1 Corinthians 3:10

“According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon; but let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon!”

The apostle first looks backwards (I laid), in order to put himself out of the question; hence the asyndeton.

The grace given him is that of founding the Church among the Gentiles, particularly at Corinth, with the totality of gifts which he received for this mission, and the use of them which he has been enabled to make. The phrase, according to the grace..., softens the eulogy which he seems to award himself in speaking, as he does here, of his work at Corinth.

One might see in the words, as a wise master builder, nothing more than an idea analogous to that expressed in Matthew 7:24-27. Paul would then simply mean: “I did not build on ground without laying a foundation; as a good architect, I provided a foundation for the building.” But the idea of prudence, or better still, of ability, contained in the term σοφός, seems rather to relate to the manner in which he laboured in laying the foundation, than to the simple act itself of laying it. He took care to avoid factitious modes of procedure, means borrowed from human eloquence and speculation; he deliberately confined himself to bearing testimony to the fact of salvation, leaving the Holy Spirit to act, and refraining from entering before the time into the domain of Christian speculation; his wisdom, as a founder, was to make no account of wisdom; comp. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, and 1 Corinthians 3:1-4. The master builder is not only he who draws the plan of the building, in this sense the title would revert to God, but also the man who directs its execution.

The perfect τέθεικα, which is read in the received text, might appear preferable to the aorist ἔθηκα of the Alexandrines; for the foundation, once laid, remains. But the aorist, which denotes the act done once for all, better contrasts Paul's work with the subsequent labours which are still going on.

These labours are denoted by the term ἐποικοδομεῖν, “ building on (the foundation laid).” The ἄλλος, another, is referred specially to Apollos. Two things should serve to set aside this idea: first, the present ἐποικοδομεῖ, builds upon; for, at the time when Paul wrote, Apollos was no longer at Corinth; then the word each which follows, and which shows that the ἄλλος, another, is a collective term. The word, in fact, denotes the whole body of individuals who, as prophets, teachers, or speaking in tongues, had laboured, since Paul's departure, in developing the Church founded by him. Apollos was one of them, and he certainly belongs, in Paul's view, to the number of those who had built with materials of good quality, 1 Corinthians 3:14; comp. 1 Corinthians 3:6-7. The end of the verse is an admonition addressed to all these workers, and prepared for by all that precedes from 1 Corinthians 3:8 b. The πῶς, how (that is to say: with what sort of materials), is the theme of the whole following development.