A Reflection on 1 Corinthians 4:6–7
1 Corinthians 4:6–7 (ESV)
6 I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. 7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
Reflection
Paul is still dealing with the same problem that has been running through this letter: division, pride, and the tendency to elevate men instead of Christ. The Corinthians had attached themselves to Paul, Apollos, and other teachers as though following the right person gave them some kind of spiritual advantage. Paul has spent the previous chapters reminding them that these men are servants, stewards, and workers. They aren’t the source of the growth. They aren’t the foundation. They aren’t the ones worthy of boasting. Now Paul brings the argument down to something even more personal. What makes you different from someone else? What do you have that you didn’t receive? If everything you have is something that was given to you, why do you boast as though you created it yourself?
That question reaches far beyond the Corinthians. It reaches me. It reaches anyone who has ever looked at something God has done through their life and quietly started believing that they had something to do with being worthy of it. We receive everything. Our salvation is received. Our gifts are received. Our opportunities are received. Our abilities, relationships, influence, resources, creativity, intelligence, and even the breath in our lungs are received. We don’t manufacture the raw material of our lives. God gives it to us, and then He asks us what we will do with it. That changes the way I have to look at ministry because it means I can’t really boast in what I am building. If something good comes from what I do, the glory ultimately belongs to the One who gave me the ability to do it in the first place.
The problem is that I can know all of that intellectually and still struggle with it in practice. I enjoy listening to podcasts and preachers and speakers who speak truth. There are people whose ministries have influenced me deeply, and I can learn from the way they communicate, lead, teach, and reach people. But because I create content myself, there is another temptation that can creep into that process. I can start thinking about influence. I can start thinking about followers. I can start wondering what my content could become, how many people might hear it, what kind of reach it could have, or what God might do with it. None of those things are necessarily wrong. In fact, some of them may be part of what God is calling me toward. The problem comes when the fruit becomes more important than the faithfulness that produces it.
I can say I’m creating content for the glory of God and still allow my humanity to get in the way. I can begin with the right intention and slowly become distracted by numbers, comparison, recognition, or the desire to be seen. My flesh doesn’t need much encouragement to start looking sideways. I see what someone else is doing and suddenly what God has given me doesn’t seem like enough. I see their studio, their equipment, their audience, their production quality, their opportunities, and I start imagining that if I just had what they had, maybe I could produce something better. Maybe then the ministry would really take off. Maybe then I would finally be organized enough. Maybe then I would finally be ready.
That brings me to something that has been bothering me more than I would like to admit. I’m getting impatient about getting a new studio setup. I keep thinking about moving the desk and the computer and reorganizing everything so I can create better content. And I have to ask myself why. Is it because the current setup genuinely prevents me from doing what God has called me to do? Or am I believing that the right environment will somehow make me the person I want to become? Do I really need a different room to be faithful? Am I actually being held back by my surroundings, or am I simply dissatisfied with the ordinary place where God has currently asked me to work? Maybe I think I’ll be more productive when everything is organized, more creative when the equipment is right, more focused when the studio looks the way I imagine it should look. But what if God is asking me to meet with Him right where I am?
I keep coming back to a phrase that feels almost too simple: faithfulness precedes fruitfulness. I want the fruit. I want to see people encouraged. I want men to hear the Gospel. I want people to find freedom in Christ. I want the podcast to reach people who need to hear someone’s story. I want the ministry to grow. I want to create good content that points people toward Jesus. I want to see the things I’ve been dreaming about actually become real. There is nothing wrong with wanting those things if they are surrendered to Christ. But fruitfulness isn’t something I can manufacture. I can plant. I can water. I can work. I can prepare. I can show up. But God gives the growth. My responsibility is faithfulness.
Maybe that is what this season has been about.
