1 Corinthians 3:6

THE MESSAGE

Parallel Translations

Easy-to-Read Version
I planted the seed and Apollos watered it. But God is the one who made the seed grow.

Revised Standard Version
I planted, Apol'los watered, but God gave the growth.

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
I have planted: Apollo watred: but god gave increace.

Hebrew Names Version
I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.

International Standard Version
I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God kept everything growing.Acts 18:4,8, 11,24, 27; 19:1; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 4:15; 9:1; 2 Corinthians 3:5; 10:14-15;">[xr]

New American Standard Bible
I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.

New Century Version
I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it. But God is the One who made it grow.

Update Bible Version
I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

Webster's Bible Translation
I have planted, Apollos watered: but God hath given the increase.

English Standard Version
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

World English Bible
I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

Weymouth's New Testament
I planted and Apollos watered; but it was God who was, all the time, giving the increase.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Y plauntide, Apollo moystide, but God yaf encreessyng.

English Revised Version
I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

Berean Standard Bible
I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.

Contemporary English Version
I planted the seeds, Apollos watered them, but God made them sprout and grow.

Amplified Bible
I planted, Apollos watered, but God [all the while] was causing the growth.

American Standard Version
I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

Bible in Basic English
I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God gave the increase.

Complete Jewish Bible
I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow.

Darby Translation
*I* have planted; Apollos watered; but God has given the increase.

Etheridge Translation
I have planted, and Apollo watered, but Aloha made to increase.

Murdock Translation
I planted, and Apollos watered; but God produced the growth.

King James Version (1611)
I haue planted, Apollo watered: but God gaue the encrease.

New Living Translation
I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow.

New Life Bible
I planted the seed. Apollos watered it, but it was God Who kept it growing.

New Revised Standard
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

Geneva Bible (1587)
I haue planted, Apollos watred, but God gaue the increase.

George Lamsa Translation
I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
I, planted, Apollos, watered, - but, God, caused to, grow.

Douay-Rheims Bible
I have planted, Apollo watered: but God gave the increase.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
I haue planted, Apollo watered: but God gaue the encrease.

Good News Translation
I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plant, but it was God who made the plant grow.

Christian Standard Bible®
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

King James Version
I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

Lexham English Bible
I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing it to grow.

Literal Translation
I planted, Apollos watered, but God made to grow.

Young's Literal Translation
I planted, Apollos watered, but God was giving growth;

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
I haue planted, Apollo hath watred, but God hath geuen the increase.

Mace New Testament (1729)
I have planted, Apollos watered: but God gave the increase.

New English Translation
I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused it to grow.

New King James Version
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

Simplified Cowboy Version
I did the groundwork with you. Apollos started you under saddle, but it was God who was doing the growin' inside ya.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.

Legacy Standard Bible
I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.

Contextual Overview

⁵Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us—servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It's not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God's field in which we are working. Or, to put it another way, you are God's house. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you'll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won't get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won't be torn out; you'll survive—but just barely. You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple. Don't fool yourself. Don't think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times. Be God's fool—that's the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It's written in Scripture, He exposes the chicanery of the chic. The Master sees through the smoke screens of the know-it-alls. I don't want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift—Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future—all of it is yours, and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God. ¹⁰ But for right now, friends, I'm completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You're acting like infants in relation to Christ, capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I'll nurse you since you don't seem capable of anything more. As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything's going your way? When one of you says, "I'm on Paul's side," and another says, "I'm for Apollos," aren't you being totally infantile? Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us—servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It's not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God's field in which we are working. Or, to put it another way, you are God's house. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you'll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won't get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won't be torn out; you'll survive—but just barely. You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple. Don't fool yourself. Don't think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times. Be God's fool—that's the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It's written in Scripture, He exposes the chicanery of the chic. The Master sees through the smoke screens of the know-it-alls. I don't want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift—Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future—all of it is yours, and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

I: 1 Corinthians 3:9, 1 Corinthians 3:10, 1 Corinthians 4:14, 1 Corinthians 4:15, 1 Corinthians 9:1, 1 Corinthians 9:7-11, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Acts 18:4-11, 2 Corinthians 10:14, 2 Corinthians 10:15

