God’s Fellow Workers
Paul says he has had to speak to them as worldly infants in Christ rather than as spiritual people, giving them milk because they were not ready for more and still are not. Their jealousy, dissension, and habit of aligning themselves with different leaders show that they are still walking in an ordinary human way.
B1rothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly — as infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for solid food. In fact, you are still not ready, 3for you are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and dissension among you, are you not worldly? Are you not walking in the way of man? 4For when one of you says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?
Paul asks what Apollos and Paul really are and answers that they are only servants through whom the Corinthians came to believe, each assigned a task by the Lord. Paul planted and Apollos watered, but God made the growth, so the laborers are one in purpose while God remains the one who matters, and the church is God's field and God's building.
5What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, as the Lord has assigned to each his role. 6I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8He who plants and he who waters are one in purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.