I was struck this morning as I was teaching in 1 Corinthians at the Bible institute with Paul's analogy between the church and farming (1 Cor 3:5-9). As you can see, my nephews and I are big tractor fans. The thing is that all the equipment in the world still can't guarantee a good crop. In response to the party spirit the Corinthians displayed regarding Paul, Apollos, Peter, and Christ (1:12), Paul contends that the human instrument is irrelevant."What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth" (1 Cor 3:5-7).
Paul and Apollos (and any other servant of God) were insignificant. They were just the servants, doing the work God had given them to do. Sure, Paul planted the church at Corinth (Acts 18:1-18). Sure, Apollos was "an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures" and was a great blessing to the church there (Acts 18:24-19:1). But God was the one who made it grow!
The glory for the growth of God's work in Corinth did not go to Paul who started it or even to Apollos who had built it up, but to God for making it grow. In fact, Paul says that he and Apollos (and any other servant of God) are actually working together in this business of building God's church.
"He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building" (1 Cor 3:8-9).
Paul and Apollos were co-workers or teammates as they did God's work in Corinth. They were working toward the same goal, although they would be rewarded individually for their labors. (They were not, as the KJV rendering suggests, working alongside of God; rather, they were both working together as God's servants.) The church in Corinth was God's farm field; it was God's building. Paul and Apollos were merely the farmers/construction workers that God employed to do his work. Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow!
As we do God's work wherever we may be geographically, we are not competing with one another. In reality, we are working together. Just as a farmer cannot make his crops grow, we cannot build Christ's church (Matt 16:18). We are merely his servants: some planting and others watering, but God is the one making it grow.
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