Cor to Phil - Enter His Rest

I CORINTHIANSCHAPTER IV.Ministers should be esteemed by their flocks as the stewards of God, whose duty and interest it isto be faithful, 1, 2. Precipitate and premature judgments condemned, 3-5. The apostle's cautionto give the Corinthians no offence, 6. We have no good but what we receive from God, 7. Theworldly mindedness of the Corinthians, 8. The enumeration of the hardships, trials, and sufferingsof the apostles, 9-13. For what purpose St. Paul mentions these things, 14-16. He promises tosend Timothy to them, 17. And to come himself shortly, to examine and correct the abuses thathad crept in among them, 18-21.NOTES ON CHAP. IV.Verse 1. Let a man so account of us] This is a continuation of the subject in the precedingchapter; and should not have been divided from it. The fourth chapter would have begun better at#1Co 4:6, and the third should have ended with the fifth verse. {#1Co 4:5}As of the ministers of Christ] YLýWRJTGVCLýETKUVQW. The word WRJTGVJL means an under-rower,or one, who, in the trireme, quadrireme, or quinquereme galleys, rowed in one of the undermostbenches; but it means also, as used by the Greek writers, any inferior officer or assistant. By the termhere the apostle shows the Corinthians that, far from being heads and chiefs, he and his fellowapostles considered themselves only as inferior officers, employed under Christ from whom alonethey received their appointment their work, and their recompense.Stewards of the mysteries of God.] MCKýQKMQPQOQWLýOWUVJTKYP SGQW, Economists of the Divinemysteries. See the explanation of the word steward in Clarke's note on "Mt 24:45"; #Lu 8:3;12:42.The steward, or oikonomos, was the master's deputy in regulating the concerns of the family,providing food for the household, seeing it served out at the proper times and seasons, and in properquantities. He received all the cash, expended what was necessary for the support of the family, andkept exact accounts, which he was obliged at certain times to lay before the master. The mysteries,the doctrines of God, relative to the salvation of the world by the passion and death of Christ; andthe inspiration, illumination, and purification of the soul by the Spirit of Christ, constituted aprincipal part of the Divine treasure intrusted to the hands of the stewards by their heavenly Master;as the food that was to be dispensed at proper times, seasons, and in proper proportions to thechildren and domestics of the Church, which is the house of God.Verse 3. It is a very small thing that I should be judged of you] Those who preferred Apollosor Kephas before St. Paul, would of course give their reasons for this preference; and these might,in many instances, be very unfavourable to his character as a man, a Christian, or an apostle; of thishe was regardless, as he sought not his own glory, but the glory of God in the salvation of their souls.