1 Corinthians 4:7 - Meaning and Application

Here the apostle takes his earlier point and turns it into a warning against pride and self-importance. He also shows the Corinthians what temptations they had to look down on him because of the difference in their circumstances. He begins by reminding them that any difference among them came from God: “Who makes you different? And what do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Paul is speaking especially to the ministers who had put themselves at the head of these rival groups and helped stir up the division. What did they have to boast about, when their special gifts came from God? Since they had received them, they could not rightly boast as if they were their own, without dishonoring God. When they used these gifts to feed their pride, they should have remembered them as gifts that laid them under obligation to God’s kindness and grace.

This can also be taken as a general truth. We have no reason to be proud of our abilities, our blessings, or our work, because everything good in us is due to God’s free and rich grace. Boasting has no place here. We do not truly own anything that is good, because all of it is received from God. It is foolish, and it wrongs God, to boast about what we have only been given. Those who receive everything should be proud of nothing (Psalm 115:1).

Paul then presses humility on them with strong irony, or at least a sharp rebuke for their pride. “You are full, you are rich, you have become kings without us.” In other words, they had not only enough spiritual gifts, but more than enough, and they could even boast in them without Paul, meaning in his absence and without feeling any need for him. He moves in a very clear rise from enough, to wealth, to royalty, to show how lifted up they had become by their own view of their wisdom and gifts.

This pride was growing while Paul was away from them, and it made them forget what place he had among them. Pride tends to overrate its blessings and ignore the one who gave them. It swells up over what it has and forgets the source. Paul’s words, “You have reigned as kings,” mean, “At least in your own opinion.” Then he adds, “I wish you really did reign, so that we might reign with you.” He means, “I wish you had the true honor of a Christian church, not just the idea of it in your minds. Then I would share in that honor too, and you would not overlook me as you do now. You would value me as a servant of Christ and a useful worker among you.”

People who think very highly of themselves usually know themselves least of all. The Corinthians might have grown and prospered, and Paul with them, if they had not become puffed up with an imaginary greatness. Pride is a serious barrier to growth. A person who thinks he has reached the top will not keep growing wiser or better.

Paul then describes the condition of the apostles and compares it with the Corinthians. He says that God has placed the apostles last, like men sentenced to death, and that they have become a public show to the world, to angels, and to people (1 Corinthians 4:9). Paul and the other apostles had been exposed to severe hardships. No one in that age was more hunted and harassed. Their lives were always in danger.

Paul is referring to the bloody spectacles in Roman amphitheaters, where men were forced to fight wild animals or each other for public amusement. The victor often did not escape alive, but was kept for another fight and then killed at last. Such condemned men could be called persons “appointed to death.” He says the apostles were set forth “last” because those who fought in the later part of the day were in the worst danger, often fighting naked and treated with brutal cruelty. The point is that the apostles lived under constant threat of death, and often the worst kind of death, while faithfully doing their work.

God had put them on display, just as Roman rulers brought fighters into the arena, the place where people watched. But God did it for a very different reason. The Romans did it to please the crowd and satisfy their own pride, or worse motives. God displayed the apostles to show the power of his grace, to prove the truth of their calling and message, and to spread religion through the world. These were noble purposes, worthy of God. Yet the apostles still faced dangers like those miserable men in the Roman shows.

So the office of an apostle was both honorable and hard. It was a public display, a kind of theater before the whole world. Angels and people alike could see their persecutions, their sufferings, their patience, and their courage. All could see that they suffered because they were loyal to Christ, and could see how they suffered, how great the danger was, how bravely they faced it, how sharp the pain was, and how patiently they bore it by God’s grace and Christian conviction. Their work was hard, but honorable. It was dangerous, but glorious. God was honored by them, and religion was shown to be real through them. The world could not help seeing and marveling at their fearless resolve, their steady patience, and their endurance.

Paul and the other faithful servants of Christ were content to be exposed to suffering and shame for their Master’s honor. In the same way, faithful ministers and disciples of Christ should be willing to bear anything for his sake and for his glory.

