Spiritual Eating on our Path to New Jerusalem (7)

The Old Testament has multiple pictures of spiritual eating and the reality of this eating begins in the gospels. It continues in the epistles.

In 1 Corinthians 3:1 Paul speaks to them as “infants in Christ.” Therefore, he gave them spiritual milk to drink, not solid food. The goal of his work was that the believers in Corinth would grow in the Lord. In verse 3:6 he tells them, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.” Planting and watering are for growth but the growth itself only comes from God. For this the planted seeds and the water must be of God.

In 3:9 Paul continued “we are God’s fellow workers” cooperating with God for our spiritual growth. He then wrote “you are God’s cultivated land, God’s building.” In this picture, the growth is on the cultivated land, God’s farm, and the goal of the growth is the building of the Body of Christ.

This growth comes from God (3:6). This same fact is in Colossians 2:19, “holding the Head, out from whom all the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God.”

God in Himself is eternally perfect and complete; He has no need of growth. But He does need to grow in us. And we cooperate by “holding the Head,” Christ, so that we may receive the rich supply of life for our growth.

The growth and the building up are all for our arriving at New Jerusalem, a living, built up city which fully expresses the God who has grown in us.

Photo courtesy of pdphoto.org.

Posted by Don on March 16, 2026

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