It is not everything that works that God approves.
No matter how fruitful you are, if you are not faithful you
are not successful. 2 Tim. 2:5
Ministry: 1 Cor. 3:5
What, after all, is Apollos?
And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord
has assigned to each his task.
NIV
Note the word “assigned”—ministry has to do with an
assignment. It is simply an assignment, a task that the Lord has given a person
to do. Each one simply does the work which the Lord gives him to do.
1 Cor. 3:6-8
I 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. 8 The one who plants and the
one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to
their own labor.
In ministry, there are planters and there are waterers. The same
God who assigned Paul to plant, also appointed Apollos to water what was
planted.
Consider this: Is it possible for Apollos to fulfill his
ministry if Paul has not planted? No. Suppose Paul said, “No, how can I plant
and another person will come, water it and get the credit for it?”
Apart from planting and watering, another person is also
appointed and assigned to reap. The man who reaps, comes home with many sheaves
that he did not know how they were planted, watered and weeded. People may
ignorantly rate him higher than the planter. If you do, you are offending God.
So ministry is not
competitive, but rather cooperative and complementary. What one man is
assigned to do may actually become the basic resource for another person to
carry out his own portion of the work. It is only the ‘ground’ that was ‘planted’
that can be ‘watered.’
Ministry is not an independent, exclusive property of an
individual, even if that individual has been used of God to start it. Some
people’s ministry begins only where some ended theirs. This is the basic principle to understand in order to tap God’s
resources for ministry.
God’s assessment of a man is not necessarily in terms of
quantity of activities. It is how faithfully he does what he is told to do even
if it is a routine without excitement.
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