‘What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Ministers through whom you believed, and each one as the Lord gave to him. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.'
Elsewhere Paul will tell Christians that they must honour those who labour in preaching the Gospel and teaching the church the word of God (1 Timothy 5:17). But here he is concerned because too much emphasis is being placed on them to the detriment of the Corinthians. It is preventing them from concentrating on Christ. They are making too much of preachers, even good preachers, and their particular slants. So he points out that different men play their part in ministering the Gospel and the word of God, but that any success is not theirs but God's. Thus none are to be exalted. They only do what it is their duty (and privilege) to do (Luke 17:10).
‘Ministers through whom you believed, and each one as the Lord gave to him.' He, Apollos and others (and it is probably mainly the others that he has in mind) are merely ‘diakonoi'. The word means servants, waiters at table, those who are there to offer assistance. Thus they must not make much of themselves or attract attention to themselves but humbly carry out the task given to them by Christ. They only have the opportunity because the Lord gave it to them. Thus they should be grateful and not seek prominence. And this is how the Corinthians, and we, should see them (while at the same time giving them respect because of Whose servants they are. This does not encourage disdain, but true recognition of what they are).
Note the impersonal way in which he speaks of himself and Apollos. He is eager not to impose himself on the illustration personally. He is speaking of all who claim to present the true doctrines of the Christian faith, not just disputes about Apollos and himself.
‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.' See Acts 18:1-11; Acts 18:27 to Acts 19:1. Paul first entered Corinth and preached in the synagogue. But due to the poor reception he received, although a number believed, including Crispus the ruler of that synagogue, he deserted the synagogue and began to preach in a private residence with great success, thus founding the church at Corinth. And he laboured there for one and a half years ‘teaching the word of God among them'. But inevitably he had to move on. Then Apollos later came to Corinth and ‘helped them much who had believed through grace' and powerfully used the Scriptures to show that Jesus was the Messiah (Acts 18:27-28). Thus, just as plants have to be planted and then watered and tended, so Paul planted, and Apollos watered and tended, each helping in establishing the church.
‘But', says Paul, ‘it was not us who did it.' The reason for the success was God's activity. It was God who ‘went on giving the increase'. The sower sows the spiritual seed, and the gardener waters the spiritual plants. But it is God Who continually makes them grow and establishes them. Therefore the credit should go to Him and not to Paul and Apollos. We do not glorify the sower for sowing. We do not glorify the irrigator or the gardener for watering their seeds. They do what all do. It is to God then that the glory should go for the spiritual harvest.
The first two verbs are aorists, indicating here a period which came to an end. But God ‘continues to give the increase' (imperfect). And that is the point. Men move on but God is always there carrying on His work through others and by His Spirit.