God's Field Is Not a Contest Between Gardeners

The oldest manuscripts use two different Greek words for “carnal” in this chapter. Here it is sarkinos, made of flesh, as a statement of what they were; in verse 3 it is sarkikos, fleshly in character, a charge about how they act. “Babes” is nepioi, infants, children not yet able to speak.

“Meat” here is broma, solid food, not specifically flesh. Philo of Alexandria used milk and solid food for elementary and advanced teaching, and Hebrews 5:12–14 uses the same picture. The King James supplies “to bear it”; the Greek says simply that they were not yet able.

“Envying” is zelos, zeal, the good passion of Romans 10:2 turned into rivalry. “Strife” is the eris of 1:11. “And divisions” is a later addition, absent from the earliest copies. “Walk as men” means living at a merely human level, ordinary conduct from people who claim to be spiritual.

Only two names remain, Paul and Apollos, the two who had actually worked in Corinth. In 4:6 Paul admits he has used himself and Apollos as the illustration on purpose. The oldest manuscripts end “are ye not men?”, which sharpens the charge: merely human.

The oldest manuscripts read “What then is Apollos? and what is Paul?”, a neuter question asking what they are, not who, and they put Apollos first. “Ministers” is diakonoi, servants, the word for someone who waits on others. “By whom” makes them the means, not the source, of belief.

The tenses tell the division of labour. “Planted” and “watered” are aorist, finished acts in the past. “Gave the increase” is imperfect, a continuing action: God was making it grow all along. Acts 18 has Paul founding the church and Apollos arriving after him (18:27–19:1).

“Any thing” is ti, something: neither planter nor waterer is anything at all when set beside the one who gives growth. The Greek ends on the phrase “the growth-giving God”, with the emphasis falling on the last words.

“One” is neuter in Greek, one thing, a single operation. “Reward” is misthos, a wage, the pay handed to labourers at evening in Matthew 20:8. “His own” comes twice: each is paid for his own work, not for the size of his following.

Jeremiah joins the same two pictures when God says, “I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them” (Jeremiah 24:6). “Husbandry” is georgion, a cultivated field, the root of the name George, farmer. “Labourers together” is synergoi, fellow workers.

“Masterbuilder” is architekton, chief builder, from which “architect” comes. Isaiah 3:3 in the Greek Old Testament lists “the wise masterbuilder” among the leaders God would take away from Jerusalem, the same two words Paul uses of himself.

“Is laid” is keimai, lies in place already: the foundation is not waiting to be poured. Isaiah 28:16 speaks of God laying in Zion “a sure foundation”, and Paul has already built his argument on that stone in Romans 9:33.

The six materials fall into two sets of three. Gold, silver and costly stones were the materials David gathered for the temple (1 Chronicles 29:2) and survive fire; “precious stones” probably means fine building stone such as marble. Wood, hay and stubble are the stuff of huts and roofs, and burn.

“The day” is the day of the Lord of 1:8. “Is revealed” is present tense, as though the day arrives already burning. Malachi 3:2–3 pictures the LORD’s coming as “a refiner’s fire”. “Try” is dokimazo, to assay metal by heat.

“Abide” is meno, to remain standing, the verb of 13:13, “now abideth faith, hope, charity”. “Reward” is the wage of verse 8 again. A building that comes through the fire earns the builder his pay.

“Suffer loss” is zemioo, to be fined or forfeit, a commercial penalty; Philippians 3:8 uses it of Paul’s losses. “So as by fire” is a proverbial escape, like Amos 4:11, “as a firebrand plucked out of the burning”: rescued, but with the smell of smoke.

“Know ye not” is a question Paul asks ten times in this letter, six of them in chapter 6. “Temple” is naos, the sanctuary building itself where the deity dwelt, not hieron, the whole temple precinct with its courts.

“Defile” and “destroy” translate one Greek verb, phtheiro, so the penalty matches the crime: whoever wrecks God’s temple, God will wreck. At Jerusalem a stone notice warned Gentiles that anyone who passed the barrier would be responsible for his own death; one was found in 1871.

“Deceive” is exapatao, to deceive thoroughly, the verb Paul uses of the serpent beguiling Eve (2 Corinthians 11:3). “Seemeth” means thinks himself to be. The cure prescribed is to become moros, a fool, the word of 1:23 for how the cross looks to Greeks.

Job 5:13, spoken by Eliphaz, one of the friends God later rebukes (Job 42:7), yet Paul cites it as Scripture. His verb “taketh” is drassomai, to grab with the hand, closer to the Hebrew than the Greek Old Testament. Romans 11:35 draws on Job too, on God’s speech from the whirlwind.

Psalm 94:11 reads “the thoughts of man”; Paul writes “the thoughts of the wise”, fitting the psalm to his point. “Vain” is mataios, futile, the word of Romans 1:21, where people “became vain in their imaginations”.

“Glory in men” reverses 1:31, “glory in the Lord”. “All things are yours” echoes a Cynic and Stoic slogan, reported by Diogenes Laertius and Seneca, that all things belong to the wise man. Paul takes the philosophers’ boast and hands it to the church.

After the three teachers come five things larger than any teacher. Romans 8:38 names four of them, death, life, things present, things to come, as powers unable to separate believers from God’s love. Here they are listed as the church’s possessions.

The chain runs one step past the Corinthians: you, then Christ, then God. The letter comes back to the same order in 11:3, “the head of Christ is God”, and in 15:28, where the Son is subject to the Father, lines much debated in the fourth century over the Son’s relation to the Father.