Acts 18:27

Who—helped, &c.— The best comment on the words is what we are told elsewhere, 1 Corinthians 3:6. Paul planted, and Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. It is indeed true, both that the Corinthians had believed through grace, and that through grace Apollos helped them. The latter strongly implies the former, and the original words may possibly speak either. It appears from many passages in St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians, that several of the Christians there, charmed with the eloquence of Apollos, were ready to set him up as the head of a party, and to make invidious and foolish comparisons between him and the apostle who had been their father in Christ; and who, though he might have less volubility of speech, was, on the most important accounts, far superior to this eloquent and zealous teacher. See 1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 3:4 to 1 Corinthians 8:13; 1 Corinthians 8:13; 1 Corinthians 4:6. Yet this occasioned no breach between Paul and Apollos; the latter of whom plainly appears to have come to Ephesus when St. Paul returned thither, and to have declined going to Corinth again, even when St. Paul would have persuaded him to it; probably to avoid any the remotest appearance of desiring to countenance any party which might have been formed in his own favour. See 1 Corinthians 16:12.