I’ve written before about feeling like I’ve been in a dry spell. A season where I haven’t seen the kind of fruit I expected to see. I have looked around and wondered if anything is actually happening. But maybe the fruit was there and I simply didn’t recognize it because it didn’t look like the fruit I was expecting. Maybe some seasons are not for harvesting. Maybe some seasons are for growing roots. Some seasons are for planting. Some are for pruning. Some are for preparing the ground. Some are for allowing things that need to die to finally die. We tend to celebrate the seasons where things are visibly growing, but we don’t always appreciate what God is doing when nothing seems to be happening.
I think that’s where my impatience comes from. I can feel something changing. There is a longing in me for something different. There are things from previous seasons that I miss, and there are hopes and dreams that I believe may be coming back in a different form. I can sense the possibility of a shift. I can see pieces of what could be next, and part of me wants to run toward it. I want to get the studio set up. I want to create. I want to produce. I want to move. I want to see fruit. But before I run into the next season, I have to ask whether I have learned what I was supposed to learn in this one.
Have I learned everything I needed to learn in the desert? Have the things that needed to die actually died? Have I become more dependent on God, or have I simply become better at surviving without Him? Have I prepared for the promised land, or am I just excited to leave the wilderness? Those are very different things. It is possible to be so ready for the next season that we fail to allow the current season to finish its work in us.
And then there is the question I don’t really want to avoid: What am I actually trying to build?
I can tell myself that I want influence because I want to help people. I can tell myself that I want better content because I want more people to hear the Gospel. I can tell myself that I want to create a space where men can find encouragement and move toward Christ. I believe those things are genuinely in my heart. But there is still another question underneath them. If nobody ever noticed, would I still do it? If the follower count never changed, would I still make the episode? If the room never became the studio I imagined, would I still sit down and open my Bible? If the ministry never became what I think it could become, would Jesus still be enough?
That is where Paul gets to the heart of pride. The issue isn’t simply whether we accomplish something. The issue is whether we remember where it came from. “What do you have that you did not receive?” Everything I have came from somewhere outside myself. So why am I acting like the owner? Why do I get frustrated when the fruit doesn’t come on my timeline? Why do I compare my work to someone else’s? Why do I think the next thing will finally make me feel like I’ve arrived? Maybe because somewhere along the way I have started looking at the fruit instead of looking at the Vine.
Christ has to remain at the center.
Good content without Christ is still just content. Influence without Christ can become vanity. Ministry without Christ becomes performance. A beautiful studio without Christ is just a room. A growing audience without Christ is simply a larger audience. Even success in Christian ministry can become a distraction if the ministry itself becomes more important than the Savior it was created to proclaim.
That is what scares me.
Not failure.
Success without Christ.
Because I can imagine failing and knowing I need Jesus. But what happens if things begin to work? What happens if people start listening? What happens if the ministry grows? What happens if the dreams actually become reality? Will I still remember that I received everything? Will I still know that I am simply a steward? Will I still be willing to get low, serve people, listen, repent, and do the small things nobody sees?
I want to say yes.
But I know myself well enough to know that I need Jesus to make that yes true.
Maybe that is why faithfulness matters so much. Faithfulness isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t always produce immediate results. Nobody may notice. It may look like recording an episode when only a handful of people listen. It may look like answering a message from a man who needs encouragement. It may look like sitting with my wife and actually listening instead of thinking about the next project. It may look like opening my Bible when I don’t have anything profound to say afterward. It may look like leaving the studio exactly where it is and doing the work anyway.
The small things matter because the small things reveal where my heart is.
And maybe the studio isn’t the problem.
Maybe I’m waiting for a new environment to give me the discipline I haven’t practiced in the old one.
Maybe I’m waiting for fruit when God is asking me for faithfulness.
Maybe I’m waiting for a promised land when He is still teaching me how to walk through the wilderness.
I don’t know exactly what this next season will look like. I don’t know what will grow, what will change, what will succeed, or what will fail. I don’t know how many people will listen or whether the things I am dreaming about will ever become what I imagine. But I do know that I don’t want to spend this season staring at the harvest while neglecting the field.
