Chuck Larsen

A visitor to a mental hospital was astonished to note that there were only three guards watching over a hundred dangerous inmates. He asked his guide, “Don’t you fear that these people will overpower the guards and escape?” “No,” was the reply. “Lunatics never unite.” I’m sorry to say that I’ve met a lot of “lunatics” in the church. Being unable to unite in an effort with others they focus on their own interests and lose the impact of what it’s like to work together for the accomplishment of a common goal. Not only do they miss the thrill of seeing God work through the concerted effort of the body, the also lose the strength, support, and joys that sharing their lives with others will bring.

There is strength and safety in the plurality of effort. For safety reasons, mountain climbers rope themselves together when climbing a mountain. That way, if one climber should slip and fall, he would not fall to his death. He would be held by the others until he could regain his footing. The church ought to be like that. When one member slips and falls, the others should hold him up until he regains his footing. We are all roped together by the Holy Spirit.

Paul often refers to the church as a body. Each of us fill a different role; some are hands, some are feet, some are noses, some are eyes, and some are mouths (See 1 Corinthians 12:12-18). In his Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, Michael Green gets even more specific. He says, “In any flesh-and-bones body, there are a variety of cells. There are nerve cells, blood cells, muscle cells, and many others, each having a distinct function. The body operates smoothly, not because the cells get together and vote on what to do, but because each one does what it was designed to do. It is the function of the head to bring all these different functions together, so that the body operates effectively as each cell gives itself to the task of functioning according to its design. Certainly the body would not operate properly if its cells chose to go their own way. Do you know what we call a rebellion of the cells of your stomach? We call it indigestion! A revolt of your brain cells is called insanity. Any time the cells in our body don’t operate properly, it means that the body is sick, that something is wrong with it. Many of the problems in the church today are a result of our forgetting that the church is a body with a head, Jesus Christ.” He has given us a mission; Make Disciples! We must reject the insanity of individualism in the world and work together to accomplish this mission.

When referring to the way he and Apollos were co-laborers for Christ, Paul resorts to an agricultural analogy. He may very well have been thinking of Jesus’ teaching regarding Himself being the vine and believers being the branches and that no branch can accomplish anything in and of itself. It must be nourished through its connection to the vine. In 1 Corinthians 3:6, Paul writes, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.”

I like what Ogilvie says in The Preacher’s Commentary, “They were not in competition with each other but were partners in a common venture, team members in a common task. And while their work was very important, it was subordinate to the role of God, who provided the increase.” Paul’s focus in this passage clearly infers that divisions in the church “had been caused by giving more devotion to the servants than to the Lord.” This is still a major problem in the church today. It might even be worse because of the mass media. We have TV preachers, radio preachers, as well as publishers promoting popular preachers. Ogilvie goes on to say, “The personality cult has been a part of our secular life in politics, business, education, and medicine. In each of these fields there are strong personalities who gather around themselves disciples to their way of thinking and acting. This fact of life has affected the church and has had a divisive effect. It results in ministers and churches and denominations competing with each other. The divided church is created by our forgetting that we are all servants and ministers of the one Lord and that both the field and the harvest are His.”

I cannot help but think also that we today are fellow workers with Apollos and Paul. Even though thousands of years have passed, the same “building” is being worked on today that they began in the first century. Christ is still the foundation and we’re all building the superstructure. Actually, Christ is building His church; we are co-workers together with Him. This work will continue until the Lord returns. We’re not building something new or different. Paul warns the builders not to attempt to lay any other foundation than the one already laid; Christ Jesus. We are all in this together all the way back to Paul and forward with all those who will come after us. Throughout all history some will plant and some will fertilize and some will water and some will harvest. But we must never forget that “it’s God who gives the increase.”

In the first 10 verses of 1 Corinthians Chapter 3, Paul focuses on the divisiveness of the church at Corinth and exhorts the believers to learn to work together for the accomplishment of God’s mission. 1 Corinthians 3:9 says that we indeed are co-workers and we’re all working in the field, but the field is God’s field, not our own. Paul wants the church to grasp the synergistic relation of the different apostolic workers. They share the burden and Paul invites the various members of the church to join in the calling to work together for the common goal of making disciples. What matters, looking back at Jesus’ use of the vine and branches analogy, is the fruitful cultivation of the harvest. Paul wants them, as he and Apollos and Cephus have done, to set aside their individual preferences to form a more cohesive union towards the accomplishment of God’s mission.

