“A Workman Like Paul!”

“A Workman Like Paul!”(I Cor.3:5-10).
When Christians within a congregation or a denomination start creating camps and promising hell to those who do not belong with them, there’s just one message they are sending out: They are worldly, mere infants in Christ. Jealousy and quarrelling are clear signs that they are unspiritual and worldly; acting like mere men.
Spiritually matured Christians do not create camps that divide people into camps, where might and power becomes the only way to prove right!
Might can be right only through intimidation and coercion!
Spiritual immaturity is perpetuated by Christians creating camps within the congregation or denomination. But the way the so-called leaders whom they support tackle the issue makes all the difference.
“Winner takes it all” has led some people in the body of Christ to be treated worst than orphans and slaves. It has taken the grace of God, who give us “strength for the journey” to keep on keeping on; working heartily as serving the LORD and not human beings.
Once upon a time there was division in the Church in Corinth. Those who claimed to belong to Paul highlighted the divisions to him; probably naming those who opposed him. It was surely in their minds that Paul should come in with authority and might to clamp down on those who did not belong to him. He would’ve had a majority following because he founded the Church there. And his supporters were surely banking on that.
Paul disappointed his supporters when he told them that the jealousies and quarrelling were signs of worldly thinking and immaturity.
He made them understand that both him and Apollos were “only servants through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task.” He went further to elaborate, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither him who plants not him who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow…” The planter and the waterer have one purpose, “and each will be rewarded according to his own labour. For we are God’s fellow-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building…”
Paul laid the foundation and another person was building on it. A word of caution though, “Each one should be careful how he builds…”
If truly it is only about service to God, then there is nothing worth dieing for! There is a day of reckoning when we will each be rewarded commensurately to the work we did and how we did it.
It is all about leading people to Christ. Any Paul who takes the advantage of power and authority to humiliate the Apollos and the Cephas, and their supporters have God to answer to. And the Apollos and the Cephas who ignore their calling because of Paul were not truly called in the first place.
We all should work heartily as serving the LORD and not human beings.
The vineyard belongs to God. Working in it with an air of ownership is only swelling one’s ego through delf-deceit; and can only be temporary.
Let us work to bring lost souls to Christ and not to self!
Prayer: LORD, give me a heart and spirit like Paul to handle divisions from those with worldly thoughts. Amen!
Have a blessed day! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.