Who then is Apollos, and who Paul? Ministering servants, through whom ye have believed, and as the Lord has given to each.
The Corinthians had lined up behind their favourite preachers. Paul does not defend his own standing. He asks what he and Apollos really are. His answer — servants, and only what the Lord gave them — changes how we think about gifted people in the church.
Paul did not name the men the Corinthians were following. He used his own name and Apollos's instead.
The apostle was grieved to the heart over the state of things in Corinth. The Spirit led him to rebuke the saints there. Their self-will and their foolish personal preferences were destroying their unity. To be able to speak more plainly, and even vehemently, he transferred these things in a figure to himself and to Apollos. He could not well ask, "Who is this leader or that?" — people would charge him with envy. But he could ask, "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed?" and stir up no opposition.
The problem goes deeper than admiring the wrong man. Boasting in any man grows from the same root as self-importance.
Boasting in men, however blessed they may be, belongs to the flesh, just as much as self-assertion does. Both are shoots off the same tree. Some men are set up as heads of schools. How could they accept such a false position, for themselves or for their followers, if their eye is single to Christ? And if it is not, can they be trusted?
Paul answers with a word of service, not of rank. It takes back the position the Corinthians had given these men.
First, the Apostle asks, "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos?" The Corinthian assembly had been lifting these gifted men into the false position of party leaders. Yet they were, after all, only "ministering servants" by whom the Corinthians had believed.
This does not sideline the servant. It puts the honour where it belongs and puts the message to the test.
When someone sends a messenger with a message, it is most unfitting to give the messenger a place of high honour. Respect him for his message, and weigh his message with care. Do not give him the honour that belongs only to his master. Check his message closely: is it simply and only the word of the master, faithfully given?
Paul says the Corinthians believed through these men. Their faith came by these servants, but it rests somewhere else. That one word separates two kinds of ministry.
This true-hearted faithful servant of Christ sought only to bring the souls of his hearers into direct personal contact with God Himself. He did not seek to link them to Paul. "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed." The aim of all false ministry is to attach souls to itself. So the minister is exalted, God is shut out, and the soul has no divine foundation to rest on. True ministry, as seen in Paul and Moses, has one blessed aim: to attach the soul to God. Then the minister gets his true place — simply an instrument; God is exalted; and the soul is settled on a sure foundation that can never be moved.
Paul does not flatten the servants into sameness. He traces the difference back to the Giver. That leaves no ground for comparison.
Was there no difference, then, between Paul and Apollos? As the Lord gave to each. What room is there for boasting about men? Why not boast in the Lord who gave to each? They had thought little about this. Grace unites. Flesh divides and scatters — flesh taken up with this man or that, sometimes, as here, unable to find anything except in its favourites... The fact is that the Lord gives in different ways, nothing that is not good for building up, nothing in vain. It is not His way to form a class of labourers all alike, but to work differently through each one.
A gift from the Lord is not the same as the natural ability of the person who carries it.
Notice the difference between the spiritual gift and the natural capacity of the person... The gifts differed in measure (compare 1 Cor. 3:5), and they were related to natural capacity. For instance, where the Lord makes a man an evangelist, he will be able to address an audience and not have to write out his sermon. But no cultivating of natural ability could turn it into a gift from Christ.
- Servants, not centres. Corinth made its teachers into party leaders. They were only servants through whom people believed.
- Given, not achieved. Each man had only what the Lord assigned to him. No amount of training turns natural ability into a gift from Christ.
- Through, not in. Faith came by their preaching, but it rests on God. Ministry that ties souls to itself leaves them with no foundation.
- Difference without rivalry. The Lord works through each servant in a different way. Ranking favourites throws away the variety He gave.
- Honour the message. Respect the messenger for his message. Test whether it is his Master's word. Keep for the Master the honour that is His alone.
*I* have planted; Apollos watered; but God has given the increase.
Corinth had split into rival groups, each named after a favourite preacher. Paul answers with a picture from farming: one man plants, another waters, and neither can make anything live. So what is a servant worth, and who produces the result?
(Older translations say "gave the increase" where the ESV says "gave the growth." The quotes below use the older wording.)
Paul is not giving a gentle lesson on teamwork. He is pulling down the habit of gathering a following around a man.