I like what Hays says in commentary, “It is easy to give lip service to this principle, but hard to live out its practical implications in the church.” It’s so easy for us to become embroiled in turf wars instead of working cooperatively to cultivate God’s field. When that happens the field becomes endlessly subdivided into unproductive isolated efforts with each part doing its own thing. The role of individuals is not nearly as important as the participation of each part of the body. When we all focus on watching out that no one else interferes with our little patch of the field, it destroys the overall effort. As Hays continues, he says that Paul is saying to his readers, then and now, “No, don’t you understand that the whole field belongs to God and that we are called to work together to bring in the eschatological harvest? Individual leaders are insignificant; they are just field hands.” We are all just field hands.

While in Israel we visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. There’s probably no better example (except maybe the 1st century church at Corinth) of the foolishness of turf wars and bitter jealousies. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built on one of the two suggested sights for the burial of Jesus. Although the garden tomb seems to be the more likely place, tradition has supported the Church. Today this church is divided up into different sections under the jurisdictions of the different Christian groups that want to claim a piece of the purportedly holy place: Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Ethiopian Orthodox, and so forth. Jesus came to break down barriers that divide people, not to create them.

1 Corinthians 3:9 says that we are “co-workers.” Some translations say “workers together.” Others say “fellow workers.” The Good News Bible says that “we are partners, working together.” The traditional King James says “we are laborers together with God.” But I still like “co-workers” best. We are working, along with God, in the building of His church on the one foundation laid by the apostles; the Lord Christ Jesus. One commentator says, “Within the context of this passage, co-worker means that God allows us to PARTICIPATE TOGETHER WITH HIM IN HIS KINGDOM’S work.” We all have the same mission. It’s called the “Great Co-mission.” Jesus commanded us all to embrace this mission and join together with the various gifts, passions, abilities, personalities and experiences that God gave us for the furtherance of this mission of “making disciples.” Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18–20 NKJV)

This mission bonds us together and unifies our efforts. The commentator quoted above goes on to say, “It is God’s agenda, not ours and we work together to achieve our common goal. That’s what it means to be co-workers. We have the same objective and we are working together to achieve it.” Many of us remember the rescue of 18 month old Jessica McClure who was trapped in an abandoned water well for over 58 hours. This happened in Texas a few months after we moved back to Michigan. One reporter said that the rescue was performed by “up to 50 on-site mining engineers, firefighters, paramedics, drillers, jackhammer operators, law-enforcement officers and other support people.” The common goal brought out “the higher quality and better part of the human soul and the human spirit.” Williams said.

Many of the workers normally competed with one another in the oil drilling business. But all petty jealousies and completion were set aside to accomplish something more important; the physical salvation of a little girl. “The biggest thing … was the teamwork of the people involved,” David Lilly recalled.” It worked beautifully. Every person there was just willing to do everything above and beyond (their duty). There was no arguing or bickering.” A final report said “One-time business partners turned bitter rivals were working side by side, and even hugged one another after the rescue.” In the matter of making disciples we are co-workers. We are all in the same boat.

Paul is hard on the Corinthians because they were grownups still acting like children. There were petty jealousies and envy. In 1 Corinthians 3:3, Paul says that the believers were still living according to the dictates of the flesh. He writes, “…because you are still fleshly. For since there is envy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and living like ordinary people?” He calls them spiritual babies. The reason? They were a divided church, unable to work together. The verses following verse 3 show the source of their division. Some people were attaching themselves to Paul, some to Peter and others to Apollos. Their childish preferences kept them from doing what God wanted them to do: Work Together for the common good!

The independent commission investigating the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks reported that the rescue efforts were hampered by a “Rivalry between New York’s police and fire departments.” Their report said, “This rivalry has been acknowledged by every witness we have asked about it.” Americans needed cooperation, not competition on that gloomy day. We are at our best, when we set aside our own ambitions and throw all our efforts into the common good, instead of putting energy into unhealthy rivalries. Surely we must see how important this is for the church of the living God. In 1 Corinthians 1:10, Paul exhorted the believers. He said, “Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.”

J. L. Wilson says, in his sermon entitled better together, “I’m so glad that the Corinthian Church had this problem, because it allows us to have this beautiful teaching that Paul gives. Paul makes it clear that he and Apollos were partners not competitors in ministry. They are just doing their part in the Kingdom work, it is God, not them that gives the growth and is deserving of the glory. The verse that follows this explanation is precious. It says, “For we are God’s co-workers.” This is a very comforting truth for us all. We’re all in the same boat! We’re all in this together. We are much better, much happier, much more effective, and much more efficient if we expend our energies in cooperative efforts.