Comments on 1 Corinthians 3:1-8
What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even, as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
This one has been saved. He has known the newness of life that comes from redemption. He knows that his life was bought by Christ. But the flesh still rules much of his thinking. This word “flesh” comes from the Greek: σαρκικοῖς which is the adjectival form of the word σάρξ which is used to describe a physical body, but also used in the Scripture doctrinally to mean that nature we received from Adam. That nature that is apart from divine influence and therefore prone to sin and selfishness. That nature that stands against God. So Paul here had just finished telling the Corinthian church that the spiritual believer can know the deep things that are shared by the Spirit of God, and he longed to share those things with them. But at the start of this chapter he tells them that he cannot because they are still “babes in Christ.”
I did want to take a brief moment here and discuss the differences here between the Corinthian believers and those that are newly come to Christ. I’ll always remember a man that was in my first class out at the prison who had gone by the name Rhino but had, just a month before the class started, been saved. We had gotten into a discussion of some decently esoteric theology and he had mentioned that he didn’t know anything about it just yet. My encouragement for him was that this discussion was “meat” and I asked if he had ever known a four month old that could eat meat. Several months later, towards the end of the class, he stood up after the class was over and announced that Rhino had been his old name and now he no longer wanted to live that life in his old nature. So he asked if we could call him by his given name of Melvin because he didn’t want to be Rhino any more.
So, those newly come to Christ cannot and should not expect to be able to handle the deep things of Scripture right at the first. But Paul was talking to believers that ought to have matured more. They had been believers for long enough that they should have grown in the faith and in their walks with God, but they hadn’t. Ironside had shared an anecdote about a church that was looking for a new preacher and had one come in and share a message with them on Exodus 20:15. They thought he had done a fine job, and were about to call and offer him the job, until one mentioned that a preacher ought not be hired for a single sermon, so instead they called and asked him to come preach again. He stood up and opened to Exodus 20:15 again and began to preach. Afterwards the committee got together and said, “Well perhaps he’d forgotten that he’d already preached on that passage. Let’s give him another chance.” So they called him back a third Sunday and he said, “Please open with me to Exodus 20:15.” One of the committee members stood up and said, “You’ve already preached on that passage, brother.” The preacher retorted, “And I will continue to do so until everyone here can stay out of the Widow Jones’s henhouse.”
Paul kept having to repeat himself to the Corinthians as well. Wiersbe had pointed out that some like to view the “milk” as the easy things to understand in the Word and the “meat” as those that are perhaps more difficult. But, he argued, that if we take this passage in conjunction with Hebrews 5:11-14 we’ll see something more. For context it reads, “Concerning Him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”
So the difference is not necessarily between easy and hard but between those foundational truths of Christ, what He had done while here on Earth, and that which is built on that foundation, i.e. His current work in heaven and what that means for us now. Paul wasn’t saying that the Corinthians were unintelligent or incapable of understanding, but rather that they should have grown and had not. When a baby doesn’t grow, there is cause for concern. Paul, as their spiritual father, tells them that, in part, their failure to grow is from malnutrition, as it were.
He then goes on to give them the evidence that they were not maturing as they should. He points out that the jealousy and strife that was obviously among them showed that they were not mature believers. As a counter example, let us think about Jesus Christ Himself while He walked on this Earth. He was the Creator and yet He walked as a lowly man. His enemies ill-treated Him, following Him around and mocking Him while He spoke and He never lost His temper with them for that. Ironside pointed out though that He did have a temper, and so also should a spiritual Christian be tempered. He pointed out that just as a knife amounts to very little if not properly tempered, the Christian amounts to nothing if he is not properly tempered. In Mark 3:1-5 Christ heals a man whose hand was withered. Knowing the Pharisees were watching He asked, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill it?” But they kept silent. (v4). And verse 5 reads, “After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.” So Christ was angered by harm intended to another but never by those that intended to harm Him. As believers we are to follow His example and not be offended or angered by harm or ill-treatment directed at us, but it is not wrong for us to be angered by those that would harm others. .
If we remembered to keep this mindset there would not be jealousy among us, because our concern for others would be first. Quoting Ironside here, “Envy is another mark of carnality. We are members of one body. If I and every other Christian are really members of the same body, I ought to be delighted when my brothers in Christ are honored (just as delighted as I would be if I were being honored) and I ought to be deeply concerned when my brothers are distressed and in trouble (just as concerned as I would be if I were in their place).” We can take Romans 12:15 here as well where Paul instructs to “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” Later in this same letter, Paul also writes, “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” So the spiritual Christian, recognizing the truth of the one body in Ephesians 4, would not have jealousy or strife with other believers, and so believers that are characterized by those things are not living in the good of their walk.
He then goes back to what he had already covered in the first chapter of this letter, and admonishes them about the factions he knew existed among them. They were touting their particular hero, or favorite preacher, to the exclusion of those that should be their brothers and sisters in Christ because they were focusing so intently on men. He is using these divisions here as another evidence of their immaturity. Children love to fuss and argue about their heroes. One could also compare this to children on the playground arguing about whose daddy was the best fighter, or made the most money, or was the smartest. Paul points out how silly and immature this is, and Christians, especially Christians that are grown-ups, ought to be ashamed to act in such a manner.
