I Planted, Apollos Watered
1 Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for you weren’t yet ready. Indeed, you aren’t ready even now, 3 for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you fleshly? 5 Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him? 6 I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. 7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building.
Paul calls a church that thought itself advanced infantile, and reduces its celebrated teachers to farm hands whose work God alone makes grow.
Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ.
After announcing that the spiritual person discerns all things 1 Corinthians 2:15, he tells them they are not that person. The word fleshly is set against spiritual — and to a group that prided itself on being advanced, the diagnosis is babies. Note that he does not doubt they are in Christ. They are genuine believers who have not grown.
I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for you weren’t yet ready. Indeed, you aren’t ready even now,
The complaint is not about their beginning but about the duration of it. Five years or so after their founding they still cannot digest what he would like to teach them — the same charge made elsewhere against people who should have been teachers and still needed milk Hebrews 5:12–14.
for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men?
And here is how immaturity is measured, and the measure is not doctrinal. Jealousy, strife, faction: the test of spiritual growth in this letter is how people treat each other. A congregation could be articulate about mysteries and rich in gifts 1 Corinthians 1:5–7 and still be infantile on this evidence, because I follow Paul... I follow Apollos 1 Corinthians 3:4 is exactly what children do — attach to a favorite and squabble.
Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him?
The question is dismissive of both men equally, and Paul puts himself second. Servants renders the ordinary word for someone who waits at table. The parties had been arguing about the relative standing of waiters.
I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.
Three short sentences that settle the matter. Two men did necessary, unglamorous, sequential jobs, and neither of those jobs makes anything grow. A farmer can put a seed in soil and pour water on it and has no power whatever to make it live. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase 1 Corinthians 3:7 — and is anything is as flat a valuation of Christian leadership as Scripture contains.
Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
Two balancing truths. The workers are interchangeable, so ranking them is pointless — and their labor is nonetheless noticed and rewarded individually. Neither the party spirit nor a false humility survives this: the work matters and the workers are not the point.
For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building.
The possessives govern the verse — three of them. And the second image is introduced here to be developed next: they are a building, which sets up the foundation, the materials, and the fire 1 Corinthians 3:10–15.
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