Читать книгу 1 Corinthians - Luise Schottroff - Страница 38

5 For who is Apollos, and who is Paul? We have both labored to see that your trust in God grows, both just as we were commissioned by the Eternal One. 6 I have planted, Apollos has watered, but it is God that has given the growth. 7 God gives the growth, so it is not important who plants or who waters. 8 The one who plants or the one who waters does it in community. Yet both will receive their own reward in accord with their work.

9 We are working together with God. God’s field, God’s edifice, that’s what you are. 10 Since the grace has been given to me by God, I have worked on the foundation like a clever master-builder. Others are continuing to build. The one who is continuing to build should think about how the work is proceeding. 11 No one can lay a foundation other than the one that has already been laid by God. That foundation is Jesus the Messiah.

3:5 Paul’s view is that in the controversies he and Apollos were played off over against one another. Therefore, Paul now lays out in detail his relationship to Apollos and the significance of both for the congregation in Corinth (until 4:6). His intention with this is to make clear that they have not been in competition and are also not suitable candidates for serving as the basis of competition among members of the congregation. He says that clearly toward the end of his exposition on the theme of Paul and Apollos (in 4:6). His exposition contains fundamental statements about his theological view of a congregation and of his relationship to it.

Apollos is also known from Acts (18:24–28; 19.1). He was a highly educated Jew who knew that he belonged to the Messiah Jesus. He spoke about this in the synagogue in Ephesus and met there Prisca and Aquila. They helped him gain additional insight, likely through precise instruction about baptism in the name of Jesus. The messianic congregation in Ephesus gave him a letter of introduction to the congregation in Corinth. There he was found to be very helpful, since through Torah interpretation he showed Jews in Corinth that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel (and of the nations?). This account in Acts agrees with what Paul himself reports. In 1 Cor 3:5 he identifies himself and Apollos in equal measure as servants assigned by God for the sake of the congregation (diakonoi; cf. 3:9, coworkers for God). Both have differing mandates from God. What »serving« means here is shown by what follows, beginning with 3:6.

In 3:6–11 Paul uses two images that are meant to elucidate 3:5: one image from gardening and the other from building houses. Apollos and Paul are peers in their work in the garden or on the house. What is decisive in both cases, however, is what comes from God: the growth (3:6) and the foundation (3:11).

3:6 The planting and watering likely refer to gardening, since agricultural fields are as a rule not watered artificially.¹⁶⁵ It is doubtful that it was important for Paul to say that he had founded the congregation (see above on 2:3). Here his only concern is the chronological sequence of his work and that of Apollos. That Paul was in Corinth before Apollos is also said by Acts.

3:7 stresses that their work was of equal value and the decisive importance for that work of what God does.

3:8 Once again the solidarity of the two workers is expressed: they are one, but they will be rewarded individually, based on what they have done; cf. 3:12–15.

3:9 Apollos and Paul are God’s coworkers in God’s planting and in God’s building. In the history of interpretation there have been dogmatic reservations about seeing people as God’s coworkers, and therefore there are interpretations that apply the syn- (with/[»co«-]) in the word synergoi [»coworkers«] to the working together of Paul and Apollos.¹⁶⁶ But this interpretation is linguistically unconvincing. Moreover, in the context it is important to recognize the presence of God’s activity even in the work of humans; see 3:10–11. Beyond all that, in the history of interpretation there have been interpretive models that depict Paul, in his relationship to the congregation as an absolute authority. 3:6–9 speaks a different language: the land/the planting and the building are God’s work, and God’s coworkers are those who carry out the work in obedience to God’s command, diakonoi (3:5).¹⁶⁷

3:10–11 In 3:9b Paul has begun a comparison in which a building depicts the congregation. It continues until 3:17. From 3:12 on, it is seen that he understands the building to be God’s temple.

In 3:10 Paul begins by saying that as a wise master builder he laid the building’s foundation. The foundation¹⁶⁸ is the first part of the building; the architektōn is the master builder.¹⁶⁹ Paul was commissioned by God and was the first to work on this building. It is not his intention in saying this to attribute to himself, as the one who founded the congregation, a greater role than that of others who have continued to work on the building, as he himself has also. He began, others are continuing. In 3:11 he then speaks of the foundation »that has been laid.« He doesn’t say »that I have laid.« Thus, it is no big leap to interpret keimenon/»that has been laid« as a passivum divinum: God has laid the foundation. For Paul, this does not contradict 3:10. He is speaking of the subject under discussion, not the image used to speak of it. God was at work when the edifice »congregation« came into being. The foundation, the first part of the building, is Jesus, the Messiah. He does not say: the foundation is the proclamation about the Messiah Jesus. The foundation is the Messiah himself. The image is shattered. Something similar occurs with the image of the body of Christ in Chapter 12 (see on 12:12–27). The congregation is the body of Christ—it is not merely compared with a body. The Messiah is the foundation; the congregation is not merely compared with a building. It is the house, in which God dwells (see 3:16).