📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 3:5
What does 1 Corinthians 3:5 mean?
"Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed; and each as the Lord gave to him?"
— 1 Corinthians 3:5 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
I fed you with milk, not with meat; for you weren’t yet ready. Indeed, not even now are you ready,
for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men?
For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you fleshly?
Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed; and each as the Lord gave to him?
I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.
So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
Explanation
1 Corinthians 3:5 comes in the middle of Paul addressing a serious problem in the Corinthian church: division and factionalism. Some believers were saying "I follow Paul," while others said "I follow Apollos," turning gospel ministers into rival celebrities and competing camps. In this verse, Paul responds with a pointed rhetorical question, essentially asking, "Who do you think we actually are?" His answer deflates the whole controversy: Apollos and Paul are not rival leaders to be ranked against each other, but simply servants — the Greek word suggests something like "table waiters" or "ministers" in the sense of those who carry out assigned tasks. They are the means through whom the Corinthians came to faith, not the source or object of that faith.
To understand the context fully, it helps to know who these two men were. Paul was the apostle who first brought the gospel to Corinth and planted the church there (recorded in Acts 18). Apollos was a gifted teacher, described in Acts 18:24-28 as eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, who came after Paul and continued watering the seed that had been planted, teaching and strengthening the believers. Both men were genuinely used by God, but the Corinthians had begun elevating personal loyalty to one teacher over the other, as though the effectiveness of their ministry made them spiritual patrons deserving exclusive allegiance. Paul writes to correct this by reminding them that ministers are functionaries under God's authority, not independent sources of spiritual life.
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