*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.
According to the grace of God which has been given to me, as a wise architect, I have laid the foundation, but another builds upon it. But let each see how he builds upon it.
Paul pictures the church as a building. He laid its foundation, others are working on top of it, and two questions follow: what is that foundation, and what makes one worker's building stand while another's fails?
Paul could have pressed his apostolic office here. Instead he traces his work back to a gift, and one commentator sees a lost instinct in that choice.
Even the apostle loved to tie his work and his office to the grace of God rather than to bare authority. That instinct has so faded from Christendom that ministry has become a merely human thing and has even taken on a worldly character. The loss to the church is beyond words, and the dishonour to the Lord is most serious... Here we have the responsibility of the one who ministers. The apostle's place stands, but so does responsible service, and that is a serious thing.
The title he does take — older translations say "wise master builder" — is closer to our word architect:
Others are builders too, but only as instruments. Paul calls himself a "wise master builder," or better, an "architect," because he laid the foundation of the assembly well. That foundation is Christ.
Paul did not lay stone. He preached a Person, and everything built later must match Him.
Jesus Christ must be the foundation. If He is not, then what is built is not the assembly of God... The foundation is the teaching that believers have received into their hearts. When Paul first came to Corinth he preached "Jesus Christ and Him crucified." That was the foundation, and every other part of the building should take its character from it.
No later worker can lay that foundation again:
In the same way today, whoever the workmen may be, no one can lay any foundation but Jesus Christ. The Lord said, "on this rock I will build my church." For his part, the apostle Paul did this same work as a wise master builder. He laid that same foundation, so no one has the right to lay another.
There is a building Christ Himself is raising. There is also one He hands to men, and this verse deals with the second.
Paul, as a wise master builder, laid the foundation. When others build, he warns them not to build with wrong materials — wood, hay, straw — which will be destroyed. The building work was put into man's hands as a responsibility, and so it came under judgment. "On this rock I will build my church" gives me Christ's building, and that is still going on; it is not finished yet... All that is Christ's work, what men call the invisible church, and so it is. But on the other hand, "let each one take care how he builds upon it" — that is, on the foundation Paul laid. There you have man's work as a responsible instrument.
Another writer weighs the two kinds of work against each other.
The work of Christ in building His Church must be perfect... But, as this passage in 1 Corinthians teaches, He also entrusts the work of building to His servants, and He holds them responsible for the character of their work.
Paul's warning here is about the way a man builds. One writer traces that back to the foundation.
Each builder must keep the character of the foundation in mind. It should control how he builds and also what materials he uses. In verse 10 the Apostle stresses how we build; in verse 12 it is what we build. The builders' motives must fit Christ, and so must the methods and principles that guide them.
The Corinthians had strong opinions about their teachers. Those opinions had the values the wrong way round.
Builders may raise very different material on that foundation. Some of it is precious, like the great, costly stones of the temple. Some of it is worthless and vile. And here man's judgment fails. No doubt many a believer at Corinth had prized the hay and straw of human wisdom and looked down on the gold and silver of apostolic truth. So there is need of another day, and of the Lord's own discernment.
- Grace — Paul traces his whole office to a gift, not to status. Service is a responsibility, not a rank.
- Foundation — Laying it meant preaching Christ crucified. That work is done, so no one may lay another.
- Handed over — What Christ builds cannot fail. What He entrusts to servants can, and this verse deals with that work.
- Manner — Verse 10 asks how you build, verse 12 asks what. The foundation should govern your motives and your materials.
- Tested — Corinth rated human wisdom above apostolic truth. So the work waits for another day, and for the Lord's own judgment of it.
For other foundation can no man lay besides that which [is] laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Paul is writing about God's building at Corinth. The verse names its one foundation, limits what every later worker can do, and raises a hard question about anyone who builds on something else.
Paul can be called a founder of the church at Corinth. In what sense is that true?
It is only in a secondary and relative sense that the apostle can call himself a founder... God's building rests on one eternal truth: the person of Christ. He is now "declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead." That truth is essential and life-giving. Receiving it by faith sets the believer in his place as a stone of God's building.
Christ is the foundation. Writers also speak of it as the message about Him, received into the heart. So what did Paul lay at Corinth?
Jesus Christ must be the foundation, otherwise what is built is not the church of God. There are many other kinds of institutions in this world... but only what rests on the foundation of Jesus Christ is God's church. The foundation is the doctrine received into the hearts of those who have believed, and when Paul first came to Corinth he preached "Jesus Christ and him crucified." That was the foundation, and every other part of the building should take its character from it.
The words rule out every rival, Peter included. One writer tests that claim and answers it for his own soul.
As to Peter being the foundation, except as a mighty instrument in God's hands, I do not believe it for a moment, because Paul says, "no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."... I could not trust my soul to any foundation but Christ. None has died for me but He. None is the truth but He... Besides, if Peter was the foundation, how can the pope be so now? The foundation of the church cannot be laid now.
The same rule reaches into personal religion. Put anything beside Christ, and God counts it dishonour, not help.
Are you thoroughly satisfied with God's foundation? Or are you trying to add something of your own? Your own works, your prayers, your church rituals, your vows and resolutions, your religious duties? If so, if you are trying to add the smallest bit to God's Christ, you may be sure you will be put to shame. God will not allow such dishonour to be offered to His tested, chosen, precious cornerstone... He is enough for God, and He may well be enough for us.
Whatever happens to the work built above it, the base itself is not at risk, because God laid it.
That foundation must be divine, the work of God's Holy Spirit. Thank God for that. We begin with an unchangeable, eternal foundation. The work in the soul of the believer must be on the basis of the work accomplished at Calvary for God's glory and our eternal salvation. That foundation can never, thank God, be destroyed.
A safe foundation is no licence for careless work on top of it. One writer separates two buildings that share it.
The house that Christ builds in grace is permanent and eternal. What man builds in responsibility is another thing altogether. The one is unfailing, the other utterly failing, and so it will be judged... Paul laid the true foundation; no other could be laid. Other builders might build "gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw." Fire would test everything. Whether the work lasted depended on the materials. The teaching of the servants brought in souls according to its own character.
- Laid — God has already laid the foundation. Paul is a founder only in a secondary sense, and no one lays it again today.
- Christ — Paul preached Christ crucified, the Son of God declared by resurrection. Every later stone must match Him.
- Only — nothing may stand beside Christ. Not an apostle, not the pope, not your own works and religious duties.
- Safe — the foundation is divine, the work of God's Spirit, and it can never be destroyed. Everything in the believer rests on what Christ accomplished at Calvary.
- Tested — what men build on it is another matter. Teaching is the material and fire is the test. Souls take the character of the doctrine they receive.