[Photo by John Price on Unsplash.]
You are God's cultivated field
You are God's building [1 Corinthians 3:9-11]
Paul is mixing his metaphors! He has used a picture or a metaphor of a cultivated field to describe the church at Corinth but he now seamlessly shifts to another metaphor - a building. He begins to speak of the foundations of the church at Corinth. He is continuing on the same theme - the part that both Paul and Apollos made in the establishment of this church. He has made the point that apart from God's intervention there would have been no church in this sin-ladened city. But he talks again about the respective roles both he and Apollos fulfilled in their service for the Lord.
Again, I want to stress the danger of any form of egotism or promotion of individual servants to positions of prominence. These are jagged rocks which have caused the shipwreck of many Christian lives. I am also mixing metaphors.
When we speak of a church we are really meaning the people not the steeple. We talk about going to church and we associate that church with a building. There would not have been a building in Corinth called the Church of Corinth and there would not have been a marketplace of competing church buildings all claiming to be the right church. Paul was not an architect or a structural engineer. When he speaks about laying the foundations, he is not speaking about digging into the ground and pouring concrete! He is using a metaphor or a word picture of a building.
He wants to emphasise the essential importance of the foundations. There was no reinforced concrete around in the first century and so when builders were erecting a substantial building they needed to start with a massive stone hewed from a quarry. They used their ingenuity and skill to move this gigantic stone slab into a level position as the foundation for the rest of the building. The foundation of the church at Corinth was Jesus the Messiah.
Paul was the one who laid this foundation stone. When he came to Corinth, he taught only about Jesus of Nazareth who had been crucified and raised from the dead. He preached Jesus Christ - not a philosophy or an empty religion or creed. This is still the same today. Paul did not form the church on his own opinions or wisdom or reasoning or philosophy. He built the church on a solid foundation which would stand up to the challenges of the weather and the environment. It would even survive earthquakes.
Let us remember that a church is not a building. The people matter more than the building. We need also to remember that the church is not about the ideas or egotism of any individual servant of God. No matter how well respected the minister or pastor, he or she is human and is capable of sin and error. We preach Christ crucified. We need to make sure that we take John the Baptist as an example - he (i.e. Jesus) must increase, I must decrease. John was humble enough to promote Jesus the Son of God and to say that he was not good enough to loosen His sandals.
We are co-workers belonging to God. You are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master-builder I laid a foundation, but someone else builds on it. And each one must be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than what is being laid, which is Jesus Christ. [1 Corinthians 3:9-11 NET]
Comments