For we are God’s fellow-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
For we are God’s fellow-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
There is inexhaustible worth in God’s Word and 1 Corinthians 3:9is a great example. What Paul wrote to an audience in Corinth, has endured into the 21st century. The Holy Spirit led Paul in dramatic and dynamic ways, in this instance too, the Holy Spirit made sure Paul’s words still pack a punch as we read them today. This Bible verse might be a familiar one, yet, there is more to it than initially meets the eye.
Let’s take a closer look…
The metaphor of a field and building is intriguing when considered with the emphasis on the word “God’s”, that is used thrice. The sense here is that of a metamorphosis as a believer is transformed from a field to become a fellow-worker working the field. All the way through the transformation, that which is being transformed, is God’s very own. He is actively involved bringing about the change.
God’s Fellow Worker
When you are a worker (like Paul and Apollos were) you are sent into God’s harvest field (Matthew 9:38) to gather the wheat and bring it into His barn (Matthew 13:30). You are not alone in your endeavours, the Lord himself is working with you (Mark 16:20). However, the sphere of His work and of your work is distinct, yet, contributing to the same result (salvation). You plant the field, but it is the Lord who causes it to grow. You harvest the field, but it is God who brings about the bountiful harvest. When you are God’s fellow-workers, you are people in His employ, people under His direction – You are God’s very own.
But before you became a worker, you yourself were once a field.
God’s Fellow Field
When you are God’s field, you are under His care. It is important to note that the word translated ‘field’ in this verse occurs nowhere else in the new testament. When correctly translated, it denotes a “tilled” or “cultivated field, not a field with weeds or rocks in it, but one with well-cultivated soil, that will produce a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown (Matthew 13:8). All the good that is produced in you can only be traced to God’s cultivation. God sends his workers into your life and He works through them and the Holy Spirit to transform you, so that one day you become God’s fellow workers. Right now, you might only be a field – Buy you are still God’s very own.
God’s Building
When you are God’s building (also see Ephesians 2:21, Hebrews 3:6 and 1 Peter 2:5), it is He who builds you and intends to dwell in you. The bricklayer, the joiner, the decorator, the roofer, the scaffolder, the plumber and the electrician all played their part in the building. But it is God who is the architect, it is He who designs the building and under whose direction the whole work is accomplished. When the building stands on solid foundation, tall, strong and beautiful, God himself comes to dwell in you as you are God’s very own.
God’s Very Own
My dearest in the Lord, God wants to use you in whatever sphere of influence He places you in, to further His kingdom. You might start off as a field but when you begin to produce a crop “a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” your metamorphosis is accomplished and you become God’s fellow-worker, matured in Christ and ready to be used to nurture His fields, gather His harvest and build his buildings. All along the journey, you are God’s, His very own, you belong to the Lord Himself, and He is transforming you.
