1 Corinthians 4

If you have ever rented somewhere and then owned a home, you know the difference between being a manager and an owner. When you rent a home or an apartment, your landlord takes responsibility for most of the building’s upkeep because you don’t own it. But if you own the house, when the roof goes bad, you get to fix it. When the water heater goes out, you buy a new one. There are far greater responsibilities that come with ownership.

That’s also true in life. If we want to be the owner of our lives and live as though God has no say in and over our lives in every single detail, we see time and again how He responds.

Satan wants us to become like him—in rebellion against God. Satan wants

us to stop thinking like a steward and servant and start thinking like an owner. Yet God wants us to faithfully steward in servanthood that which He has placed in our care by looking to Him as the owner of all -

In verse 1 of Chapter 4, Paul seems to include Apollos and Cephas (from 3:22) in the “us” as he asks the Corinthians to think of them as “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” The word for “servants” there is not the usual one, that could as easily mean “slave.” It’s a more technical term, literally an “under-rower” – so, a grueling and lowly image from sea-faring, which may speak especially to the Corinthians, living in a seaport as they do. The key point seems to be that people in roles like these are “free” – that is, not enslaved – but nevertheless are under orders, responsible, accountable, to the one they serve.

Paul views himself and his fellow apostles as being those to whom the mysteries of God (the revelation of the plan of salvation and the purposes of God) have been entrusted for public proclamation and preservation. The primary attribute required of stewards is FAITHFULNESS (verse 2).

An example, if you are looking for a financial planner to take care of your monetary investments, one of the most important concerns would be his trustworthiness: the attributes of reliability and responsibility would be essential—these traits are all the more essential for those who are entrusted with the sacred truth of God (1 Timothy 1:12).

It doesn’t say it is required of stewards that a man be found brilliant. That lets some of us out right off the bat. Educated, clever, glib, popular or even charismatic - no. Faithful - FAITHFULNESS. Faithful means trustworthy. He wanted stewards that you didn’t have to watch. Stewards you absolutely implicitly trusted. God wants our faithfulness. I look all around me and see people who are faithful in something, and it may not look to anyone else like it’s much, but if they’re faithful before God, that’s the basis on which God honors them… there’s just such a sweetness there. Faithfulness.

Paul does not allow himself to become distraught by human judgments that evaluate him by the standards of the world rather than by the Word of God. He does not concern himself with any human day of judgment (verse 3); rather, he lives in the expectation of the divine day of judgment (verse 4)— (2 Corinthians 5:9-10). In verse 5 Paul gives to the church the exhortation, “Judge nothing before the appointed time, wait until the Lord comes.” The word “judge” here means not krinō but the word is anakrinō, which means evaluation or cross-examination or the process of evaluating. Paul says, “I’ve reached to the place where you know something? I don’t let you judge me because your standards are too low, and I don’t let me judge me because mine are as low as yours.” Paul says, “I’ve reached to the place where you know something? I don’t let you judge me because your standards are too low, and I don’t let me judge me because mine are as low as yours.” I’m just as depraved as you are. We’re a bunch of sinners saved by grace, and we’re lousy at real evaluation - Maturity! But that also doesn’t mean we don’t worship obediently in Spirit and Truth… hence, Pauly’s letters.

Then we come to v6, which is just very odd. The NRSV translates “I have applied all this …” to myself and Apollos … The verb is uncommon. Only Paul ever uses it in the New Testament, and he uses it various ways. It normally means “to transform, to change appearance.” Other translations end up with “I have figuratively applied this …” or something like that.

What’s the “this”? The feeding with milk instead of solid food, the planting and watering, the foundation-laying, the boat-rowing and the mysteries-stewarding, presumably.

And now we arrive where I sat mostly -

In verse 7 Paul inquires, “What makes you superior?” Paul is asking what, or who, makes the Corinthians think that they are superior and distinct from other believers in Christ. It surely was not God, because God called them into the fellowship of His Son, a fellowship that He holds with every true Christian (1 Corinthians 1:9; 1:2).

He further inquires, “What do you have that you did not receive?” Whatever spiritual experiences the Corinthians have enjoyed and whatever spiritual gifts they possess, have come from God by His grace and for His glory and for the welfare of His Capital C - Church.

“What Do You Have That You Did Not Receive?"

…But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? The answer to that first question is "nothing." "What do you have that you have not received?" Answer: nothing. But in spite of this there was boasting going on in the church at Corinth. Which to Paul's mind was totally contradictory to reality. If all you have is a free gift from God—that's what grace means—then you can't boast as if it were not a gift. Grace eliminates boasting. You can't boast as though you create and sustain what only grace creates and sustains.

That's why Paul said that he would not boast except in the cross of Christ which is the ground of grace (Galatians 6:14) and in his weaknesses which show his need for grace (2 Corinthians 12:9). And it's why he said in (Romans 15:18), I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me.

So for Paul everything good that he has is a gift of grace, and everything he accomplishes with what he has is a work of grace. And so all boasting is excluded, except boasting in grace. “Yet Not I, but the Grace of God with Me".

Here's another example of this all-supplying work of grace that makes it different. In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul says,

By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

"By the grace of God I am what I am." In other words the Paul who labored so hard got to be that way by the grace of God. So even though he is working hard to preach the gospel, the "he" that is working hard is only a work of grace.

After Paul says, "I labored even more than all of them," he says, "Yet not I, but the grace of God with me." "The grace of God with me" might sound like grace was holding up a wheelchair and Paul was independently doing his part to turn the wheels and get across the finish line. So riding well and getting to heaven would be a team project and grace would get some credit and Paul would get some credit. But Paul guards against that interpretation with the words, "Yet not I." The effect of grace is so all-pervading and so all-influencing and all-sufficient and all-necessary that when it has done its work, you say, "I worked, yet not I."

“For It Is God Who Is at Work in You"

That means that we really do work, but all our working is the fruit of only enabling grace. Paul explains this in Philippians 2:12b–13, Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. We work, but when we have worked by faith in God's enabling future grace (rather than for the merit of the law), we turn around and say about our work, "My work was God's work in me, willing and doing his good pleasure."

Treasuring all that God is, is a work of grace in my heart. I would not treasure God without a mighty work of grace in my life (Acts 18:27; Philippians 1:29; Ephesians 2:8f.; 2 Timothy 2:25). "Loving all whom he loves" is a work of grace in my heart (1 Thessalonians 3:12; 4:9; Philippians 1:9; Galatians 5:22). "Praying for all his purposes" is a work of grace in my heart (Philippians 2:13; Hebrews 13:21). And "meditating on all his Word" is a work of grace in my heart (Psalm 119:36).

As we study, I pray The Spirit of revelation, wisdom and knowledge speaks for us to truly understand the work of the cross in His depths and see the connection between grace, love, power, and the kingdom of God. The power of the kingdom is going to issue in love. Love is our aim. Our interest in these things is very practical: How shall we love unbelievers to Christ with greatest effectiveness? How shall we love our way into the unreached with most effectiveness? How shall we most effectively love demonized, addicted, enslaved, broken people to the freedom of Christ?

Love is the summation of all practical Christian living. When you love, you “fulfill the whole law” (Romans 13:10). “Faith, hope and love abide, but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). “Faith working through love” is the only thing that avails with God (Galatians 5:6). “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Love is the test of whether spiritual gifts and power amount to anything: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1–2).

Our goal is to learn how to love with the greatest power and effect from Him, to Him,

through Him, and for Him!

Whoever loves and serves, let us do so as by the strength which God supplies [that's grace]; so that in all things Abba may be glorified through The Holy Spirit, in exaltation of Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen!