The Cross and Christian Ministry by D. A. Carson

Author:D. A. Carson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bible (New Testament book: First Corinthians);1 Corinthians;I Corinthians (Criticism | interpretation | etc.;Holy Cross;Crosses;REL006000;REL074000
ISBN: 9781441200617
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2017-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

Factionalists Ignore Two Important Truths about Christian Leaders (3:5–17)

The two truths can be simply set out:

Christian leaders are only servants of Christ and are not to be accorded allegiance reserved for God alone.

God cares about his church, and he holds its leaders accountable for how they build it.

No less interesting than these two truths is the way Paul establishes them. He makes his points by painting two analogies, an agricultural one (3:5–9a) and an architectural one (3:9b–15), following them up with a powerful rhetorical question and an alarming conclusion (3:16–17).

The Agricultural Analogy (3:5–9a)

Having berated the Corinthian Christians for their spiritual immaturity, attested by their squabbling and fractious attachment to particular human leaders, Paul judges it necessary to say something about how such leaders should be viewed. “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul?” (3:5). The answer is devastatingly simple: “Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task” (3:5). Christian leaders are, in the first place, “only servants.” In this context, Paul does not mean “servants of the church,” but “servants of Jesus Christ,” for here it is the Lord who “has assigned to each his task.” Moreover, they are specifically called “servants of Christ” in 1 Corinthians 4:1. If the Lord Jesus himself “has assigned to each his task,” it is idiotic to rank them according to their jobs. These servants have not gained their status by ambition and “natural gift” (as if in God’s world there can be any gift that he himself has not given!), but by the specific assignment of the Lord. Discharging the responsibilities assigned them, they have become the agents who brought the Corinthians to faith—“servants [of Christ], through whom you came to believe” (3:5).

Now the agricultural analogy is laid out. In a large farm, one person may sow the seed and another may water it, but only God can make it grow. To heap unqualified and exclusive praise on the sower is to focus too narrowly; to praise those who handle the irrigation and forget those who sow the seed is to be myopic. In any case it is God alone who makes things grow. Should not he be praised?

Even though the workers are assigned different tasks, they “have one purpose” (3:8). No one worker’s task has any independent importance. It is in the bringing together of the tasks, crowned by God himself who makes things grow, that the harvest is finally brought in. Doubtless each worker “will be rewarded according to his own labor.” Paul does not want to deny the importance of individual faithfulness and industry. But in terms of the great task at hand—making things grow and bringing them to harvest—it is important to get the big picture straight. “We are God’s fellow workers” (3:9), Paul writes. He does not mean that he and Apollos and others are coworkers with God, as if he, Apollos, other workers, and God are all on the same level. Rather, he means that he and Apollos and any other workers are simply fellow workers, coworkers, owned by God, used by God.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.