I Planted, Apollos Watered, God Gave Growth: a free devotion

1 Corinthians 3:6

"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow."

Devotion

The Corinthians turned a farming team into a competition — and Paul's response was to take them outside and point at a field. Nobody cheers for the shovel over the watering can. Nobody argues that the morning rain was more important than the afternoon sun. The field just grows. The growth you have been trying to produce through strategy and effort and the right words at the right moment belongs to God — and He has been causing it all along, whether you knew it or not. Plant. Water. Then trust the One who makes things grow to do what only He can do.

Go deeper

"I planted the seed"

The Act of Beginning · ephyteusa · G5452 · GREEK
I planted — a completed action. The planting is done; what follows is not the planter's work to control. To plant is to act, release, and trust.

Paul arrived in Corinth first. He preached, he founded the community, he gave people their first encounter with the gospel. Then he left. He would never be able to control what happened next — who came after, how they taught, whether his converts remained. To plant is a profound act of release: you put the seed in the ground and then you let go. Paul couldn't stay. Neither can most of us. The faithfulness is in the planting, not in controlling the garden after you leave.

📖 Acts 18:1–11 · Eighteen Months in Corinth

Paul arrived in Corinth alone and afraid — he says so himself in 1 Corinthians. He started in the synagogue, as usual, but the Jews opposed him and became abusive. He shook out his clothes and declared he was going to the Gentiles.

Then God spoke to him in a vision: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city." Many people — people who didn't know yet that they belonged to God.

Paul stayed for eighteen months, "teaching them the word of God." He planted. He built relationships. He preached in homes and halls. He watched people come to faith who had never heard the name of Jesus before he arrived.

Then he sailed to Syria. He had done what he came to do: the seed was in the ground. What happened to it next would be God's work — and Apollos's watering — and the fruit of a community Paul would write to for years without seeing their faces.

"Apollos watered it"

The Gift of Continuance · epotisen · G4222 · GREEK
Watered, irrigated — to give what is needed after the beginning, to sustain what was started by another. The ministry of faithful follow-through.

Apollos came after Paul and did something that requires a particular kind of character: he built on someone else's foundation without competing with the founder. He watered what Paul planted — he deepened, sustained, and extended a community he did not start. The person who can make someone else's beginning flourish is rare and indispensable. Apollos's watering was its own ministry — not less than planting, not inferior to Paul's work, but necessary in a way that planting cannot provide on its own.

📖 Acts 18:27–28; 1 Corinthians 3:4–9 · The Man the Corinthians Were Tempted to Prefer

When Apollos arrived in Corinth, he must have been remarkable. Eloquent, learned, fervent, armed now with the full gospel — he made an impression. The Corinthian church began to divide: some said they followed Paul. Others said they followed Apollos. Some said Peter. Some said Christ.

Paul's response to the Corinthian factions is the origin of this verse. He is not competing with Apollos; he is dismissing the competition entirely. "What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe."

He reaches for the farming metaphor because farming is something no one argues about: the planter and the waterer are not rivals — they are teammates on a task that belongs entirely to the land's owner. Nobody competes for credit when the harvest comes in; everyone just works.

Apollos apparently received this gracefully. He is mentioned in 1 Corinthians without defensiveness; Paul writes of him as a colleague, not a competitor. The factions at Corinth were not their idea. They were the Corinthians' idea — and both men rejected it.

"God has been making it grow"

The Growth That Belongs to God · auxanō · G837 · GREEK
To cause to grow, to increase — always in the New Testament used of growth that comes from God, not human effort. The increase is never in our hands.

Paul uses the imperfect tense here — "has been making it grow" — continuous, ongoing action. While Paul was on other journeys and Apollos was in Corinth, God was constantly at work in the community neither of them could see. The work you plant and water continues in your absence because it was never yours to begin with — it belongs to the One who causes growth, and He does not take days off.

📖 Mark 4:26–29 · The Farmer Who Slept While the Seed Grew

Jesus told a parable about a farmer who scattered seed on the ground. Then — and this is the remarkable part — "Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how."

The farmer in the parable does not stay awake anxiously monitoring the soil. He sleeps. He gets up. He goes about his life. Meanwhile, "the soil produces grain on its own — first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head."

When the grain is ripe, the farmer goes and harvests it. But the growing was not his work. He scattered the seed. He trusted the soil to do what only soil can do. He waited for the harvest with confidence that it would come.

Paul and Apollos were that farmer. They planted and watered. Then they went on to the next field. And in Corinth, God was growing what neither of them could grow — "though he does not know how."

Declarations

✦ I plant and water faithfully, trusting God to produce the growth I cannot. (1 Corinthians 3:6)
✦ I do not compete with those who water what I planted — we are teammates, not rivals. (Philippians 2:3)
✦ The word I speak in faith is never wasted — it accomplishes what God sent it to do. (Isaiah 55:11)
✦ God who began a good work in those I love will carry it on to completion. (Philippians 1:6)

Prayer

Father, I plant. Others water. But You make it grow — and that changes everything about how I carry the work You have given me. Release me from the anxiety of controlling the harvest and the pride of taking credit for it. Let me do my part fully and trust You with the rest. I plant today in faith that You are already at work in the soil. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Think about it

Where have you been trying to control the harvest of something God has called you only to plant — and what would it feel like to genuinely release the outcome to Him?

I will do my part with full faithfulness — planting, watering, showing up — and release the growth to the only One who has ever been able to produce it.

Open my personal devotional →

Want daily reminders on your phone? Get the Witness Health app.