Jesus – Foundation or Cornerstone?

Paul tells the Church at Corinth that no church can be built on a foundation other than Jesus.   Then he tells the Church at Ephesus that they were built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. This blog post addresses this apparent contradiction and explains two ways these approaches should be reconciled.

In his first letter to the Corinthian Church, Paul writes that Jesus is the foundation of every church.  In fact, he is very clear that this was the only adequate foundation.  His exact words were: “For no one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.  (I Corinthians 3:11)

In a letter to the Ephesian church, Paul writes that their church was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.  His exact words were: “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone.” (Ephesians 2:20).

So how does one reconcile these two scriptures?  In one, Paul clearly says a church cannot be built on a foundation other than Jesus.  In the other, Paul cites a church built on a foundation apparently built on something else with Jesus as a chief cornerstone.

There are a couple of explanations, and they are consistent with each other (that is to say they can both be true and probably are).  First, Paul is clearly using different semantic approaches in these two letters.  To be precise, in both situations, he is saying the churches are built on Jesus.  He uses foundation language in one (where he omits the cornerstone completely) and cornerstone language in the other. 

To use a sports analogy, it would be like a writer saying that a good baseball team must be built on solid pitching.  Then in the next week, the same writer saying that a particular team was built on home running hitting with solid pitching at its core.  In this case, our writer would not be accused of making a contradiction just because they used the term “built” in both cases to refer to two different things (pitching and hitting).

There is a second explanation which is, in our opinion, even more compelling.  The prophets were pointing to Jesus.   The apostles were teaching about Jesus.   It all comes back to Jesus in the end.  When it comes time to answer the question of Jesus – foundation or cornerstone, one can only answer “yes.”