Boasting in men, however blessed those men may be, comes from the flesh, just as much as pushing yourself forward does. The two are branches of the same tree. How could men who are set up as heads of schools accept such a false position, for themselves or for their followers, if their eye is truly fixed on Christ alone? And if it is not, can they be trusted? … Grace unites. Flesh divides and scatters.
The verse uses two verbs, not one. Planting and watering are different jobs.
Third, not all of these servants had the same service. In a field, one man plants and another tends the plants, but God alone can make the plants grow. So in the Lord's service, God may use Paul to win converts and Apollos to care for the converts, but God alone can give life and spiritual growth.
The word "but" in the verse is a hard stop. You can measure effort and skill. No one can manufacture the result.
God does His own work. He chooses and equips His workers as He wills. If Paul plants or Apollos waters, the work of both is in the power of the One who has given to each, and the increase comes from His sovereign will. So boasting has no place in the work of ministry, just as it has no place in the faith that justifies a sinner. Neither the planter nor the waterer is anything, for both might labour and the result be a blight instead of a blessing.
If God gives the growth, then serving Him is an honour that carries no credit.
We must always keep in mind that God is the doer of the works done on the earth. If He is pleased to use us, let us never forget that we are only instruments, as helpless and powerless as a poker. No doubt we have enjoyment in the work; but we are not dealing now with the question of enjoyment, but of ability. If any real work is done, God is the doer of it. To Him be all the glory.
This is why Paul answers a question about himself by disappearing from it.
Paul hides himself. He had received great revelations from the Lord, and he had a wide range of knowledge. Yet the moment he sees the spirit of setting Paul up creeping in, he says, "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase." … If he had put himself forward, Christ would not have been seen.
The Corinthians set Paul and Apollos against each other. The verse has them working the same field, one after the other.
Paul's founding of the church at Corinth certainly involved hard work and struggle. Apollos would not have watered it with the refreshing ministry of the Word without serious spiritual effort. But they were both servants of one Master. They were united in their labours, not rivals, as the factions at Corinth would make them. And the Corinthians were not told to reward them according to their own estimate of their value. God would do this, according to their labour, after their labour was finished.
A farmer who leaves the growth to God must also accept God's timing.
Let us cast the seed into the ground and leave the increase to God, who alone can give it. Like the farmer, let us wait patiently for the early rain and the latter rain. It is no use poking the seed with a revival stick. The word of God will never take root that way.
- Plant — Paul's labour was real. The verse never belittles the work, only the claim attached to it.
- Water — Apollos did a different job on the same field. That makes the two men colleagues in turn, not rivals to rank.
- But — one small word breaks the chain. Both men could labour and still get a blight, because growth is not in the worker's hands.
- God — He chooses His servants, equips them, and gives the increase. So boasting has no place in ministry, and none in the faith that justifies.
- Increase — the harvest is His to give and the reward His to judge. That frees the worker to wait, and to stay out of sight so that Christ is seen.
So that neither the planter is anything, nor the waterer; but God the giver of the increase.
Paul has just called himself and Apollos farmhands in a field, and now he gives the result: the workers are nothing, and God is everything. Behind it lies a crisis at Corinth, where believers were forming fan clubs around their favourite preachers. (The quotations below say "increase" where the ESV says "growth.")
Paul is not being modest for its own sake. He is treating a sickness in the church. Believers had grouped themselves around their favourite teachers.
Paul found it unbearable — a heartbreaking sorrow, we might say — that a servant's name should come between the Lord and His people. It did not matter how distinguished that servant was.
What drew them to these men was talent, and that was the mistake.
They were captivated by the brilliant mind of this one, or the flowing eloquence of that one, or the pushing energy of a third. They should have seen them simply as "ministers" or "servants." These men did have different qualities and different gifts, but even these came "as the Lord gave to every man" (1 Cor. 3:5). So instead of glorifying the Lord who had gifted and enabled them, they glorified the servants, who were only instruments or vessels...
The word "nothing" is not an insult to the labourer. It measures him against the one thing he cannot do.
If God gives the increase, then the servants count for very little by comparison. Yet the Corinthians had been lifting them out of their place. Without God they were nothing and their service useless.
Faith leaves a sinner nothing to boast about, and the same holds for the preacher and his work.
