1 Corinthians 4:6 - Exposition

Brethren . The occasional use of this and similar expressions ("beloved," etc.) often serves to strengthen an appeal, or, as here, to soften the sternness of a rebuke. I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos. The meaning seems to be that St. Paul has prominently transferred to himself and to Apollos, or rather to the parties who chose their names as watchwords, the proof as to the sin and futility of partisanship which applied equally well to the parties which ranged themselves under other names. (For the verb "transfer"—more often "transform" see 2 Corinthians 11:13 , 2 Corinthians 11:14 , 2 Corinthians 11:15 ; Philippians 3:21 .) He abstains purposely and generously from publicly naming the fuglemen of the antagonistic factions. For your sakes. By rebuking party spirit in his own partisans and those of the teacher who was most closely allied to himself, he robbed his remarks of all semblance of personality or bitterness. It showed his generous delicacy not to allude rather to the adherents of Cephas and the Judaean emissary. Than ye might learn in us. I made Apollos and myself instances of the undesirability of over exalting human teachers, that by our case you might learn the general principle. Not to think of men above that which is written. The true reading is merely, not above the things which have been written , as though the words were a sort of proverb, like Ne quid nimis or Milton's "The rule of not too much" ( μηδὲν ἆγαν ). The word "to think" is omitted in the best manuscripts. The phrase, "which have been written," is of very uncertain meaning. It may refer generally to "the scriptural rule" that all boasting is wrong ( Jeremiah 9:23 ), or to the humble estimate of teachers which he has just been writing down for them. All his Old Testament quotations so far ( 1 Corinthians 1:19 , 1 Corinthians 1:31 ; 1 Corinthians 3:19 ) have referred to humility. Some see in it a reference to Matthew 23:1-39 . 8 "Be not ye called Babbi;" but it is uncertain whether St. Matthew's Gospel was yet written; and St. Paul never refers so directly to any written Gospel. Perhaps it is a sort of proverb," Keep always to strict evidence;" "Say nothing which cannot be proved in black and white." The text, like so many others, has only a very remote connection with the sense in which it is usually quoted. That no one of you he puffed up. St. Paul was painfully impressed by this inflation of the Corinthians, and he often recurs to this word as a description of their vain conceit ( 1 Corinthians 4:18 , 1 Corinthians 4:19 ; 1 Corinthians 5:2 ; 1 Corinthians 8:1 ; 1 Corinthians 13:4 ; 2 Corinthians 12:20 ). In other Epistles the word is only found once (in Colossians 2:18 ). For one against another. The expression is a profound one. The glorying in men ( 1 Corinthians 3:21 ), undesirable in any circumstances, becomes the more pernicious because the exaltation of one set of teachers is almost invariably accompanied by mean and unjust depreciation of any who could be supposed to be their rivals. The Corinthian who was "for Cephas" would be almost certain to be, to some extent, " against Paul."