I want to be faithful.
I want to keep showing up.
I want to do the mundane work.
I want to prepare without trying to control the outcome.
I want to create without needing applause.
I want to serve without needing to be seen.
I want to pursue the things God has placed on my heart without turning those things into idols.
And when the fruit comes, I want to remember who gave it.
Maybe that is the preparation I need most before entering whatever comes next. Not a better studio. Not more equipment. Not a bigger audience. Not a better plan.
A heart that is surrendered enough to say, “Papa, whatever You give me, whatever You take away, whatever season I’m in, I want You more than I want the fruit.”
Because where else would I go?
You are there.
Why do I want to go to the promised land?
Because You are there.
And if I can keep my eyes on You, then maybe I don’t have to be afraid of what the next season holds.
A Prayer for Today
Papa,
How easily I lose sight of You in the middle of everything I’m trying to do for You. I can take something that began with a desire to serve You and slowly make it about me. I can think about followers, influence, better equipment, better content, and bigger opportunities until I forget that none of those things are the reason I started. I started because I love You. I started because I want people to know You. I started because I want to help men find their way toward Christ. Please don’t let my flesh take something that belongs to You and make it about me.
Help me be faithful where I am.
Help me stop believing that the next thing will finally make me ready. If I need a new studio, provide it. If I need to move things around, show me. But don’t let me use my circumstances as an excuse to avoid the work You have already placed in front of me. Teach me to meet with You right where I am. Teach me to create right where I am. Teach me to serve right where I am. Teach me to be faithful in the small things before I start asking You for the bigger things.
Papa, I know You work in seasons. I know some seasons produce visible fruit and others seem dry. I don’t want to despise the dry season because I don’t see what I expected to see. Show me what You have been growing underneath the surface. Show me what needed to die. Show me what needed to take root. Show me what You have been preparing in me while I was busy wondering when the season would change.
If You are bringing me into something new, prepare me for it.
If there are giants waiting in the promised land, teach me to trust You before I meet them. If there is criticism, give me grace to endure it. If there is persecution, give me strength to remain faithful. If there is success, give me humility. If there is influence, keep me close to You. If there is fruit, remind me that it was never mine to begin with.
I don’t want the fruit more than I want You.
I don’t want the platform more than I want Your presence.
I don’t want the promised land more than I want the God who is leading me there.
So keep my eyes on You.
Help me seek Your face while I help the people around me find Yours.
Teach me faithfulness before fruitfulness.
And when the season changes, let me walk into it surrendered, obedient, and ready.
I’m here.
Let’s go together.
Amen.
Reflection Questions
- Where have you started focusing more on the fruit you hope to produce than on being faithful with what God has placed in front of you today?
- What are you currently waiting for that you may be using as an excuse to postpone obedience?
- If nobody noticed your work, ministry, content, or service, what would you still be willing to faithfully do for Jesus?
- What might God have been growing in you during a season where you thought nothing was happening?
- Have you become more excited about what God might do through you than about simply being with God Himself?
- What would it look like to enter your next season without demanding that God make it look like the seasons you’ve experienced before?
- If God gave you the influence, fruit, or opportunities you’ve been praying for, what would need to change in your heart so that Christ remained at the center?
Final Thought
I don’t think I’m being asked to stop dreaming.
I don’t think I’m being asked to stop building, creating, planning, or believing that God has something ahead.
I think I’m being asked to stop believing that the next thing is what will make me fruitful.
Maybe the desk doesn’t need to move yet.
Maybe the studio doesn’t need to be perfect.
Maybe the audience doesn’t need to grow today.
Maybe I just need to sit down, open the Word, listen for His voice, and do the work He has already given me.
The fruit belongs to God.
The faithfulness belongs to me.
And wherever the next season takes me, I want to arrive there having learned one thing well:
I would rather walk through a desert with Jesus than enter a promised land without Him.