1 Corinthians 3:5-9
Servants plant and water, but God alone gives the growth.
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.
Servants plant and water, but God alone gives the growth.
Paul corrects the Corinthians' misplaced loyalty to ministers by explaining that Christian leaders are merely servants through whom God works to produce spiritual growth.
After rebuking the Corinthians for their jealousy and factionalism, Paul addresses the root of their division: an unhealthy attachment to particular leaders. Some believers claimed allegiance to Paul while others aligned themselves with Apollos. Paul dismantles this thinking by redefining the role of ministers. Both Paul and Apollos are servants assigned by God to perform different tasks within the same work. The imagery of planting and watering emphasizes cooperation rather than competition. The true source of growth is God Himself. This prepares the way for Paul’s next section where he develops the imagery of building and stewardship in God’s church.
In Corinth, believers were dividing themselves into groups based on their preferred teachers. This reflected broader Greco-Roman cultural patterns where followers often aligned themselves with philosophical leaders or rhetorical teachers. Paul rejects this model by emphasizing that Christian leaders are servants participating in God’s work rather than founders of competing schools of thought.
God’s Field, God’s Building, God’s Temple
Because the church belongs to God and is his holy temple, believers must abandon worldly boasting, reject immature factionalism, and build carefully on the one foundation, Jesus Christ.