Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 1 Corinthians 3:8

"Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor." — 1 Corinthians 3:8 (ASV)

Paul bluntly states, “I planted the seed,” and quickly adds, “Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.” In vv.7–9 he draws some conclusions from his basic premise. (1) Since they are merely God’s servants, they cannot themselves produce any spiritual results. Only God can do that (cf. Jn 3:5). (2) The servants with their various functions are really one, being united in God’s work. (3) Though they are one in the work, yet they are individually subordinate to God and responsible to him who will reward them according to their faithful labor. (4) All is from God, and the church is his work (v.9). He uses people of different talents and temperaments to help him cause the church to grow.

Christians are the spiritual “field” in which God’s servants are working. In speaking of their being God’s cultivated field and of Paul and Apollos and others as God’s workers in the field, the apostle brings to the minds of the Corinthians the farming going on in the plain below the city. There the land was plowed, the crops reaped, the grapevines tended, and the grapes gathered (cf. also Eph 2:20-22; 1 Peter 2:5).