8. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one : and every man shall receive his own reward, ac- cording to his own labour.
Are one. Ministers have the same office ; they have the same work, they stand in the same relation to God and to his Church. They are fellow-labourers. To array the one against the other, is, therefore, inconsistent with their relation to each other and to the people whom they serve.
Every man shall receive his own reward. Diversity and unity is the law of all God's works. Ministers are one, yet they have different gifts, different services to perform. One plants and another waters, and they have different rewards.
According to his own labour. The rule of reward is not the talents or gifts, nor the success of ministers, but their labours. This brings the humblest on a level with the most exalted ; the least successful with the most highly favoured. The faithful, laborious minister or missionary who labours in obscurity and without apparent fruit, will meet a reward far beyond that of those who, with less self-denial and effort, are 'made the instruments of great results. Corinth was the field of labour of a multitude of teachers, some faithful, and some unfaithful ; some laborious, and others indolent and self-indul- gent. Each would have to answer for himself, and would re- ceive a reward proportioned to his fidelity and self-denial.
9. For we are labourers together with God : ye are God's husbandry, (ye are) God's building.
For we are labourers together with God. This is at once the reason why ministers are one, and why they are to be re- warded according to their labours. They are one because they are all co-workers with God in the same great enter- prise ; and they are to be rewarded according to their labour, because that is the rule according to which labourers are re- warded. The propriety of this representation is apparent, because the church is God's husbandry^ or farm, which he renders fruitful by the light of truth and the dew of his grace, and on which his servants labour. This is a familiar scriptural illustration, as the church is often called the vineyard of the Lord, in which his ministers are labourers. A labourer who does not labour is a contradiction ; and a minister who is not a worker cannot expect a labourer's reward. Ye are God^s