The Tower That Began to Lean

In 1173, builders in Pisa, Italy, broke ground on a magnificent bell tower for their cathedral. The white marble structure was designed to stand nearly two hundred feet tall, a testament to civic pride and devotion. But the architects made a fatal miscalculation. They set their foundation only ten feet deep in soft clay and sand. By the time the third story was completed, the south side had already begun to sink. Construction halted, resumed, halted again — spanning nearly two hundred years — as engineers tried desperately to correct what the foundation could never support.

Eight centuries later, engineers spent eleven years and over thirty million dollars simply to keep the tower from collapsing entirely. All because of those first ten feet.

Paul understood something those Pisan builders learned the hard way. Writing to the Corinthian church, he declared that no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. The Corinthians were building their spiritual lives on the shifting clay of human personalities — following Paul, Apollos, Cephas — and their community was tilting dangerously.

You are God's temple, Paul reminded them, and the Spirit of the Almighty dwells within you. A temple built on celebrity, cultural trends, or personal ambition will lean and crack just like that tower in Pisa. But a life anchored deep in Christ stands plumb and true, century after century, because the foundation holds.