Grains in the Harvest

Paul tells us, “we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread (1 Cor. 10:17).” But for grain to be made into bread it must face threshing, milling, kneading, and fire. In ancient times cattle would trample the grain with a heavy wooden sledge, then it would be winnowed with a fan to blow all the chaff into the fire, then it would be ground between two millstones, then of course transformed––by water, yeast, kneading, proving, and finally baking––into bread.

You are grains in the harvest of God. But grains by themselves are quite useless. By God’s providence, various means of the Spirit’s purging flame works in us to unite us into one loaf, that we might be bread to the nations. When we join a local church body, we become mingled with that part of Christ’s body. Thus our duty is to join with the saints we are in community with, and walk alongside each other as the Lord threshes, mills, kneads, proves and bakes us into a loaf for the great fellowship meal of joy in the everlasting Kingdom of our God.