Thoughts for the Day

And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human?

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labour of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

I have worked in churches for over 60 years (well, I was 16 when I and a friend produced some drama in the local Methodist Church where I was to get married two years later), and I have noticed similarities over the years, whatever the denomination of the church. Some are lovely similarities, like the warm welcome that newcomers get, or the way congregations look after their elderly members or their children. However, some similarities are not so good. Congregations where rivalries or jealousies take place among groups, perhaps in a fellowship group or a choir. However, the one I struggled with was the Vicar who had left some years previously, who was regarded as perfect. I learnt to smile sweetly!

Paul, as we have seen, is writing to the church in Corinth about such petty divisions within their congregation. He has told them about those who are spiritual (pneuma) and who can understand spiritual truths, and those whose interests are in the physical (psuche) world and who are unable to understand spiritual truths. Now he declares that they are still at the physical stage of life, like infants in the faith. Their arguments over who taught them, whether it was Apollos or Paul, show their lack of understanding - for one may start a fellow Christian on their journey, and another help them to continue growing in faith.

Studies in faith development today lead us to believe that it takes a person five or six faith experiences before a person commits to becoming a Christian, each of these events would have played their part in building that faith. We may be brought to faith through the work of a parent or godparent, a particular priest or minister, but we only begin to really grow spiritually when we work together with other Christians in God's field.

Lord Jesus Christ,
help us to learn that being a Christian,
is about helping one another,
about worshipping together,
and about working in the world.
May we learn that each of us
has our part to play
in any way we can,
so that Your work may continue seamlessly.
Amen.