1 Corinthians 4

1 Corinthians 4:1

And though, I say, we are subservient to your uses, and are appointed so to be, ch. iii. 22, yet it will become you to look on us, though not as masters of your faith, yet as ministers of Christ, and that in the most honourable office of the family, that of the steward or ruler of the house, to whom among other things it belongs to dispense out every man his proportion of food, &c.; and so it is our part to dispense the gospel to you in that measure and by those degrees that we see fit.

1 Corinthians 4:2

And above all things fidelity and honest discharging of trust is required of stewards; and if I should fail in that, I should be very worthy of blame.

1 Corinthians 4:3

But for this I am not to be judged by you, by men, nay by myself.

1 Corinthians 4:4

For though I can accuse myself of no fault in the execution of my apostolical office, yet is not this the clearing of me, only God, that searcheth and seeth all, must do this.

1 Corinthians 4:5

Therefore be not you too forward in your censures of me, but leave it to God; and I make no doubt

1 Corinthians 4:6

This, of not following or admiring the persons of men, I have thus said (see note [d] Rom. vii.) in the persons of myself and Apollos, under that figure to give you a general rule how to demean yourselves to any other dispensers of the gospel, viz. that in following of us ye go no further than the directions, ver. 1, that is, think of us not as masters of your faith, but as officers, stewards of Christ, to distribute that to you which he hath entrusted to us, and accordingly not to make it matter of pride to yourselves, or contemning of others, that ye are the disciples of such or such; in plain terms, to beware that you do not break out into factions, one to the despising of another, boasting, one that he hath received the faith from Paul and not from Apollos, another that he is a follower of Apollos and not of Paul, &c.

[a] to think] What φρονεῖν signifies in this place will best be guessed by φυσιοῦσθε, puffed up, which follows on purpose to explain it. That signifying elation of mind to the despising of others, φρονεῖν must in all reason do so also. Thus the Scholiast on Thucydides, l. 1, saith of καταφρονεῖν, that it is τὸ ἅγαν φρονεῖν, καὶ οἷον ὑπερφρονεῖν, where φρονεῖν must be a degree of pride, as the other a great or high degree of it. So in St. Chrysostom, tom. 3. p. 177. l 4. τίνος ἕνεκεν θορυβῇ καὶ ταράττῃ καὶ εἰς μωρίαν ἀποκέχρησαι τῇ φρονήσει; “why art thou disturbed and abusest thy opinion of thyself, thy pride to folly?” and l. 6, διὰ φρονήσεως γενίσθαι μωρὸν is, “by elation of mind, by pride, to become a

⁹ T. 5. p. 467. lin. 28. ¹⁰ Orat. 1. p. 67. ¹¹ See Rigatius ad Artemidor. Oneiro. p. 43. ¹² Hist. tom. 2. p. 38.

1 Corinthians 4:7

For this can be no matter of boasting to any of you, for by it is no man dignified before another; for by whomsoever you received the faith, it is clear that you received it; it is no acquisition of your own wit or parts, but merely a mercy of God’s, that sent us to preach to you, and therefore cannot in any reason be matter of boasting to you. 8, 9. You forsooth are so full and rich, so furnished with all kind of knowledge and wisdom, (such the Gnostics bragged of,) that you despise your apostles and spiritual fathers that first converted you to the faith; since we parted from you, you have in your own conceits been in great tranquillity and security, had happy halcyonian days (see note on Rev. i. 6); and I wish it were so with you as you fancy it to be, that the tranquillity which the Gnostics (with their compliances with the persecutors, whether Jews or heathens,) promise you, were a true Christian tranquillity, that we which are so sharply persecuted might come to you as to a refuge, and enjoy some part of that great privilege with you; for certainly we have need of it; for we are so far from any security,

1 Corinthians 4:10

We are vile and despised for the doing our duty, the exercise of our apostolical office, but you forsooth are very wise men, deeply learned in the doctrine of Christ; we weak, contemptible, mean persons, but you strong and gallant.

1 Corinthians 4:11

As I was when I was with you, (see ch. ii. 3,) so I am still, in a condition of continual want and persecution, and transitory mutable estate,

1 Corinthians 4:12

Taking excessive pains that I may preach the gospel, and get mine own living by my labour, that I might not put you to any charges, (see Acts xviii. 3,) and when, instead of thanks, I meet with nothing but reviling for all this, I have no return to make them but that of my prayers for them; nay, when persecuted, I entertain no thought of revenge toward them:

1 Corinthians 4:13

When calumniated and falsely accused, I pray to God for them by whom it is done; and this is no news to me; for we apostles of Christ are looked on and used as the unworthiest creatures of the world, and so continue until this time.

