789
χι Th. iii. 2; 2Cor. vi. I; συνεργος more generally; nine times in P.; 3 Jo. 8. z In this sense (con- b In such connexion, here only in N.T.; cf. d Lk. vi. 48, xiv. e Eph.
1εθηκαα, S*ABC*, 17: Neutral and Alexandrian.
Ver. 8. In comparison with God, Ap. and P. are simply nothing (7): in rela- tion to each other they are not rivals, as their Cor. favourers would make them (4): ‘But the planter and the waterer are one” (€v, one thing)—with one in- terest and aim, viz., the growth of the ‘Church; of. xii. 12, 20; also John x. 30. Their functions are complementary, not competitive: a further answer to the -question, τί οὖν ἐστὶν ᾽Απολλώς κ.τ.λ. ; The servants of God are nothing before Him, ‘‘one thing” before His Church: vanity and variance are alike impossible.
While one in aim, they are distinct in ‘responsibility and reward: ‘ But each will get his own (proper) wage, according to his own toil’”’.— i8.0s, appropriate, προς ο ο]. Vile. τι RVs) ο, 20) ορια. gruens iteratio, antitheton ad unum” (Bg.).—épyov (13-15) denotes the work achieved, κόπος the exertion put forth (see parls., and κοπιάω, xv. 1ο, etc.): τί yap εἰ ἔργον οὐκ ἐτέλεσεν:--- ἐκοπίασεν δέ (Thp.). The contrast ἕν etow . . . ἕκασ- τος δέ, between collective and individual relationships, is characteristic of Paul: cf. xii. 5-11, 27, xv. 10 f., Gal. vi. 2-5, Rom. xiv. 7-10. He forbids the man either to assert himseif against the community or to merge himself in it. The fixed ratio between present labour in Christ’s service and final reward is set forth, diff. but consistently, in the two parables of the Talents and Pounds, Matt. xxv. 14-30, Luke xix. 11-28.
Ver. 9. Θεοῦ . . . συνεργοὶ sums up in two words, and grounds upon a broad principle (yap), what vv. 6 ff. have set out in detail: ‘‘we are God’s fellow- workmen”’—employed upon His field, His building ; and ‘‘ we are God’s fellow- workmen ”—labouring jointly at the same task. The ovv- of συνεργοὶ takes up the év εἶσιν of ver. 8; the context. (cf. xii. 6) forbids our referring it to the dependent gen. (cf. also 2 Cor. 1. 24, vi. 1, Phil. iii. 17, 3 John 8), as though P. meant “ fellow-
workers with God”: “the work (Arbeit) of the διάκονος would be improperly con- ceived as a Mit-arbeit in relation to God; moreover the metaphors which follow exclude the thought of such a fellow- working” (Hn.); also Bg., ‘‘ operarii Dei, et co-operarii invicem”’.
As in regard to the labourers, so with the objects οἱ their toil, God is all and in all: Θεοῦ γεώργιον, Θεοῦ οἰκοδομή ἐστε, ““God’s tilth (arvum, land for tillage, Ed.), God’s building you are”. For God as γεωργῶν, cf. John xv. 1; as οἰκοδομῶν, Heb. iii. 4, xi. το. ‘Of the two images, γεώργ. implies the organic growth of the Church, οἰκοδ. the mutual adaptation of its parts’”’ (Lt.); the one looks backward to vv. 6 ff., the other forward to vv. το Π.--Οἰκοδομὴ displaces οἰκοδόμημα in later (.-- Θεοῦ, anar- throus by correlation (see note on ἀποδ. Πν., ii. 4): the three gens. are alike gens. of possession—‘‘God’s workmen, em- ployed on God’s field-tillage and God’s house-building”. Realising God’s all- comprehending rights in His Church, the too human Cor. (3 f.) will come to think justly of His ministers.
§ 10. THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE Human BUvuILDERS, iii. 10-17. After the long digression on Wisdom (1. 17-ii1. 2), occasioned by the Hellenic misconcep- tion of the Gospel underlying the Cor. divisions, the Ap. returned in vv. 3 ff. to the divisions themselves, dealing particu- larly with the rent between Apollonians and Paulinists. His first business was to reduce the Church leaders to their subordinate place, as fellow-servants of the one Divine cause (§ 9). They are temple-workmen—not himself and Apol- los alone, but all who are labouring on the foundation which he has laid down —and must therefore take heed to the quality of their individual work, which will undergo a searching and fiery test.