Thoughts from The Bible

Thoughts from the Bible

Monday, 03 March 2025 10:01

God-Given Ministry
by Sarah Wooten

Do you remember the story in Acts 16 where Paul, Silas, and Timothy were trying to go to Asia to preach the gospel? Despite their multiple attempts, the Holy Spirit would not allow it. They continued ministering in regions close to Asia (my guess would be waiting for an opportunity to go) until one night Paul received a vision. A Macedonian man was urging Paul to come. Paul concluded that God was telling them to preach to the Macedonians, so the missionary team immediately prepared to go. It was on this missionary journey that many churches were planted in the surrounding regions. Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth were a few of the cities where the gospel took root, and many people repented and followed Christ.

All Christians who are involved in ministry have a unique story about how God brought them to their place of service. For Paul, he was trying to do something good and share the gospel in an area that had not yet heard, but God had plans for him to go elsewhere. For myself, I have on more than one occasion been praying and waiting for an opportunity to serve, then one day God opened the door for me, to my complete and utter shock. But no matter the story, we have to realize that opportunities to serve and the outcomes of service are from God Himself. Paul writes, “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth,” (1 Corinthians 3:5-7, ESV).

I wrote last week how ministers of the Word should be regarded as servants. Servanthood implies a few things. Firstly, a servant does not work on his own accord. He acts on the commands of his master. In verses 5-6, Paul says that God assigned tasks to both Paul and Apollos. For Paul, he had a planting function, which meant that Paul evangelized. He laid the seeds of the gospel and saw many Corinthians saved. Apollos, on the other hand, did not have the same ministry in Corinth as Paul did. God assigned him a different task. He was to water the seeds. He was still preaching Christ, but his job was to define for the young believers how they were to live now that they believed in Christ. God had ministry waiting for both of these men in Corinth. But neither of them created the opportunity – it was given to them by God. Paul and Apollos were to faithfully walk through the tasks that God had assigned to each of them.

Secondly, it’s not just the opportunity that comes from God. Any spiritual growth that occurs is attributed to God. In Acts 17, Paul went to Athens in order to preach the gospel, but the people did not receive it. Instead, the majority of the Athenians mocked the idea of a resurrection. But after Athens, Paul went to Corinth, where many people believed. At this point, many people might say, “Well, Paul must have switched his methods from one city to the next. As he was walking to Corinth, he polished up his presentation and made it more palatable to the ancient Greeks.” But this isn’t what happened at all. Paul always preached the same message – Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That never changed. The difference between Athens and Corinth was that God was working in the lives of the Corinthians and preparing them to receive the gospel. There is no other explanation. Reread 1 Corinthians 3:6-7. God is the only One who can cause spiritual growth.

This is contrary to how many people minister today. With a good desire to see souls saved, many Christians make themselves busy. They don’t depend on God for opportunities to serve or for spiritual growth. Instead, they try to manufacture results by relying on hard work, new programs, and fancy ideas. They forget that they are the instruments that God is using to accomplish His work. It’s like if someone walked out of a football game and bragged on the performance of the ball instead of the players. The ball didn’t win the game. It had a role to play, but it’s the players who actually accomplished something. In a similar way, while ministers are the usual instrument that God uses to spread His gospel, they aren’t the ones who win souls. It’s all a work of God. Therefore, we should praise Him for it.