustible, the implication is that the brand would certainly burn and burn quickly if it were not removed from the fire. But there is no parallel to this in the description of the builder in 1 Cor 3.10–15. Commentators often suppose that the picture is of the unwise builder standing within his building of wood, straw, and hay when it catches fire and thus needing to run out of the fire. Yet this specific visualization is hardly obvious or necessary, and in any case would be better described with the preposition ἐκ, not διά. The phrase in Jude 1.23 once again only shares the word πῦρ with 1 Cor 3.15 and, if anything, demonstrates how an allusion to Zech 3.2 might actually look.Footnote ⁵³

None of these observations are meant to question the broader understanding of fire as a common metaphor for judgment. What does seem important, though, is that the three words σῴζω, διά, and πῦρ do not occur in combination anywhere else and therefore do not form a proverbial expression by themselves. The phrase itself also does not connote a narrow escape.

Given my reading of 1 Cor 3.10–15 and of Pauline theology in general, I am inclined to view 1 Cor 3.15b in a different light. The term πῦρ has already been used in 1 Cor 3.13, ‘the fire will test of what sort the work of each is’ (ἑκάστου τὸ ἔργον ὁποῖόν ἐστιν τὸ πῦρ [αὐτὸ] δοκιμάσει). As I read it this phrase claims that the fire of God's judgment will test the nature of the builders' converts or followers. It seems reasonable that the fire of 3.15b could refer to this same judgment, this time applied to the builder himself. In this case, 1 Cor 3.15 as a whole could be paraphrased as follows: ‘If the people whom the builder has built do not survive God's judgment on the last day but are burnt up, the builder will lose the reward he would have gained if they had survived. The builder himself, once separated from his faulty converts and followers, will be saved. Nevertheless, his salvation will take place in this way: through the same fire of God's judgment’.Footnote ⁵⁴ Though this paraphrase might seem extremely inventive, it is important to remember that the standard interpretation takes creative liberties as well. The Greek itself is terse and ambiguous: σωθήσεται, οὕτως δὲ ὡς διὰ πυρός (‘he will be saved, but in this way: as through fire’). It can be read in different ways. Yet two additional considerations point in the direction of my interpretation.

First, as is commonly acknowledged, in 1 Cor 3.13–15 Paul is working from Jewish traditions of testing by fire. Some of the texts cited most frequently include Dan 3; Mal 3.1–4; 4.1–3; Pss. Sol. 15.4–8; 2 Bar. 48.39; LAB 6.16–18; 38.3-4; Matt 3.10–12; and Luke 3.9.Footnote ⁵⁵ It is also acknowledged that these traditions all speak of the testing of people by fire—never individual deeds or motives.Footnote ⁵⁶ Thus, the common interpretive move within the standard interpretation of 1 Cor 3.15 is to attribute Paul with making at least one significant and novel alteration to these traditions. As Richard Hays writes, ‘Paul's vision of final judgment is completely consonant with this tradition, with the single exception that here he is applying the image of judgment by fire not to the fate of individuals but to the ecclesiological construction work done by different church leaders’.Footnote ⁵⁷ Instead of viewing the testing of the builder's work as Paul's unprecedented and anomalous application to ministerial activity, my interpretation sees 1 Cor 3.13–15 as set firmly within these Jewish traditions. To use Hays's language, the individuals who are tested are the ‘ecclesiological construction work’. Furthermore, the extensive parallels between 1 Cor 3.13-15 and T. Ab. 13.11–13 confirm that 1 Cor 3.15 would be completely out of step with Jewish (and maybe Christian) tradition if it posited that a person could still escape condemnation even though their own deeds were burned up in God's judgment.Footnote ⁵⁸