Paul points out how absurd their divisions really are by reminding them that he and Apollos are simply servants. Imagine a wealthy household with several servants, and the children of that house arguing over which servant was the greatest. We would immediately see how foolish that would be. The servants are not the focus of the household. The master is. In the same way, Paul wanted the Corinthians to stop focusing on the men who delivered the message and instead look to the Lord who sent them. He focuses on the fact that he and Apollos were only doing the tasks given to them by God and so they were just those instruments through whom the Corinthians had believed, not Who they were believing in. Even the opportunity for Paul and Apollos to preach in Corinth was not something they had arranged for themselves; it was given to them by God.
Paul then shifts to the analogy of the church as a field. In the parable of the sower, Jesus had compared each human heart to soil, and Paul takes that analogy and expands it so that the entire church is a field where he and Apollos are simple laborers. His given task was to plant the seed and he completed it to the best of his ability. Apollos came along some time afterward and watered the ground. But Paul wants to make sure that the Corinthians know that it is God who “gives the increase.” Not only is He the master of the field, He is also the one that causes the growth.
As a counter-example to the diligent workers that Paul and Apollos showed themselves to be, let’s look at Proverbs 24:30-34 where Solomon writes, “I passed by the field of the sluggard and by the vineyard of the man lacking sense, and behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles; Its surface was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down. When I saw, I reflected upon it; I looked, and received instruction. ‘A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,’ Then poverty will come as a robber and your want like an armed man.” The lazy preacher who is not prepared to faithfully tend his “field” will find it overgrown if he is not careful. Now I’m not saying that we do not have an individual responsibility to study the Word for ourselves, but James does mention that teachers will “incur a stricter judgment.”
The next verse continues to direct our attention to the One who truly matters: God, who causes the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters, Paul and Apollos in this case, are not anything to be exalted when it is God alone who gives life and increase.
There are many different aspects of ministry, and I believe part of Paul’s point here is that no one man can do it all. Paul came into Corinth and planted the seed of the gospel. Apollos followed and watered that seed, building on what had already been laid. One began the work, another continued it. And that is often how God works. One person shares the gospel, another answers questions, another encourages, another teaches. Different roles, different responsibilities, but all part of the same work.
But no matter how faithful the laborers are, they cannot produce life. A farmer may prepare the soil, plant the seed, and water it diligently, but he cannot make that seed grow. That power belongs to God alone. In the same way, no preacher, no teacher, no servant of the Lord can produce spiritual life or growth in a soul. That is entirely the work of God.
And this guards us on both sides. It keeps us from pride when things seem to be going well, because the growth is not our doing. And it keeps us from discouragement when we do not see immediate results, because the responsibility for the increase does not rest on us. Our calling is to be faithful in the work given to us. God alone gives the growth.
Paul then continues the thought by emphasizing unity: “He who plants and he who waters are one.” Though their roles were different, their purpose was the same. They were not working against each other, but alongside one another. That alone should have been enough to put an end to the jealousy and strife among the Corinthians. There is no room for competition in the Lord’s work when all are serving under the same Master and laboring toward the same end.
The work may look different from one servant to another. One may be called to preach, another to teach, another to encourage, another to labor quietly behind the scenes. But though the tasks are varied, the purpose is united. There ought to be, therefore, not only unity of purpose, but unity of spirit as well. Division among servants of Christ is always out of place, because it misrepresents the One they serve.
Paul does go on to say that each laborer will receive his own reward according to his own labor. God is not unjust. He sees the faithfulness of each servant and will reward accordingly. But it is important to notice that Paul does not linger there. The emphasis is not on comparing rewards or exalting one worker above another, but on faithful service. Each one will answer to the Lord for what was entrusted to him, and each one will be rewarded by the same Lord. That, again, leaves no room for pride and no room for rivalry, only a call to be faithful in the work He has given us.
And that cuts straight across the Corinthians’ problem, and ours as well. Because pride wants recognition, and the flesh wants comparison. But the Lord calls for faithfulness. One day, every servant will stand before Him, not to be measured against another, but to answer to Him alone. And in that day, it will not matter who planted or who watered, it will only matter that we were faithful, and that God was the One who gave the increase.
So as we step back and take this all in, the lesson becomes very clear. The Corinthians had been looking in the wrong direction. They were measuring themselves by one another, aligning themselves with men, and allowing jealousy and strife to take root, all because they had lost sight of the source of everything. The wisdom they had received did not come from men, but from the Spirit of God. The growth they longed for would not come from men, but from God alone. And the unity they were lacking could only be found by fixing their eyes on Christ instead of His servants. And the same is true for us. If we place our confidence in men, we will end up divided. If we measure ourselves by one another, we will either become proud or discouraged. But if our focus is on the Lord, if we depend on His Spirit, trust His work, and simply seek to be faithful where He has placed us, then there will be growth, there will be unity, and He alone will receive the glory.
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