What Does 1 Corinthians 3:9 Mean in the King James?
For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The same Greek word for work is hidden in “co-laborers” and “field”: the people working with God are also the ground being worked.
THE MEANING
You are part of a people working alongside God, and that people is also God’s field under cultivation and God’s building under construction. The verse holds participation and formation together: you take part in the work while also being shaped within it. Both images belong to God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that your place depends only on what you produce: the verse names the people as God’s field and building as well as God’s laborers.
THE ROOT
συνεργοί
synergoi
GROWS FROM
σύν + ἔργον (syn + ergon)
With + work; working together.
“labourers together” in this verse is synergoi. The word for work, ἔργον (ergon), is inside “co-laborers” and reappears in the word for God’s field. The verse joins working alongside God with being part of what God is working on.
ALSO GROWS
ergon: work, deed
ἔργον
This is the shared seed inside both “co-laborers” and “field,” linking the people’s labor with their cultivation.
synergeō: to work together, cooperate
συνεργέω
This branch carries the shared work of the verse beyond an individual task: the work happens together.
γεώργιον
geōrgion
GROWS FROM
γῆ + ἔργον (gē + ergon)
Land + work; ground being cultivated.
“husbandry” in this verse is geōrgion. The word pictures a field under cultivation, and its compound shares ἔργον (ergon, work) with “co-laborers.” The people are not pictured only as workers; they are also the field God tends.
ALSO GROWS
geōrgos: farmer, cultivator
γεωργός
In John 15:1, the same word names the one who tends the vine, making the care within this field image more visible.
geōrgeō: to cultivate, till the soil
γεωργέω
This branch makes the field an ongoing work of cultivation, not simply a plot of land.
οἰκοδομή
oikodomē
GROWS FROM
οἶκος + οἰκοδομέω (oikos + oikodomeō)
House + build; a structure being built or built up.
The Greek word can name a building and the work of building up. The people are not only doing work on God’s project; together they are the structure taking shape.
ALSO GROWS
oikodomeō: to build, build up
οἰκοδομέω
This verb keeps the image active: the people are being formed together as God’s building.
oikodomos: builder
οἰκοδόμος
The builder branch makes the construction image concrete and keeps the focus on the work that forms a structure.
THE PATTERN
In God’s work, the people who labor alongside God are also the people God cultivates and builds.
A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.THE THREAD
In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:The same Greek word, οἰκοδομή (oikodomē, building), appears here for the people being fitted together as God’s structure. The image opens the verse further: God’s building is a community growing together into a whole.
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