Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [1 Corinthians: Chapter 3].
sun, the rains, the seasons the farmer is helpless. {God's
building} (\theou oikodom•\). God is the Great Architect. We work
under him and carry out the plans of the Architect. It is
building (\oikos\, house, \dem•\, to build). Let us never forget
that God sees and cares what we do in the part of the building
where we work for him.
3:10 {As a wise masterbuilder} (\h•s sophos architekt•n\). Paul
does not shirk his share in the work at Corinth with all the sad
outcome there. He absolves Apollos from responsibility for the
divisions. He denies that he himself is to blame. In doing so he
has to praise himself because the Judaizers who fomented the
trouble at Corinth had directly blamed Paul. It is not always
wise for a preacher to defend himself against attack, but it is
sometimes necessary. Factions in the church were now a fact and
Paul went to the bottom of the matter. God gave Paul the grace to
do what he did. This is the only New Testament example of the old
and common word \architekt•n\, our architect. \Tekt•n\ is from
\tikt•\, to beget, and means a begetter, then a worker in wood or
stone, a carpenter or mason (Mt 13:55; Mr 6:3). \Archi-\ is an
old inseparable prefix like \archaggelos\ (archangel),
\archepiscopos\ (archbishop), \archiereus\ (chiefpriest).
\Architekt•n\ occurs in the papyri and inscriptions in an even
wider sense than our use of architect, sometimes of the chief
engineers. But Paul means to claim primacy as pastor of the
church in Corinth as is true of every pastor who is the architect
of the whole church life and work. All the workmen (\tektones\,
carpenters) work under the direction of the architect (Plato,
_Statesman_, 259). "As a wise architect I laid a foundation"
(\themelion eth•ka\). Much depends on the wisdom of the architect
in laying the foundation. This is the technical phrase (Lu 6:48;
14:29), a cognate accusative for \themelion\. The substantive
\themelion\ is from the same root \the\ as \eth•ka\ (\ti-th•mi\).
We cannot neatly reproduce the idiom in English. "I placed a
placing" does only moderately well. Paul refers directly to the
events described by Luke in Ac 18:1-18. The aorist \eth•ka\ is
the correct text, not the perfect \tetheika\. {Another buildeth
thereon} (\allos epoikodomei\). Note the preposition \epi\ with
the verb each time (10,11,12,14). The successor to Paul did not
have to lay a new foundation, but only to go on building on that
already laid. It is a pity when the new pastor has to dig up the
foundation and start all over again as if an earthquake had come.
{Take heed how he buildeth thereon} (\blepet• p•s epoikodomei\).
http://www.ccel.org/r/robertson_at/wordpictures/htm/1CO3.RWP.html (4 of 10) [28/08/2004 09:11:04 a.m.]