Apollos at Corinth
181
attended Apollos in preaching the gospel led some of the believers to
exalt his labors above those of Paul. This comparison of man with
man brought into the church a party spirit that threatened to hinder
greatly the progress of the gospel.
During the year and a half that Paul had spent in Corinth, he had
purposely presented the gospel in its simplicity. “Not with excellency
of speech or of wisdom” had he come to the Corinthians; but with fear
and trembling, and “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” had
he declared “the testimony of God,” that their “faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 2:1, 4,
5
.
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Paul had necessarily adapted his manner to teaching to the con-
dition of the church. “I, brethren could not speak unto you as unto
spiritual,” he afterward explained to them, “but as unto carnal, even
as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat:
for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.”
1
Corinthians 3:1, 2
. Many of the Corinthian believers had been slow
to learn the lessons that he was endeavoring to teach them. Their
advancement in spiritual knowledge had not been proportionate to
their privileges and opportunities. When they should have been far
advanced in Christian experience, and able to comprehend and to
practice the deeper truths of the word, they were standing where the
disciples stood when Christ said to them, “I have yet many things to
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.”
John 16:12
. Jealousy,
evil surmising, and accusation had closed the hearts of many of the
Corinthian believers against the full working of the Holy Spirit, which
“searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.”
1 Corinthians 2:10
.
However wise they might be in worldly knowledge, they were but
babes in the knowledge of Christ.
It had been Paul’s work to instruct the Corinthian converts in the
rudiments, the very alphabet, of the Christian faith. He had been
obliged to instruct them as those who were ignorant of the operations
of divine power upon the heart. At that time they were unable to
comprehend the mysteries of salvation; for “the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
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Verse 14
. Paul had endeavored to sow the seed, which others must
water. Those who followed him must carry forward the work from the