Who Then?
1 Corinthians 3:5-7 NKJV
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
I have a great appreciation for Paul's attitude and mindset. If anyone is the antithesis of a self-promoter, it's Paul. In this third chapter, he jumps on the church with both feet.
Paul starts the chapter with declaring he cannot address these people as spiritual people but as carnal, babes in Christ. I can pretty much guarantee that did not go over well. After serving in ministry for forty-some years, I have found that very few believers ever classify themselves as babes in Christ. Everyone seems to believe they are mature and the babyhood state belongs to other people. But Paul defines this babyhood, carnal state, by the fact that they are in strife and division. The church at Corinth was arguing about which preachers they liked and identified with. Paul says the arguing and striving and misplaced identity is carnal or flesh-followed behavior.
Regardless of how long these people had been saved, they were acting as mere men. One translation says mere unchanged men.
Paul goes straight for this fallacy by shooting down the Corinthians' tendency to identify too strongly with preachers. Thus, the who then, is Paul's question. Paul understood that, regardless of what the church believed, the ministers of the gospel were just that. Ministers by or through whom they had believed. That's it. Paul planted the seed, being the first preacher to speak to the Corinthians. Apollos watered the seed by teaching along the lines of what Paul had declared. But regardless of who planted and who watered, God receives the praise because God is the one who gives the increase. Paul made no big thing over who was planting and who was watering, but God, who gave the increase.
Paul also made no big deal as to the function of planting or watering. The thing that mattered most was that God gave the increase. And when it comes to eternal rewards, the planters do not receive more than those who water. Both are important, and both will receive rewards according to the labor they put in individually.
Bottom line: Stay away from identifying with preachers. Focus on Jesus and give God the glory for the people He brings into your life.