Paul and his co-workers were planting Christ into people, watering that seed and laboring to allow that life to grow within the people into whom He had been sown.
"I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So neither is he who plants anything nor he who waters, but God who causes the growth." (1 Cor. 3:6,7)
This is the laborers of Christ serving God who causes Christ to be planted, take root, and grow in man to build Christ's church.
The burden of the Apostle Paul in First Corinthians 3 is to see what it is that God and the apostles of Christ are doing'. They are laboring with God for the growth of Christ in people for the building up of the living temple of God.
"For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's cultivated land [or farm] God's building." (1 Cor. 3:9)
The growing of Christ in men and women is the building up of the temple of God.
"God's FARM" [cultivated land] for God's "BUILDING," God's living "temple."
That is God's temple, His building emerging as Christ GROWS in the people within whom Christ has been planted.
"For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's cultivated land, God's building." (v.9)
The audience is the whole church in the city of Corinth. (1 Cor. 1:2)
Yet it is also to " . . . all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, who is theirs and ours." (1:2b)
This letter is to every Christian believer in every place. Their Lord is the Lord of the apostles and of the saints in the church in Corinth.
The enemy of God and man does not want Christ to be sown into humam hearts as the seed of divine life. If he cannot prevent this the next thing he would do is prevent that seed of Christ from GROWING so that the temple of God would not be built.
He knows more that we suspect of what God is after.
He know what it is that is going to crush him and cause him to go to the eternal
punishment.
But I digress. Every gathering of Christians should be concerned for the growth of Christ within. His growing unites believers in Christ and builds them up together.
In First Corinthians Paul also warns that the soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
"But a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discernred spiritually." (2:14)
This is not simply an unbeliever. It could also be a saved person, a believer, who by habit continues to live primarily in the fallen soul.
Paul was dealing with some in the church in Corinth who were soulish and considered Paul's ministry as foolishness.
@sonship saidIs this "enemy of God and man" on the farm, or near the farm, does he have a farm of his own?
The enemy of God and man does not want Christ to be sown into humam hearts as the seed of divine life. If he cannot prevent this the next thing he would do is prevent that seed of Christ from GROWING so that the temple of God would not be built.
The enemy of God and man does not want Christ to be sown into humam hearts as the seed of divine life. If he cannot prevent this the next thing he would do is prevent that seed of Christ from GROWING so that the temple of God would not be built.
The enemy was sown into man and works from the outside in to totally ruin man for God's purpose.
The Son of God is sown into in innermost being of man and is moving OUTWARD - from the innermost out.
Christ grows from the center to the circumference,
The one hating God and man works from the outermost inward.
This song captures Paul's attitude towards the often critical Corinthians.
I Will Most Gladly Spend - 2 Corinthians 12:15
https://soundcloud.com/user-363364428/i-will-most-gladly-spend-2?in=user-363364428/sets/but-you-beloved&si=5d17c7e3dded43608880e7eda7c260af&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing