Sowing and Reaping

The same task, the same reward

Check out these two passages:

John 4:35-38:

Don’t you say, ‘There are four more months and then comes the harvest?’ I tell you, look up and see that the fields are already white for harvest! The one who reaps receives pay and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who reaps can rejoice together. For in this instance the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you did not work for; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.

1 Corinthians 3:7-8

So neither the one who plants counts for anything, nor the one who waters, but God who causes the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters work as one, but each will receive his reward according to his work.

The words for pay and reward are the same Greek word in these passages. Some translations use the word ‘wages’.¹

There are some great insights when we take these passages together, almost as if the Holy Spirit authored them both. :)

• There are times when the fields are ready for harvest. Jesus was saying this to the disciples: “Right here, right now, in Samaria, there is a big harvest to take in.”

• Sowing and reaping both contribute to the same work: New lives for the kingdom.

• God is the main worker and the big deal here. The sower, planter, and waterer don’t actually matter.

• We may get the benefit of reaping where we did not sow. Or we may have the task of sowing where we will not reap.

  • The first requires humility: It’s not you, it’s God at work through previous sowers.

  • The second requires perseverance: You don’t get to quit at your task when the job gets tough.

• The pay/reward/wages from the Lord are not related to the harvest of new believers we see. I realize that sounds weird to say, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we sometimes think that way.

• Our pay/reward/wages are based on this: Did we do the work the Lord gave us to do? Whether it was sowing, reaping or watering… Did we do it?

Those are my insights. What would you add?

1. The NET Version, which I use for online study, has a footnote for both words. In the John passage, it notes it could mean “reward” and in 1 Corinthians it says it could mean wages.