1 Corinthians 3:6 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

God honoured me first to preach the gospel amongst you, Acts 18:1-28 &c., and blessed my preaching to convert you unto Christ; then I left you: Apollos stayed behind, and he watered what I had planted, daily preaching amongst you; see Acts 18:24-26; he was a further means to build you up in faith and holiness; but God increased, or gave the increase, God gave the power by which you brought forth any fruit. The similitude is drawn from planters, whether husbandmen or gardeners; they plant, they water, but the growing, the budding, the bringing forth flowers or fruit by the plant, doth much more depend upon the soil in which it stands, the influence of heaven upon it, by the beams of the sun, and the drops of the dew and rain, and the internal virtue which the God of nature hath created in the plant, than upon the hand of him that planteth, or him who useth his watering pot to water it. So it is with souls; one minister is used for conversion, or the first changing of souls; another is used for edification, or further building up of souls; but both conversion and edification are infinitely more from the new heart and new nature, which God giveth to souls, and from the influence of the Sun of righteousness by the Spirit of grace, working in and upon the soul, than from any minister, who is but God's instrument in those works.