Laboring for Christ

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

LABORING FOR CHRIST

1 Cor 3:5-9

5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe — as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.

NIV

This is still part of this dissertation or exhortation regarding this division that has occurred in this church. As we have already considered how the church then and even still today can be divided over who is the best preacher, or over the personality of a pastor. In this early church, it was over being enthralled with Paul or Apollos, and some actually followed Jesus. However, Paul is concerned about those who have looked to him or Apollos as the ones to follow. What he continues to say is that both himself and Apollos as mere servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Each of them had an assigned task. One was to plant the other was to water that which was planted, but both with the purpose of being a servant of the Lord. However, the larger issue is that neither the planting nor the watering was of any value unless God was the one who made His word to be planted and grow within people. Everyone who ministers the word of God, in whatever form or function has but one purpose, to serve the Lord, as we all have our own labor. This is not confined to just those who in our post-modern church have been awarded credentials from a particular denomination and hold some title within the church. Each and every one of the members of the body of Christ has been given an assigned task, just as Paul and Apollos were. We are told that we are all living stones being built into the temple of the Lord, each stone is dependent on the other stones to support it, all working together to be one temple or one body. Paul makes that clear in his analogy of the body of Christ, one being an eye, one a hand or foot, each doing its part. Each of us serving a function that works in total unity with all the other parts. We all cannot be the mouth, so to speak, but we all are important in the body and each has been given a task, and we will be rewarded according to our own labor. This means we are not rewarded for someone else’s labor, but ours, which also means we all have some labor to do. This means we are not simply to be a sponge, always taking in, just sitting and soaking, so to speak. If we do just sit and soak, eventually we are going to stink. We have to be squeezed out, used somewhere, giving back that which we soaked up, again, in a manner of speaking. Perhaps the biggest issue is finding our place, but then that could even be evolving in some sense, as God causes us to grow. Surely when we first were saved and just babes in Christ, we were not capable of the same labor as after being taught by the Spirit. However, the point is still the same that each has his own labor and will be rewarded according to that labor. So we continue to labor for Christ.