Devotional 27 October 2025

October 27, 2025 • Steve Torres

1 Corinthians 3:10.jpg

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:10–15, ESV)

Paul’s description of himself as a “wise master builder” is not a boast but a confession of grace. The Greek term architéktōn sophos (wise architect) connects directly to the “wisdom” he has been teaching throughout this letter: a wisdom not of the world, but of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:6–13). Everything Paul did in Corinth, from preaching to discipling, was grounded in the wisdom of God revealed in Christ crucified. The foundation was not Paul’s eloquence or strategy, but the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Because Christ alone is the foundation, every believer and every church must take care how they build upon it. The warning is sobering: what we build will be tested. The “Day” Paul speaks of is the Day of the Lord, when the quality of our work will be revealed. If our work has been built in obedience and humility, aligned with Christ’s character and purpose, it will endure like gold refined by fire (Malachi 3:2–3; Revelation 3:18). But if we build for self-promotion or pride, our efforts will burn away like straw.

The fire does not destroy the believer; it purifies (1 Peter 1:7). It exposes whether our lives have been shaped by the grace we profess. True wisdom builds humbly within the limits of Christ’s foundation. True unity comes when each believer, like Paul, labors not for self, but for the glory of the same Lord. For in the end, only what is built in Christ will last (Matthew 7:24–27; John 15:5; Ephesians 2:20–22).