The Spirit surprised me with yet another beautiful expression of Jesus’ love for His bride, this time tucked away in Paul’s words to settle a dispute among the Corinthian believers. The apostle was alarmed about factions in the church he’d planted, some aligning themselves with himself, others with Apollos, others with Cephas (Peter), and yet others Christ. Winding down his three chapter argument against disunity, he pointed to a right view of Christian service, using himself and Apollos as examples.
“For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. (1 Corinthians 3:3-9 ESV)
Now, Paul loves to draw from the rich reservoir of the Hebrew Scriptures by direct quotations, allusions, and wordplays. He is quite the master at it. He often does this using the Septuagint, the popularized Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in the Roman world back then. Watch what he does below the surface of his plain words. It’s amazing! Where Paul says emphatically, “I planted”, he used the word ephyteusa (ἐφύτευσα), an active aorist (i.e., simple past tense) of phyteuō ( foot-yoo’-oh φυτεύω). The first appearance of phyteuō in the Septuagint happened here:
“And Yahweh God planted [ephyteusen ἐφύτευσεν] a garden in Eden, toward the east; and there He placed the man whom He had formed” (Gen 2:8 LSB).
“Planted” here is the same word phyteuō, also active aorist but in the third person, hence ephyteusen. Interestingly, the Septuagint translated the Hebrew word for garden as paradise.
Now take a look at “Apollos watered.” “Watered” is epotisen (ἐπότισεν), the active aorist of potizō (pot-id’-zoh ποτίζω). Check out the second appearance of this word:
“Now a river went out of Eden to water [ποτίζειν] the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers” (Gen 2:10 LSB).
So Yahweh God (or, the LORD God, as many translations have it) is the first gardener. He plants the garden and then supplies it with a perpetual water source for its sustenance and thriving. The apostle Paul is riffing off this scene, as we’ll see as we excavate more of his hyperlinked language to this Corinthians passage. Notice how Paul is correlating his and Apollos’ work among the church at Corinth with Yahweh’s gardening activities.
Paul then asserts, “You are God’s field, God’s building.” This is a pivot point. Everything in this localized argument preceding refers to the church being a garden, what follows afterwards is the church being a building, a temple. Now, the word for field is geōrgion (gheh-ore’-ghee-on γεώργιον), the only time it shows up in the New Testament (and only 7 times in the Septuagint). It stems from geōrgos (gheh-ore-gos’ γεωργός), a compound word meaning land worker, so a husbandman, tiller of the soil, or a vinedresser. Geōrgos first appears in the Septuagint here:
“Then Noah began to be a man [anthrōpos geōrgos] of the land and planted a vineyard” (Gen 9:20 LSB).
The original Hebrew is simply “man of the land.” The Septuagint translator correctly inserted geōrgos to help the reader with the sense, meaning that Noah was a vinedresser or farmer of that land, as the context clearly shows. So Paul’s allusion to Eden is expanding to Noah’s “Eden.” Now, Noah as a new Adam is a fascinating study all in itself, far too much to develop here. But in brief, after the flood Noah was commissioned like Adam to “be fruitful and multiply.” Noah planted a vineyard, and like Adam found himself naked and one of his descendants being cursed. As we move on to the next word link, it becomes apparent that Paul has both scenes in mind.
The word for “planted” is ephyteusen, the same language employed as previously discussed with paradise: “And Yahweh God planted [ephyteusen] a garden in Eden.” So “Apollos planted” brings into play imagery from these two scenes: Yahweh’s garden and Noah’s vineyard. Though Paul could have said, “You are God’s garden,” he chose rather “You are God’s field [geōrgion],” identifying with the vineyard of Noah, the anthrōpos geōrgos.
Now, with all this as introduction, we come to Paul’s most eye-popping hyperlink. “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” “Gave the growth” in one word in Greek: ēuxanen (ay-oox’-an-en ηὔξανεν), the imperfect active of auxanō (owx-an’-oh αὐξάνω). Most English translations say “gave the growth” or “gave the increase”, though one rendered it, “made them sprout and grow.” My NKJV “increase” is what’s stuck in my brain. While auxanō does mean both increase and growth, its usage in the Septuagint, combined with Paul’s context, give it additional rainbow hues of radiance. This is where I got the pleasant surprise!
The first appearance of auxanō in the Septuagint is here on Day 5 of creation, God addressing the fish of the sea and the birds of the skies:
“Then God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful [auxanō] and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth’” (Gen 1:22 LSB, emphasis added).
Then on Day 6 to the first people God repeats this blessing:
“God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful [auxanō] and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that creeps on the earth’” (Gen 1:28 LSB, emphasis added).
The next times it pops up is in connection with Noah and God’s renewed mandate and commissioning:
“And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful [auxanō] and multiply and fill the earth’” (Gen 9:1 LSB, emphasis added).
There are continued usages of auxanō in terms of human fruitfulness (e.g., Gen 17:6, 20, 28:3, 35:11, etc.). So let’s rethink “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” in these “be fruitful” terms that Paul and his Septuagint readers would have been familiar with. God’s blessing of fruitfulness implies union. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). One flesh, union, is what generates the fruitfulness, whether in mankind or among the animal world. Paul, a few chapters later, extrapolates the “one flesh” principle to a higher spiritual reality to the Corinthians: “But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1Co 6:17).
The Corinthians had gotten off track, factions arising because of unhealthy spiritual attachments to ministry instruments like Paul, Apollos and Peter. By saying “God gave the growth” with auxanō, he brought into play the “be fruitful” mindset associated to this word. It’s a subtle wordplay to redirect these believers back to their union, the spiritual oneness, with God! It’s when the bride is in union with her Bridegroom that she is fruitful. “So, my brothers, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God” (Rom 7:4). Paul’s burning passion was that the church, as Jesus’ bride, cling to Him alone. “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2Co 11:2). This godly jealousy is an undercurrent flowing behind all of Paul’s writings, not just limited to 2 Corinthians.
This wordplay with auxanō makes perfect sense in context of the Corinthian letter. They were trying to be in union with the workers (Paul, Apollos, Peter) when they needed to allow the workers’ labors to unify their attention, affection and adoration towards Jesus, their true Bridegroom, the new Adam, the perfect Noah. As fellow gardeners amidst God’s paradise, the church, their great work is promoting her intimacy and union with God so as to bear fruit. The old KJV states well the ministry of Paul’s fellow laborer, Barnabas: “Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord” (Acts 11:23).
The good news for us is that when we view God’s laborers (pastors, preachers, teachers, evangelists, podcasters, YouTubers, etc.) rightly as Paul taught, we, the bride, enjoy union and intimacy with Jesus that grows, increases, and abounds in fruitfulness. Schisms disappear, fruitfulness appears. You are God’s field—His garden, His vineyard—that He jealously gardens, guides and guards to perpetually fulfill His “be fruitful” blessing over you!
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 