God does His own work. He chooses and equips His agents at His will. If Paul plants or Apollos waters, both work by the power of Him who has given to each. The increase comes from His sovereign will. So boasting has no place in the true work of the ministry, just as it has no place in the faith that justifies a sinner. Neither the planter nor the waterer is anything. Both might labour, and the result be a blight instead of a blessing. Only God, who commands the increase, is anything.
Ask who deserves the praise when a job is done with a tool.
Who thinks of praising the poker? Who would say, "My, what a marvellous poker!" It is not the lifeless poker but the living hand that does the work. True, the hand uses the poker; but the poker is useless without the hand.
If God alone gives growth, no technique or pressure can force results.
What can the sower do to make the corn grow while he sleeps? The seed grows, but "he does not know how." I wish that all workers in the gospel paid more attention to passages like 1 Cor. 3 and Mark 4. Let us cast the seed into the ground and leave the increase to God, who alone can give it. Like the farmer, let us wait patiently for the early rain and the latter rain. It is no use poking the seed with a revival stick. The word of God will never take root that way.
Being "nothing" does not cancel the worker's labour. It only moves the judgment of it out of human hands.
Though the servants are one, "each shall receive his own reward according to his own labour." The reward will not match the position man may have given the servant. It will not match man's thoughts about his service either. It will match God's estimate of his labours.
Because the increase belongs to God, so do the workers. No party can claim them.
Whoever the servants may be, they belong to God in direct responsibility. In this sense they are not the church's, and still less a party's... They are God's fellow-labourers. He gave them, they do His work, they answer to Him in everything, and in the end they give Him an account.
- Cause. Divisions at Corinth grew from admiring gifted men rather than the Lord who gifted them.
- Cure. Paul reduces himself and Apollos to nothing. No servant's name may stand between the Lord and His people.
- Reason. Planting and watering are real work. But life is not in the worker's hands: he may labour and still get a blight instead of a blessing.
- Practice. Sow the seed and leave the growth to God — pressure and technique cannot make the word take root.
- Result. The worker is nothing in himself. Yet he is God's fellow-labourer, answerable to Him and rewarded by God's estimate, not man's.
But the planter and the waterer are one; but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
At Corinth, some made Paul the head of a party and set up Apollos as his rival. Paul answers by placing the two men side by side as workers on one field. Then he says who fixes their pay, and how.
Corinth turned gifted men into favourites. This verse takes that rivalry apart.
Though their work differs, the servants "are one". By making them leaders of parties, the Corinthian assembly was setting them against one another. But neither can do without the other. However varied the gifts, as servants they are one.
Older translations sharpen the phrase: not just "one", but "one thing".
"He who plants and he who waters are one thing." Here he puts ministry, or ministers, together as "one thing." The result is that God alone matters.
The Corinthians were busy ranking their teachers. Paul takes that job out of their hands.
They were united in their work, not rivals, as the factions in Corinth would make them. And no one told the Corinthians to reward them by their own estimate of their value. God would do that, according to their labour, once their labour was finished.
That raises a second question: what does God measure?
Though they are one as servants, "each shall receive his own reward according to his own labour". The reward will not match the position people gave the servant. It will not match what people thought of his service. It will match God's estimate of his work.
Being "one" does not blur the workers into a crowd. Older translations read "his own reward according to his own labour", and that little word own guards the person.
Neither one counts for anything in himself. Both are one in the source of their shared ministry. Yet each keeps his own individuality, both in his responsibility and in his reward. Notice how clearly the apostle states the settled, unbreakable link between service and reward. From Jesus down, this principle holds… The work and its reward will match each other. Each worker will receive according to his own toil.
If rewards differ, are some believers more accepted than others? Commentators answer by separating two things that people mix up.
As for acceptance, we are in Christ, all accepted alike — all to be conformed to the image of the Son — all having Christ for our righteousness. Paul cannot have a more perfect righteousness or a higher glory. But besides this, saints have the privilege of service. They are the vessels of God's love to others… By grace we do receive the reward of labour, and every man his own reward according to his own labour… In short, righteousness is in Christ, the same for all; God rewards service.
Where does that difference show? Writers point to the coming kingdom.
In the kingdom, as we are taught in the parable (Luke 19), one is to have authority over ten cities, another over five. But the Father's house stands far above such differences, and all His children share it with Christ alike. It answers, not to their services, but to His redemption, His infinite love and His glory.
Reward can ruin service if it becomes the reason for serving. Yet it still has a place.
