All Things Are Yours
What belongs to the believer.
1 Corinthians 3:21-23 (ESV):
“So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.”
1 Corinthians 3:21–23 declares a stunning truth: “All things are yours.” But what does that really mean for us today? At first glance, it might sound like a call to boast in spiritual leaders or claim ownership over earthly things. Yet this passage runs much deeper—it reminds us that as believers united with Christ, we share in a rich inheritance that stretches far beyond ourselves. We have been given the keys to the universe.
This inheritance includes not only the teachings of apostles like Paul, Apollos, and Cephas but also the entire created order—mountains, rivers, stars, and even the imagination-stirring worlds of art and fiction. In Christ, the wisdom of the saints across history and the beauty of God’s creation belong to us by grace, not by merit.
Encountering the Verse Through Art and Theology
The first time I grasped the profound meaning of this passage was through Shai Linne’s Lyrical Theology—a Christian hip hop album where deep theological truths are conveyed through a powerful artistic form. While hip hop may not be everyone’s medium of choice, I have been richly blessed by Linne’s ministry and his faithful expounding of Scripture.
Two tracks that faithfully expound on this theme are “All Things Are Yours Interlude” and “Take Up and Read.”
Core Truth
At the heart of this passage lies the truth that because we are united to Christ, alongside all the saints of old and new, and because all truth is God’s truth, the knowledge gleaned from Scripture and the witness of the saints throughout history belongs to us as believers.
This world, in its fullness, belongs to our great God and King. We are united with “all who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Insert reference: Romans 10:13 or Acts 2:21 would fit here.)
The Saints and Teachers Belong to Us
In the short interlude, Shai Linne enumerates spiritual giants whose teachings and legacies belong to believers:
Moses
David
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Paul
John
Peter
James
John Wycliffe
Martin Luther
John Calvin
Ulrich Zwingli
John Bunyan
John Owen
Richard Baxter
Jonathan Edwards
George Whitefield
John Wesley
William Cowper
Thomas Watson
Augustus Toplady
Charles H. Spurgeon
B. B. Warfield
Dorothy Sayers
Fanny Crosby
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
J. I. Packer
Louis Berkhof
James P. Boyce
R. C. Sproul
John Piper
Michael Horton
Miguel Núñez
The Subcreation of the Saints: Art and Imagination
J.R.R. Tolkien, in his essay On Fairy Stories and his various writings, presents the concept of subcreation: humans, made in the image of the Creator, are called to create art and stories that reflect God’s truth and beauty.
Similarly, Jessica Hooten Wilson, in Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints, argues that holiness is modeled and imitated through stories. She writes, “We cannot concoct holiness on our own, decide what it looks like without examples, or try to become holy without other people. The goal is to be remade into God’s likeness, and we do so by imitating models of holiness. When we read stories of holiness, we live vicariously through those stories, then we embody them in our reality. The models become part of our imagination, our way of seeing how to live a holy life.”
For me, these models span a wide range—from Dostoevsky’s Father Zosima, to Walker Percy’s Father Smith, to Willa Cather’s Archbishop Latour, to Toni Morrison’s Baby Suggs.
As Christians, we possess not only the lives and writings of saints but also the subcreations of the saints. So, while “Paul is mine,” “Moses is mine,” “Piper is mine,” and “Luther is mine,” we can also say:
“Gandalf is mine, Frodo is mine, Alyosha is mine, Father Brown is mine, Aslan is mine, Elwin Ransom is mine.”
C.S. Lewis, in his spiritual autobiography, expressed the need for our imaginations to be baptized. He wrote:
“I do not think the resemblance between Christian and the merely imaginative experience is accidental. I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least. ‘Reflect’ is the important word. This lower life of the imagination is not a beginning of, nor a step toward, the higher life of the spirit, merely an image.”
Lewis also described the contrast within his own mind as a young man:
“The two hemispheres of my mind were in the sharpest contrast. On the one side, a many-islanded sea of poetry and myth; on the other, a glib and shallow rationalism. Nearly all that I loved I believed to be imaginary; nearly all that I believed to be real I thought grim and meaningless.”
As Christians, we often fall into the error of thinking that our faith belongs to the realm of dull and boring facts of this world, when in reality, our entire world is wonderful. As G.K. Chesterton puts it, “There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.” Our universe is a beautiful and magical creation of a loving and wonderful Creator. He has given us the gifts of imagination and creativity to help us know Him—not just with facts in our minds, but deeply within the depths of our hearts.
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan explains to the children that he brought them to Narnia “that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” By knowing Aslan in fiction, you can learn more about Jesus in reality.
United with Christ: Dominion and Authority
Matthew 28:18 says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” As believers united with Jesus, we share in His authority, both now and in the age to come. Paul later teaches that in the new heaven and new earth, we will reign with Christ and even judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:2-3).
Created in God’s image, humans were given dominion to create, organize, and cultivate (Genesis 1:26-28). Though this mandate has been marred by the Fall, it has not been revoked. There will come a day when this dominion is restored fully. Like Peter, Edmund, Lucy, and Susan who ruled Narnia under Aslan’s authority, we will reign as kings and queens united with the King of kings.
Our unity with Christ means that the mountains we see, the rivers that inspire awe, the deep truths of theology we glean, the fiction that stirs our hearts, and the galaxies billions of lightyears away that cause us to look up in wonder—all now belong to us in Christ. Not because we earned them, but by the free gift of grace. This means we have the privilege of enjoying them with humility and in unity with the body of Christ.
All Things Are Yours: Teaching, Creation, and the Future
The teachings of the apostles and the saints, the creations of this world, and all of creation itself belong to us in Christ. While the Fall has distorted our ability to build and create perfectly—and great evils have manipulated creation—this does not mean creation’s goodness will be undone.
Rather, all that is good, noble, and true will endure. J.R.R. Tolkien’s short story Leaf by Niggle beautifully illustrates this hope. Niggle, after dying, arrives in paradise and finds that the tree he painted and the world behind it have become real—affirming that truths found in fiction and imagination carry eternal weight.
Conclusion
1 Corinthians 3:21–23 is a sweeping declaration of the believer’s inheritance in Christ: not only the spiritual truths taught by Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, but the entire created order, life and death, present and future—all things belong to us because we belong to Christ. This includes the wisdom of the saints, the richness of God’s Word, the beauty of holy art, and the hope of renewal in the new creation.
Our calling is to embrace this inheritance, to steward creation wisely, to learn deeply from the cloud of witnesses before us, and to let our imaginations be shaped and sanctified by the truths of God’s kingdom. All things are yours—now and forever, through Christ.