1 Corinthians 3:6-7I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
We often use picture language to describe things. We call them idioms, metaphors, similes, word pictures, and now ‘micro-aggressions’! The problems with these tools of communication, is that they can bring clarity, but also bring confusion.
Much of the one-sided discussion today about language is based on people either taking things too literally, or missing the meaning of the language of the speaker. Sometimes they bring their own agenda and superimpose that agenda on the language, adding meaning that was never there. Couples face this all the time in their relationships. It takes work to iron out the wrinkles. (Oops, I just used a figure of speech!)
This “iron out the wrinkles” is not a reference to some ancient practice where slaves were required to do manual labor. It isn’t about oppression of one class over another. Instead, it is about an everyday practice of ironing clothes before Permanent Press cloth became available.
The process of ironing takes repeated application of heat and moisture to remove unsightly folds in garments. These folds could reflect poorly on the wearer, so there was incentive to devise a method to remove them. Thus, the iron in all its glory was born.
So in any problem in life, there are “wrinkles” that need to be removed, ironed out. And thus an idiom began. It has nothing to do with slave oppression, and everything to do with the use of language to convey thoughts. All of language is symbolic. All of language brings clarity and ambiguity.
Paul in this letter to the church at Corinth uses many pictures along the way to convey meaning. If we take them too literally, then we miss the point. But if we think everything is a picture, then we also fall short of the mark. Our agenda is added to something, and totally different meanings get imposed. So we must listen closely to the language being used and come to some conclusions.
Paul did not literally plant seeds, or water any plants. He is talking about his presence and teaching, the demonstrations of the Spirit’s power that have followed his presentation of the Gospel. These are what Paul is referring to when he talks about planting seed. His words and the Spirit’s actions are the seed and water.
Paul wants us to hear one thing: God is the One who makes it all happen. It is His message, His Spirit working. Paul and all the apostles, teachers, evangelists, elders, deacons, and any other category of worker, they were all just servants of the LORD and of His message. They were vessels though whom the LORD worked.
It can be humbling to realize that we are just servants, vessels in whom the LORD places His treasure. Nobody looks at a toilet and begins to marvel at the toilet itself, except of course the Japanese who have developed the toilet to an art form. The toilet is a vessel that performs a much needed task, but about which no glory needs to be attributed. It is just doing its job.
We too are vessels. If we focus on the vessel we can miss the contents of the vessel and the One who is using the vessel for His Glory.
The Corinthian church was focusing on the wrong thing, the vessel. Paul wanted them to focus on One who made the vessel a holy vessel, worthy of sacred duties. The LORD should be our focus, not our leaders, no matter how gifted they may be. Even the gifting is from the LORD. Give Him the credit.
The Arnold Journey 