1 Corinthians 3:6

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. I ... PLANTED, APOLLOS WATERED (; ). Apollos was born in the learned city Alexandria: he originally "knew only the baptism of John;" but subsequently being taught in the Gospel by Aquila and Priscilla at Ephesus, he, at his own desire, was sent by the brethren to Corinth, and there followed up the work which Paul had begun. Eloquent and mighty in the Scripture, "he mightily convinced the Jews ... publicly, showing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ." Paul's forte was in planting new churches. GOD GAVE THE INCREASE - i:e., the growth (; ). "He helped them much whic...

6._I have planted, Apollos watered _He unfolds more clearly the nature of that ministry by a similitude, in which the nature of the word and the use of preaching are most appropriately depicted. That the earth may bring forth fruit, there is need of ploughing and sowing, and other means of culture; but after all this has been carefully done, the husbandman’s labor would be of no avail, did not the Lord from heaven _give the increase_, by the breaking forth of the sun, and still more by his wonderful and secret influence. Hence, although the diligence of the husbandman is not in vain, nor the seed that he throws in useless, yet it is only by the blessing of God that they are made to prosper, for what is more wonderful than that the seed, after it has rotted, springs up again! In like manner, the word of the Lord is seed that is in its own nature fruitful: ministers are as it were husbandm...

5-9 The ministers about whom the Corinthians contended, were only instruments used by God. We should not put ministers into the place of God. He that planteth and he that watereth are one, employed by one Master, trusted with the same revelation, busied in one work, and engaged in one design. They have their different gifts from one and the same Spirit, for the very same purposes; and should carry on the same design heartily. Those who work hardest shall fare best. Those who are most faithful shall have the greatest reward. They work together with God, in promoting the purposes of his glory, and the salvation of precious souls; and He who knows their work, will take care they do not labour in vain. They are employed in his husbandry and building; and He will carefully look over them....

Verse 1 Corinthians 3:6. _I HAVE PLANTED_] I first sowed the seed of the Gospel at Corinth, and in the region of Achaia. _APOLLOS WATERED_] Apollos came after me, and, by his preachings and exhortations, watered the seed which I had sowed; _but God gave_ _the increase_. The seed has taken root, has sprung up, and borne much fruit; but this was by the especial blessing of God. As in the _natural_ so in the _spiritual_ world; it is by the especial blessing of God that the grain which is sown in the ground brings forth thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold: it is neither the sower nor the waterer that produces this strange and inexplicable _multiplication_; it is God alone. So it is by the particular agency of the Spirit of God that even good seed, sown in good ground, the purest doctrine conveyed to the honest heart, produces t

I HAVE PLANTED - The apostle here compares the establishment of the church at Corinth to the planting of a vine, a tree, or of grain. The figure is taken from agriculture, and the meaning is obvious. Paul established the church. He was the first preacher in Corinth; and if any distinction was due to anyone, it was rather to him than to the teachers who had labored there subsequently; but he regarded himself as worthy of no such honor as to be the head of a party, for it was not himself, but God who had given the increase. APOLLOS WATERED - This figure is taken from the practice of watering a tender plant, or of watering a garden or field. This was necessary in a special manner in Eastern countries. Their fields became parched and dry from their long droughts, and it was necessary to irrigate them by artificial means. The sense here is, that Paul had labored in establishing the church at...

EXPOSITION 1 CORINTHIANS 3:1 _The carnal conceit of the spiritually immature._ 1 CORINTHIANS 3:1 I… COULD NOT SPEAK UNTO YOU AS UNTO SPIRITUAL. Though softened by the word brethren, there was a crushing irony of reproof in these words: "You thought yourselves quite above the need of my simple teaching. You were looking down on me from the whole height of your inferiority. The elementary character of my doctrine was after all the necessary consequence of your own incapacity for anything more profound." AS UNTO CARNAL. The true reading here is _sarkinois, _fleshen, not _sarkikois, _fleshly, or carnal; the later and severer word is perhaps first used in...

I HAVE PLANTED,.... That is, ministerially; otherwise the planting of souls in Christ, and the implanting of grace in them, are things purely divine, and peculiar to God, and the power of his grace; but his meaning is, that he was at Corinth, as in other places, the first that preached the Gospel to them; and was an instrument of the conversion of many souls, and of laying the foundation, and of raising and forming a Gospel church state, and of planting them in it; APOLLOS WATERED; he followed after, and his ministry was blessed for edification; he was a means of carrying on the superstructure, and of building up souls in faith and holiness, and of making them fruitful in every good word and work: each minister of the Gospel has his proper gifts, work, and usefulness; some are planters, others waterers; some are employed in hewing down the sturdy oaks, and others in squaring and fitting...

1. _And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ._ The church at Corinth consisted of persons of large education and great abilities. It was one of those churches that had given up the one-man system, where everybody talked as he liked a very knowing church, and a church of Christians, too; but for all that. Christian babies. And though they thought themselves to be so great, yet the apostle says that he never spoke to them as to spiritual: he kept to the simple elements regarding the carnal part as being too much in them as yet, to be able to drink down spiritual things. 1 Corinthians 3:2. _I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able._ How grateful we ought to be that there is milk, and that this milk

CHAPTER 3 _ 1. The Carnal state of the Corinthians. (1 Corinthians 3:1)._ 2. The Workmen and their Work. (1 Corinthians 3:10). 3. The Church the Temple of God. (1 Corinthians 3:16). 4. Warning against Deception and Glorying in Men. (1 Corinthians 3:18). Their condition is next uncovered. They did not depend on the Spirit of God and did not enjoy the hidden wisdom and walk in it. They were carnal, mere babes in Christ, in the sense that their growth, their spiritual development had been arrested. Carnal (fleshly) is not equivalent to “natural.” The belie

RENEWED CONDEMNATION OF PARTY SPIRIT. Paul has now reached a point where he can effect an easy return to the divisions at Corinth. He has been speaking of the spiritual man who is capable of receiving spiritual things as the natural man is not. But such teaching he has not been able to give the Corinthians. For they are not spiritual, as is demonstrated by their party spirit. Here again he humbles the church in the very matter of which it was most proud. Its spirituality was its peculiar boast. It was richly endowed with spiritual gifts, and the excesses into which it had plunged were complacently paraded as evidence of enlightenment and illustration of the truth that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 1 CORINTHIANS 3:1. When Paul was with them he had to treat them not as spiritual but as fleshen, to feed them like infants on milk, for meat they were n