[b] filth] Περικαθάρματα signifies those things that are used in the lustrating of a city among the Gentiles. ¹ Suidas hath described the custom in these words, Ὑπὲρ καθαρμοῦ πόλεως ἀνήρουν ἐστολωμένον τινὰ ὃν ἐκάλουν κάθαρμα, “For the purging and lustrating of a city they clothed a man (in foul and filthy garments, say others) and put him to death, and he was called a lustration or expiation:” thus, saith Eustathius, περικάθαρμα is “a lustration” for which the vilest persons were wont to be used, οἱ ῥυπαροὶ καὶ ἀπόβλητοι, “sordid, refuse people.” For thus it was, when the city was under any plague or other great calamity, they chose out one of the nastiest persons in the city, and brought him to a certain place, with cheese, and dry figs, and a cake in his hand, and then beat him with rods about the secret parts, and then burnt him and the rods together in a ditch, and cast the ashes into the sea (τῷ Ποσειδῶνι θυσίαν ἀποτίνυντες, “paying a sacrifice to Neptune,” saith Suidas) with these words, γίνου περίψημα, γίνου κάθαρμα, “Be thou a lustration” for us. This person was called κάθαρμα and περίψημα, and by Lycophron, and before him by Hipponax, φάρμακον, “a medicament,” and by Philostratus, (saith Sardus de Ritib. l. 3. c. 19,) ἀποτροπάϊον, “a cure,” or “averter of judgment” from the city. (But this is a mistake in Sardus; all that Philostratus saith being only this, that in the theatre, τὸ τοῦ ἀποτροπάϊον ἴδρυται, that is, “the statue of the deity that averteth judgment, plagues, &c. was set up.”) By this it appears also what is meant by περίψημα πάντων, the refuse of all, in the next words, to wit, the very same thing in another expression, the vilest refuse creature in a city, such as used to be the expiation in a public calamity. So saith Suidas, Περίψημα, κάταγμα, which, I conceive, is a corruption from κάθαρμα, which differs but little from it; and Hesychius, Περίψημα, περικατάμαγμα (for περικάθαρμα I conceive) ἀντίλυτρα, ἀντίψυχα, ἢ ὑπὸ τὰ ἔχνη πάντων, the two words are of the same signification, and denote “those that are paid for others’ ransoms, or put to death in others’ stead,” or else any thing that is most vile, “trodden under feet by all men.” Thus Tob. v. 24, we have this phrase, περίψημα τοῦ παιδίου γίνοιτο, for, Let it be despised, a refuse, in respect of, or comparison to my son; this heathen custom, whence all this comes, being in a manner but a transcript of the Azazel among the Jews, the scape-goat, that was sent into the wilderness with all the sins of the people upon him, which was therefore called ἀποπομπάϊος, rejectaneus, or refuse.

1 Corinthians 4:14

And though I have thus been used by some of you since these schisms have come in among you, yet I say it not to reproach or bring shame upon you for so doing, but out of the affections of a father, I advise and admonish you to behave yourselves more like children than ye have yet done.

1 Corinthians 4:15

For though others may have taught you since, yet it is only I that planted the gospel first among you; and therefore there can be no occasion of schisms

[b] saved; yet so as by fire] That σώζεσθαι signifies to escape, hath been often noted, but what σώζεσθαι διὰ, to escape by, here signifies, is the only difficulty, and that will be best explained by comparing it with other places of the same kind. Thus 1 Pet. iii. 20, διεσώθησαν δι’ ὕδατος, they were saved out of, or through the water, the preposition διὰ perhaps (as other prepositions oft are in the New Testament) being taken loosely for ἐκ or ἀπὸ, out or from, or else, as the necessity of the matter imports, an escaping through water, implying consequently an escaping out of it also; and so the sense will be, that though there were a great flood ready to drown all the earth, yet for all this, by the help of the ark they did escape that danger. And so here σωθήσεται ὡς διὰ πυρὸς, he shall escape as one escapes out of the fire, that is, as Chrysostom expresses it, as one that, when in the midnight his house is set on fire, wakes and leaps out of the bed, and runs naked out of doors, οὐδὲν τῶν Ἰνδὸν λαβὼν, “taking nothing that is within” along with him, taking care only, (as he adds,) ὅπως τὸ σῶμα τὸ ἑαυτοῦ προεξαρπάζῃ τῆς φλογὸς, “that he may snatch his own body out of the flame.” And it is a common observation that ὡς διὰ πυρὸς σώζεσθαι is a proverbial speech for those that get hardly out of a great danger; so ὡς διὰς ἐξηρπασμένος ἐκ πυρὸς, as a brand snatched out of the fire, Amos iv. 11, and so Jude 23, ἐν φόβῳ σώζετε, ἐκ τοῦ πυρὸς ἁρπάζοντες, save them by snatching them out of the fire in time of danger, for so ἐν φόβῳ signifies, ἐν κινδύνῳ, in presence of any thing that men are afraid of. By this means that of 1 Pet. iv. 18 will be explained also, for this will be the meaning of μόλις σώζεται, (for which the Hebrew, Prov. xi. 31, reads חֲלִישִׁי, shall be recompensed,) he shall not escape without many losses and afflictions in that πύρωσις or combustion. So as in Julian, ἡ νῦξ ὀλίγους ἀπέσωσε μόλις, “the night did hardly or with great difficulty rescue a few;” and in Agathias, who having spoken of some that πυρπολεῖσθαι ἔμελλον, “were ready to be fired and burnt,” adds, μόλις ἐνθένδε διεκπεσόντες καταφεύγουσι, “they hardly escape out of it.”

1 Corinthians 4:21

[c] a rod] The ῥάβδος or rod here is the power of inflicting punishments in the apostles, of death itself, as on Ananias, of diseases, as on Elymas; and so the Hebrew word מטה, for ῥάβδος, is rendered πληγῇ, a stripe, Isa. x. 24, and is all one with μάστιξ, scourge, Mark iii. 10;

¹ In the word Κάθαρμα.

1 Corinthians 4:23

And the conclusion from hence is this, that you give not up your faith to any but to Christ; that you resolve firmly to obey him and adhere to him uniformly, as he resigned himself up to the will of God, to do and to suffer whatsoever he appointed him in the great office of being our Mediator and Redeemer.

LET a man so account of us, as of the ¹ ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.