Pay never drives the service of love. God does not put reward before the soul as the motive for doing anything. But when we meet difficulties on the path of service, He sets the crown before us to encourage us to keep going.
- One. Paul sets planter and waterer together as one thing. Rivalry between servants has nothing left to feed on, and God alone matters.
- Own. Being one does not erase the person. Each keeps his own responsibility and his own reward, matched to his own toil.
- God's estimate. What people thought of a servant fixes nothing. God weighs the labour itself, and His estimate sets the reward.
- Grace, then service. Every believer has the same righteousness in Christ. Service is what God rewards — one servant over ten cities, another over five.
- A crown, not a wage. Reward is never the reason to serve. God holds out the crown to keep the servant going when the path gets hard.
For we are God's fellow-workmen; ye are God's husbandry, God's building.
Paul is writing to a church splitting into fan clubs around its teachers — some for Paul, some for Apollos. Verse 9 answers the whole quarrel with three claims of ownership. The workers belong to God. So do the field and the house they work on.
The stress in the first clause does not fall on the workers but on whose they are. One writer weighs what that one word means for the workers and for Corinthian pride:
How cheering this is to the despised but faithful, self-denying and gracious workers! How humbling to Corinthian vanity! It never took into account the one principle the Spirit gives here for the divine and lasting reward. "For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building." Whoever the servants may be, they are directly responsible to God — not, in this sense, to the church, and still less to a party. They are God's fellow workers. He gave them, they do His work, and they answer to Him in everything. In the end they must give Him an account. The emphasis rests on "God's."
Commentators differ on how to read the phrase. Some take it to mean workmen who belong to God and serve under Him. They warn against the older rendering, "labourers together with God":
We are not fellow-workers with God, but under Him. We are His fellow-workers, but in entire subjection to Him, in no way on a level with Him. The wording in the Authorised and Revised Versions of 1 Cor. 3:9 and 2 Cor. 6:1 is ambiguous and dangerous. Many have read it as putting God and His servants on the same level. Read that way, it is evil and presumptuous.
Others read it as a real partnership, and find nothing improper in it:
God's only reward is the doing of His will. The Spirit of adoption leads the feet of God's true children in the steps of Jesus, and so makes them co-workers with Him in His work. It is a wonderful thing to say, but it fits the character of our calling perfectly; for through redemption God calls us into the fellowship of His own Son.
Both pictures in the verse had two men attached to them, and each man had his own task:
Each, however, had his own distinctive work. In the field, Paul planted and Apollos followed to water the young plants. In the building, Paul was the wise architect who laid the foundation, and Apollos built on it. Their work was different, but their aim was one... So God keeps both unity and variety among His servants, and no one is to be set against another.
The two images are not repetition. One writer draws out what each picture is for, and what follows for anyone tempted to wear a party label:
They are "God's field" and "God's building". The first picture is a field, where there is fruit, or increase, for God. The second is a temple, where the Spirit of God lives and where there is light for people... The truth Paul used to meet and condemn divisions in those early days still condemns the divisions of Christendom today. If we realise that we belong to God, that we are "God's field" and "God's building", we will refuse to be called by any party name.
If the church is God's building, the next verses ask the obvious question: who builds, and with what?
Building pictures the raising up of a spiritual house for God, and Christ is its Builder... Others build too, but only as His instruments. Paul calls himself "a wise master builder", or better, "architect", because he laid the foundation of the church well, and that foundation is Christ. The workers are warned about the material they use in building a house for God. Unsuitable materials will not stand the test of fire. Then the builders suffer loss: they see their work burned up and lose their reward.
Everything in the verse is God's. So the servant's account is with Him, and both flattery and blame lose their hold:
If it is a question of tillage — it is God's field; or if it is a building, it is God's building — God's temple... This principle makes you independent of everybody. It clears you of every influence but one: "I have to do with God. I must answer to God." It makes no difference whether people praise me or criticise me.
- God's workers. The servants are not rivals or party leaders. They belong to God, He gave them, and they answer to Him.
- God's field. The saints are His field, and what He looks for from it is fruit — increase for Himself.
- God's building. The same people are His house, where His Spirit lives and light shines out for others to see.
- God's materials. Everyone who builds on the one foundation answers for what he uses. Fire will test it, and poor work loses its reward.
- God's verdict. Because all three are His, His workers wear no name but His, and no praise or blame from people needs to weigh with them.