Every minister is responsible for the quality of the materials he uses in building the superstructure. The materials listed, “gold, silver, precious stones, woods, hay, straw” (1 Cor 3:12) are arranged in descending order of value. But more importantly, they fall into two groups of three. Gold, silver, and precious stones clearly possess greater value than the items in the second group. In addition (and this is most important in the context), these three more valuable items are noncombustible, whereas