Paraphrase. 'Te yourselves, brethren, are an illustration of what I say. (2) I have treated you as beginners and given you elementary Christian teaching, for hitherto you have been unfit for any other. (3, 4) You are still but immature Christians, as the strife and division about your teachers show. (5-7) We apostles are but instruments in the hands of God to secure your salvation; we are powerless of ourselves. (8, 9) Both of us are alike in this respect, and all we are concerned with is the faithfulness of our work. For we co-operate to carry out God's purpose in tilling the field of your spiritual life, or, as we may put it, in contributing to the building of your Christian character.'
Related Commentaries of 1 Corinthians 3:1
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions,a are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.
8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry,b ye are God's building.