Wednesday, October 29, 2008

A Life's Labour

Colossians 1:29 KJV
Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.

Twice in this passage Paul is said to work and twice in this passage God is said to work. Thus the balance between what only God can do and what God expects us to do.

The work that Paul did was preaching and teaching in order to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
Gill says of the labour that it means, " In the word and doctrine, by preaching Christ, warning sinners of their danger, teaching them the way of salvation, and their duty..." and of striving that it means, "...in his prayers, earnestly entreating of God that he would succeed his labours, and bless them to the conversion of many..."

The scope of Paul's work was inexhaustible.
That he says "every man" indicates the scope of the labor and strivings. Paul was not satisfied with anything less than all. Sense we know that he did not win every man to Christ, his work must have left him, as the Greek word for labor implies, fatigued. His work would have never been done. He could never have claimed he had won them all, and when he had won them he certainly could not claim that they were perfect in Christ Jesus.

The fuel for Paul's work was God Himself
He saw the work he did as being the work that God was doing in himself.
A setback in the ministry would be considered a lesson from God to perfect Paul
A victory in the ministry would be the obvious blessing of God upon those whose lives were touched by God through Paul

In other words, everything that happened, both pleasant and not so was God working mightily in him both to his own growth and to the growth of others.

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