Paul then compares his own condition with that of the Corinthians: “We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are despised” (1 Corinthians 4:10). He means, “We are thought of as fools because we belong to Christ, and we are willing to accept that judgment.”

We may be treated as fools in the world, and despised as such, so that God’s wisdom and the honor of the gospel may be protected and shown clearly. Faithful ministers can bear being looked down on if that helps display God’s wisdom and the power of his grace.

“But you are wise in Christ.” The Corinthians had a reputation for being wise and educated Christians, and they valued that highly. Paul and the other apostles were dishonored for giving the plain truths of the gospel in a plain way. The Corinthians were respected for their fine speech and human wisdom, which made many people think of them as wise in Christ.

“We are weak, but you are strong.” That is, we are suffering for Christ’s sake, while you are living in comfort and ease (2 Corinthians 12:10). All Christians do not face the same troubles. Some are called to endure much harder things than others, even though they are serving in the same battle. In an army, the standard-bearers are often the first to be attacked, and in times of persecution ministers are usually the first and heaviest sufferers.

Or Paul may mean, “We are treated by the world as people of little ability, like young and immature believers. But you see yourselves, and others see you, as men, as people who have reached a more mature and stronger stage.” Those are not always the most advanced in Christianity who think so of themselves, or who are thought so by others. Self-love makes this mistake very easily. The Corinthians may have judged themselves wiser and stronger in Christ than the apostles themselves, but how serious that error was.

Paul then describes their sufferings in detail. Up to that very moment, after all the service they had given among the Corinthians and other churches, they were hungry and thirsty, poorly clothed, beaten, had no fixed home, and labored with their own hands (1 Corinthians 4:11-12). They were made like the filth of the world and the scum of all things (1 Corinthians 4:13). They had to work with their own hands to support themselves, and because they had so much ministry work, they could not always secure a comfortable living. So they often lacked food, drink, and clothing, and they had no settled place to stay.

This was a very poor condition for the chief ministers of our Savior’s kingdom, to have no house and no home, and to lack food and clothing. Yet it was no poorer than the condition of the One who had no place to lay his head (Luke 9:58). Still, their love for God and their deep desire to save souls carried them through all of it. Their poverty was voluntary and cheerful. They felt richly rewarded if they could serve Christ and save souls, even when they lacked every outward good thing.

When Paul says they were made “the filth of the world” and “the scum of all things,” he means they were treated as people not fit to live. Some scholars think this refers to a common practice among many pagan nations, where the vilest people were offered as sacrifices in times of plague or other great disasters. In the early church, Christians were often blamed for every public trouble and handed over to the crowd’s rage, if not to calm the anger of false gods. The apostles were treated no better. People handled their bodies and reputations as if they were the worst and lowest of men, the kind most fit to be offered up. Or Paul may mean they were treated like dirt to be swept away, like the waste and scrapings of everything, the common sewer into which every insult was poured. To be the scum of one thing is bad, but to be the scum of all things is far worse.

In all this, the apostles closely resembled their Master and filled up what was lacking in Christ’s afflictions for his church’s sake (Colossians 1:24). They suffered for him, and they suffered in his way. Their Lord had also lived and served in poverty and contempt. Anyone who wants to be faithful in Christ Jesus must be ready for the same kind of poverty and shame.

People may be very dear to God and honored in his sight, even while men think them unworthy to live and treat them like the dirt and refuse of the world. God does not see as man sees (1 Samuel 16:7).

Here we also see the apostles’ conduct under all this, and how they answered such harsh treatment: when they were insulted, they blessed; when they were persecuted, they endured it; when they were slandered, they answered with kind pleading and gentle entreaty (1 Corinthians 4:12-13). They returned blessings for insults, and kind words for the harshest lies and attacks. They were patient under the worst persecution.

The lesson is clear: Christ’s disciples, especially his ministers, must keep their integrity and a clear conscience no matter what opposition or hardship they face from the world. Whatever they suffer from people, they must follow their Lord’s example and obey his will and commands. They must be willing, with him and for him, to be despised and abused.