Apollos: Proverbs 11:25, Acts 18:24, Acts 18:26, Acts 18:27, Acts 19:1

God: 1 Corinthians 1:30, 1 Corinthians 15:10, Psalms 62:9, Psalms 62:11, Psalms 92:13-15, Psalms 127:1, Isaiah 55:10, Isaiah 55:11, Isaiah 61:11, Acts 11:18, Acts 14:27, Acts 16:14, Acts 21:19, Romans 15:18, 2 Corinthians 3:2-5, 1 Thessalonians 1:5

Reciprocal: Genesis 26:12 - an hundredfold Leviticus 26:20 - for your land Deuteronomy 32:2 - drop 2 Samuel 23:5 - to grow Psalms 65:10 - settlest the furrows thereof Psalms 67:6 - Then Psalms 72:16 - There Psalms 85:12 - our land Isaiah 32:20 - Blessed Isaiah 45:8 - let the earth Ezekiel 44:19 - sanctify Hosea 10:12 - rain Micah 5:7 - as a dew Zechariah 10:1 - and give Mark 4:3 - there Mark 4:26 - as Mark 16:20 - the Lord Luke 8:11 - The seed Luke 10:2 - The harvest Luke 20:9 - planted John 1:13 - nor of the will of man John 15:16 - bring Acts 11:21 - and a 1 Corinthians 2:5 - but 2 Corinthians 3:5 - but 2 Corinthians 4:5 - we Colossians 2:19 - increaseth 2 Timothy 2:6 - husbandman

Cross-References

Genesis 3:1
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: "Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?"

Genesis 3:2
The Woman said to the serpent, "Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It's only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don't eat from it; don't even touch it or you'll die.'"

Genesis 3:12
The Man said, "The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it." God said to the Woman, "What is this that you've done?"

Genesis 3:14
God told the serpent: "Because you've done this, you're cursed, cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals, Cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life. I'm declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He'll wound your head, you'll wound his heel."

Genesis 3:17
He told the Man: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree That I commanded you not to eat from, ‘Don't eat from this tree,' The very ground is cursed because of you; getting food from the ground Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife; you'll be working in pain all your life long. The ground will sprout thorns and weeds, you'll get your food the hard way, Planting and tilling and harvesting, sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."

Genesis 39:7
After Joseph had been taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelites, Potiphar an Egyptian, one of Pharaoh's officials and the manager of his household, bought him from them. As it turned out, God was with Joseph and things went very well with him. He ended up living in the home of his Egyptian master. His master recognized that God was with him, saw that God was working for good in everything he did. He became very fond of Joseph and made him his personal aide. He put him in charge of all his personal affairs, turning everything over to him. From that moment on, God blessed the home of the Egyptian—all because of Joseph. The blessing of God spread over everything he owned, at home and in the fields, and all Potiphar had to concern himself with was eating three meals a day. Joseph was a strikingly handsome man. As time went on, his master's wife became infatuated with Joseph and one day said, "Sleep with me."

2 Samuel 11:2
One late afternoon, David got up from taking his nap and was strolling on the roof of the palace. From his vantage point on the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was stunningly beautiful. David sent to ask about her, and was told, "Isn't this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite?" David sent his agents to get her. After she arrived, he went to bed with her. (This occurred during the time of "purification" following her period.) Then she returned home. Before long she realized she was pregnant. Later she sent word to David: "I'm pregnant."

Job 31:1
"I made a solemn pact with myself never to undress a girl with my eyes. So what can I expect from God? What do I deserve from God Almighty above? Isn't calamity reserved for the wicked? Isn't disaster supposed to strike those who do wrong? Isn't God looking, observing how I live? Doesn't he mark every step I take?

