1 Corinthians 3:9

Having said above: "I planted," he continues the comparison, and calls them a field. If you are a field and a building, then you should be called by the name of the Master, and not of the plowmen or builders, and, as a field, you …

For we are all fellowlabourers - God's labourers, and fellowlabourers with each other. Ye are God's husbandry - This is the sum of what went before: it is a comprehensive word, taking in both a field, a garden, and a vineyard.

Every Christian is a living temple of the living God. God dwelt in the Jewish temple, took possession of it, and resided in it, by that glorious cloud that was the token of his presence with that people. So Christ by his Spirit dwells in all true believers.

For we are labourers together with God,....

For we are labourers together with God - Θεοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν συνεργοί Theou gar esmen sunergoi. We are God’s co-workers. A similar expression occurs in 2Co 6:1, “We then as workers together with him,” etc. This passage is capable of two significations: first, as in our translation, that they were co-workers with God; engaged with him in his work, that he and they cooperated in the production of the effect; or that it was a joint-work; as we speak of a partnercy, or of joint-effort among people. So many interpreters have understood this.

Translate, as the Greek collocation of words, and the emphasis on "God" thrice repeated, requires, "For (in proof that "each shall receive reward according to his own labor," namely, from God) it is of God that we are the fellow workers (laboring with, but under, and belonging to Him as His servants, 2Co 5:20;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens+odd-straight-quotes

IN all ages since the Fall there has been a tendency in the human heart to forget God and get away from Him. Idolatry has been the sin of all nations, including God's favored people, the Jews, and including certain persons who call themselves Christians who still make idols out of crosses and images. This vicious principle of ignoring God and setting up something between our minds and our Creator crops up everywhere and in every department of thought. When men study the works of God in Nature, they often hang up a veil to hide the great Worker.

IN all ages since the Fall there has been a tendency in the human heart to forget God and get away from Him. Idolatry has been the sin of all nations, including God's favored people, the Jews, and including certain persons who call themselves Christians who still make idols out of crosses and images. This vicious principle of ignoring God and setting up something between our minds and our Creator crops up everywhere and in every department of thought. When men study the works of God in Nature, they often hang up a veil to hide the great Worker. Because God acts in a certain way they call His method of action a Law and straightway they speak of these Laws as if they were forces and powers in and of themselves and thus God is banished out of His own universe and His place is taken up in the scientific world by idols called, "natural laws." Take the region of Providence and here you find persons, instead of seeing the hand of God everywhere, looking to second causes. They are seeking causes of prosperity and becoming very despondent if they do not appear to exist; or viewing the agents of affliction and becoming angry against them, instead of bowing before the God who has used them for correction. It is easy to make idols out of second causes and to forget the God who is everywhere present, causing all things to work together for good. That this evil principle should intrude into the Church is very sad and yet it is with difficulty excluded. You may bar all your doors as fast as you please, but the idol-makers will come in with their shrines. In the instance of the Church at Corinth, Paul found the Brethren forgetting their God and Savior in their high esteem for certain preachers.

For we are laborers together with God - We do nothing of ourselves, nor in reference to ourselves; we labor together in that work which God has given us to do, expect all our success from him, and refer the whole to his glory. It would perhaps be more correct to translate Θεου γαρ εσμεν συνεργοι, we are fellow laborers of God; for, as the preposition συν may express the joint labor of the teachers one with another, and not with God, I had rather, with Bishop Pearce, translate as above: i.e. we labor together in the work of God. Far from being divided among ourselves, we jointly labor, as oxen in the same yoke, to promote the honor of our Master. Ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building - Θεου γεωργιον, Θεου οικοδομη εστε· The word γεωργιον, which we translate husbandry, signifies properly an arable field; so Pro 24:30: I went by the Field, γεωργιον, of the slothful; and Pro 31:16: The wise woman considereth a Field, γεωργιον, and buyeth it. It would be more literal to translate it, Ye are God’s farm: γεωργιον in Greek answers to שדה sadeh in Hebrew, which signifies properly a sown field. Ye are God’s building. - Ye are not only the field which God cultivates, but ye are the house which God builds, and in which he intends to dwell. As no man in viewing a fine building extols the quarryman that dug up the stones, the hewer that cut and squared them, the mason that placed them in the wall, the woodman that hewed down the timber, the carpenter that squared and jointed it, etc., but the architect who planned it, and under whose direction the whole work was accomplished; so no man should consider Paul, or Apollos, or Kephas, any thing, but as persons employed by the great Architect to form a building which is to become a habitation of himself through the Spirit, and the design of which is entirely his own.