The Role of God’s Servants

I was pondering about how Christian pastors in third world countries or communist countries have little or no access to commentaries or biblical study tools, but only have the scriptures, and sometimes not even that. Concerning a believer’s work with God, Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth (1 Cor. 3: 6-7).

The one thing that believers do have in these countries where they do not have access to other teaching or to commentaries, is that they have God’s word and God’s Spirit, and they are often much more reliant on prayer. “It is God who gives the growth.” When we, with our fancy commentaries and laptops that have Bible programs with maps, illustrations, devotions and so on, tend to rely more on our skill and message layout. But God even tells us in chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians, “God has chosen the world’s weak things to shame the strong. God has chosen the world’s insignificant and despised things – the things viewed as nothing – so He might bring to nothing the things that are viewed as something” (1:27b,28) When we truly seek the LORD in prayer, He is the one who gives the growth to our ministries. Oswald Chambers said something to the effect that “Prayer is not preceding the work of God, Prayer IS the work.”