Ezekiel 24:25
"And you, son of man: The day I take away the people's refuge, their great joy, the delight of their life, what they've most longed for, along with all their children—on that very day a survivor will arrive and tell you what happened to the city. You'll break your silence and start talking again, talking to the survivor. Again, you'll be an example for them. And they'll recognize that I am God ."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

I have planted,.... That is, ministerially; otherwise the planting of souls in Christ, and the implanting of grace in them, are things purely divine, and peculiar to God, and the power of his grace; but his meaning is, that he was at Corinth, as in other places, the first that preached the Gospel to them; and was an instrument of the conversion of many souls, and of laying the foundation, and of raising and forming a Gospel church state, and of planting them in it;

Apollos watered; he followed after, and his ministry was blessed for edification; he was a means of carrying on the superstructure, and of building up souls in faith and holiness, and of making them fruitful in every good word and work: each minister of the Gospel has his proper gifts, work, and usefulness; some are planters, others waterers; some are employed in hewing down the sturdy oaks, and others in squaring and fitting, and laying them in the building; some are "Boanergeses", sons of thunder, and are mostly useful in conviction and conversion; and others are "Barnabases", sons of consolation, who are chiefly made use of in comforting and edifying the saints: but God gave the increase: for as the gardener may put his plants into the earth, and water them when he has so done, but cannot cause them to grow, this is owing to a divine blessing; and as the husbandman tills his ground, casts the seed into it, and waits for the former and latter rain, but cannot cause it to spring up, or increase to perfection, this is done by a superior influence; so ministers of the Gospel plant and water, cast in the seed of the word, preach the Gospel, but all the success is from the Lord; God only causes it to spring up and grow; it is he that gives it its increasing, spreading, fructifying virtue and efficacy.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I have planted - The apostle here compares the establishment of the church at Corinth to the planting of a vine, a tree, or of grain. The figure is taken from agriculture, and the meaning is obvious. Paul established the church. He was the first preacher in Corinth; and if any distinction was due to anyone, it was rather to him than to the teachers who had labored there subsequently; but he regarded himself as worthy of no such honor as to be the head of a party, for it was not himself, but God who had given the increase.

Apollos watered - This figure is taken from the practice of watering a tender plant, or of watering a garden or field. This was necessary in a special manner in Eastern countries. Their fields became parched and dry from their long droughts, and it was necessary to irrigate them by artificial means. The sense here is, that Paul had labored in establishing the church at Corinth; but that subsequently Apollos had labored to increase it, and to build it, up. It is certain that Apollos did not go to Corinth until after Paul had left it; see Acts 18:18; compare Acts 18:27.

God gave the increase - God caused the seed sown to take root and spring up; and God blessed the irrigation of the tender plants as they sprung up, and caused them to grow. This idea is still taken from the farmer. It would be vain for the farmer to sow his seed unless God would give it life. There is no life in the seed, nor is there any inherent power in the earth to make it grow. Only God, the Giver of all life, can quicken the germ in the seed, and make it live. So it would be in vain for the farmer to water his plant unless God would bless it. There is no living principle in the water; no inherent power in the rains of heaven to make the plant grow. It is adapted, indeed, to this, and the seed would not germinate if it was not planted, nor grow if it was not watered; but the life is still from God. He arranged these means, and he gives life to the tender blade, and sustains it. And so it is with the word of life. It has no inherent power to produce effect by itself. The power is not in the naked word, nor in him that plants, nor in him that waters, nor in the heart where it is sown, but in God. But there is a Fitness of the means to the end. The word is adapted to save the soul. The seed must be sown or it will not germinate. Truth must be sown in the heart, and the heart must be prepared for it - as the earth must be plowed and made mellow, or it will not spring up. It must be cultivated with assiduous care, or it will produce nothing. But still it is all of God - as much so as the yellow harvest of the field, after all the toils of the farmer is of God. And as the farmer who has just views, will take no praise to himself because his grain and his vine start up and grow after all his care, but will ascribe all to God’s unceasing, beneficent agency; so will the minister of religion, and so will every Christian, after all their care, ascribe all to God.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Corinthians 3:6. I have planted — I first sowed the seed of the Gospel at Corinth, and in the region of Achaia.

Apollos watered — Apollos came after me, and, by his preachings and exhortations, watered the seed which I had sowed; but God gave the increase. The seed has taken root, has sprung up, and borne much fruit; but this was by the especial blessing of God. As in the natural so in the spiritual world; it is by the especial blessing of God that the grain which is sown in the ground brings forth thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold: it is neither the sower nor the waterer that produces this strange and inexplicable multiplication; it is God alone. So it is by the particular agency of the Spirit of God that even good seed, sown in good ground, the purest doctrine conveyed to the honest heart, produces the salvation of the soul.