Second, this interpretation of 1 Cor 3.15 causes less dissonance when it is read against 3.17, ‘If someone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person’. The standard interpretation typically reads 3.17 as a proviso or heightened qualification added to 3.15. Yinger explains: ‘Those who “destroy God's temple” are not a different group from those in view in verses 14–15. Rather this new description highlights the risk entertained by any teacher who builds with human wisdom. Harming the church shades imperceptibly into destroying the church, magnifying the risk for any who dare build with “wood, hay and stubble”’.Footnote ⁵⁹ Earlier, Yinger states, ‘The dividing line between poor building and destruction is not clearly marked out, making Paul's initial warning to “beware how you are building” all the more potent’.Footnote ⁶⁰ Yinger's comments, which seem to be a logical extension of the standard interpretation, reawaken all of its problems (see section 1). In my reading, however, building upon the foundation—even with wood, hay, and straw—is categorically different from destroying the temple. Building upon the foundation with combustible materials can only be done by gospel-preaching Christian leaders who are either eventually rejected by their converts (cf. 1 Thess 3.5; Phil 2.16; Gal 4.11) or are unfortunately not as circumspect as they ought to be and unintentionally cause their converts to stumble. Destroying the temple can only be done by impure opponents of God. A clear dividing line is thus marked out between Paul's saved partners and his condemned opponents.

3.4. Paul's Overall Agenda in 1 Corinthians 1–4

The fourth and final objection to be dealt with, more briefly, is the objection that my reading of builders and their human materials would have no resonance at Corinth and does not fit into Paul's overall agenda in 1 Corinthians 1–4. To counter this objection I would point to Witner's important study, Philo and Paul among the Sophists. Although Winter's ‘Index of Literary Sources’ lists no references to 1 Cor 3.6–17 or any verse therein, he does discuss at great length the sophistic conception of discipleship. Winter writes, ‘Recruiting disciples is one of the prime objectives of sophists, who love to be among “the would-be great” in the theatre, in the camps in order to deliver an oration, or among their pupils in various communities’.Footnote ⁶¹ According to Winter, ‘this form of “discipleship” means great personal δόξα for sophists who, like “gorgeous peacocks”, are “lifted aloft on the wings of their fame (δόξα) and their disciples”’.Footnote ⁶² Winter then writes, ‘Paul's converts formulated a sophistic conception of “discipleship”, which in turn exposed the churches to the inevitable problems of dissension and jealousy associated with that secular movement. This problem was aggravated to some extent by the modus operandi of Apollos, who arrived in Corinth subsequent to Paul's departure (1 Cor. 1.12; 3.1–5).’Footnote ⁶³ When commenting specifically on 1 Cor 3.18–23, Winter then makes the argument that Paul is trying to reverse or invert the Corinthians' conception of discipleship. The reading of 1 Cor 3.10–15 proposed here can be subsumed under this aim. Whereas the Corinthians might be tempted to think that Apollos's great number of prestigious disciples indicated that Apollos was being rewarded by God, Paul is cautioning them to reserve their judgments until the Lord comes to disclose both the builder and his human building materials.Footnote ⁶⁴ Boasting in men can be sinful but it can also be simply premature. Paul does want his converts and followers to boast in him and he in them, but only on the day of the Lord Jesus (2 Cor 1.14), when all will be shown for who they really are.

4. Surveying the Work

This article has challenged the standard interpretation of 1 Cor 3.10–15 by questioning its assumption that the building materials of 1 Cor 3.12 and the work of 1 Cor 3.13–15 refer to Christian preaching, teaching, or evangelism. While this way of reading the metaphor has been ingrained by scholarly consensus (and perhaps aided by English translations) it remains theologically problematic. A reading that is much more consonant with the context and Paul's theology starts from the premise that what is being described is the ekklesia, the community of believers built up by the ministry of its Christian leaders. It is this human structure that is tested by fire, whose perseverance will lead to reward for the wise builder and whose destruction will lead to loss for the unwise builder.

Schlatter notes the deep seriousness which this understanding would instill in the builders for whom Paul's writing was originally composed: ‘Das Gericht des Christus scheidet zwischen denen, die in der Gemeinde sind, und dies legt in das Amt derer, die sie sammeln und leiten, den tiefen Ernst’.Footnote ⁶⁵ Yet Paul in 2 Corinthians seems hopeful that his warning was heard and that he would boast in the Corinthians on the day of the Lord Jesus (2 Cor 1.14). His reward depended on the perseverance of his converts but ultimately on the faithfulness of God (1 Cor 1.8–9; cf. Phil 1.6).