Painting: "Wheatfield at Auvers under Clouded Sky", Vincent van Gogh at Auvers-sur-Oise, France.

We have been studying Paul's first letter to the Corinthians in my Sunday School class and I been struck by the use of metaphors employed by Paul, especially in Chapter 3. 

One of these is "field" where Paul refers to the early Christan community in Corinth as a "field" where he "planted the seed" and Apollos (another teacher in Corinth) "watered. " What Paul wants to make clear, however, it is only God who makes the seeds grow.

"So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow." - 1 Corinthians 3:7

Photo; Great Harvest.

In Corinthians, Paul is focused on the role of teachers but I think this verse also speaks to us each as the field. It is up to each one of us to keep our own fields open and well maintained so they are able to capture and nurture seeds that fall on it.  As in the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8:6-15), the seed that falls on rocky ground may fall away in times of testing and the seed that falls on thorny ground can become choked by life's worries but the seed that falls on good soil will rise and yield a crop a hundred times more than was sown.