1 Corinthians 4:1-21 – Leadership

under the Crucified Christ

When we work overseas we become members of international and interdenominational
communities. Since we come from different countries and from different religious
backgrounds, even though we are all disciples of the Lord Jesus, we find that we disagree
about so many things. How are we to deal with all of our disagreements?
Disagreements in believing communities are nothing new. The Corinthian community
had many disagreements. In addition, not only were there disagreements, there were
competing rival factions within the one community. This unfortunately happens in many
communities as well.
So, we have been reading 1 Corinthians to see how Paul advised the Corinthians in order
to see how his advice to them can inform us as to how we can move beyond divisiveness
and be thriving, diverse communities of faith in our host countries.
As we have seen in the previous posts, the Corinthian culture had negatively impacted the
believing community’s understanding of leadership. From 1:10 to 3:23 Paul had been
trying to correct the community’s wrong thinking. In Chapters 1 and 2 Paul worked to
reshape their understanding of power, wisdom, and spiritual maturity. In Chapter 3 Paul
constructed a new vision of the Temple of God. In this chapter (4) Paul proceeds from
this new vision of the Temple and paints a radically different vision of what leadership in
God’s Temple means. Leadership for Paul was rooted in his understanding of Jesus, the
ultimate leader. It appears that Paul’s perception of leadership was shaped by Jesus’ life
and death as Messiah- by his service, humiliation, and crucifixion. Let us read through
the chapter by sections and reflect on each one. The first section is verses 1 through 5.
Leadership as Service
This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of
God. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. 3 But with me
it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do
not even judge myself. 4 I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby
acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the
time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness
and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation
from God (ESV).
The last chapter ended with Paul showing how leaders and teachers belonged to the
Church, the church members were not to belong to them. Paul follows this point up by
saying that the true position of leader-teachers is that of servant (Greek: huperetes) and
steward (Greek: oikonomos). Both terms indicated that leaders-teachers stood in a
subordinate and responsible relationship with Christ. In Luke 1:2 the ESV translates the
term huperetes as ministers- ministers of the word. A steward was the chief servant of a
household- administering and overseeing the household for the owner of the house.
Joseph in Genesis 39:4 functioned as the steward of Potiphar’s house. With Joseph as an
example, we can see that stewards were entrusted with a significant responsibility. Yet,
stewards did not own anything in the house; they were still servants. This positional
reality was meant to shape the Corinthians’ understanding of what it meant to take a
position of leadership in Christ-centered communities.
Paul points out that as stewards and servants, teachers have been entrusted with the
mysteries of God. Christ expects them to handle this responsibility in a trustworthy and
faithful manner.
Then Paul takes a different tack than one would expect. One would think that Paul would
give guidelines as to how to judge whether a teacher was being faithful or not. To the
contrary, Paul appears in this instance to indicate that the Corinthian community should
not begin judging their leader-teachers. Verses 3- 5 give some indication why. In verse 5
Paul speaks about intentions. In verses 3 and 4 Paul says that he does not even judge
himself. Is he calling for restraint in judging the leaders because the Corinthians have
become so confused by their own divisions that they cannot clearly discern their own
motives behind what they were doing? Whatever the reason, it is clear that Paul
advocated that the Corinthians not get caught up judging their leaders-teachers.
This may indicate why Paul used himself, Apollos, and Peter as examples in this letter
(verse 6: I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit). It is
possible that the divisions did not revolve around Peter, Paul, or Apollos at all. Paul may
have simply used these names as examples because Paul may not have wanted to label
any of the teachers in Corinth as miscreant. This problem of self-advancement and
divisiveness could have been due to immaturity and not to evil intentions. Paul could not
have known anyone’s intentions because he was writing not from firsthand experience.
He was writing from what had been reported to him by a delegation from Corinth.
Therefore, it appears that Paul created a safe zone for these leaders and community
members, giving them all time to pray, time for the Lord to show them their own
motives, time for the leaders to examine the quality of their own teachings, and time for
everyone to be responsive to the Spirit and be self-correcting. Paul gives us in these
verses a great example of godly leadership!
Paul now moves on to his next point.
Leadership with Boundaries
6
I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you
may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in
favor of one against another. 7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have
that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not
receive it? 8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us
you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule
with you!
The danger any leader-teacher faces is to go beyond what is written. Paul likely was
referring to the Old Testament in this phrase. As we look back in chapters 1, 2, and 3, we
see that Paul drew from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Job to make or support his points.
1.19 – I will destroy the wisdom of the wise (see Isaiah 29:14).
1.20 – Where is the wise man? (see Isaiah 19:12).
1.20 – Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world (see Jeremiah 8:9)?
1.31 – The one who boasts must boast in the Lord (see Jeremiah 9:23-24).
2.9 – No eye has seen (see Isaiah 64:4 and 65:17).
2.16 – For who has known the mind of the Lord (see Isaiah 40:13).
3.19 – He catches the wise in their craftiness (see Job 5:13).
Paul demonstrates by this usage the authority the Scriptures carry. The Scriptures are
supremely and uniquely authorized to guide and govern our beliefs, values, and
behaviors. They governed Paul’s values, thoughts, and actions; and they exist to provide
healthy boundaries for us. We are not to go beyond what is written for our own benefit.
Some meaningful reflective questions arise at this point. Do we intentionally keep
ourselves under the authority of the Scriptures? If so, how do we do this?
For the Corinthian community, they had gone outside the boundaries set by the
Scriptures. As a result, they were destroying the harmony of their community by exalting
some over others. Paul uses the Greek word phusioo to describe the likely but dangerous
attitude behind their doing this. Phusioo can be translated as puffed up, arrogant, or
haughty. The word is used six times in 1 Corinthians, three times in this chapter alone. In
4:18 and 19 the ESV renders phusioo as arrogant. In contrast, Paul reminds the
Corinthians and the leader-teachers that there is no reason to boast about what any of
them have because whatever they have was given to them by God. It is not as if they
reached any spiritual height or developed any special spiritual insight on their own. This
is why boasting for any believer at any time is completely out of place. Everything and
anything we have that is good is a gift from God.
The boasting that was taking place within the Corinthian community was a bit over the
top for Paul. Even though he did not want to unleash a wave of judgmentalism in the
community, he had to address the underlying cause of the rivalry and divisions that
existed in the community because he knew that they were caused by the very human but
very insidious pride. So, he gets a bit sharp with his pen.
From what Paul writes in these verses we see that these leaders must have been teaching
that they had reached such a pinnacle of spiritual experience that they were kings in the
spirit! Paul shows what humbug all their triumphalist rhetoric was by writing: Would that
you did reign!
Now, why was Paul so upset by their triumphalism? Ephesians 2:6 clearly states that
Jesus’ followers are currently ruling and reigning with Christ because we are seated with
Christ in the heavenly places. The problem, though, is that the Corinthian leaders’
triumphalism stood in direct contradiction to what it actually meant to rule and reign with
Christ in this world. Paul was an apostle and he experientially understood what it meant.
The crucifixion is supposed to shape our understanding of what it means to rule and reign
with Christ in this world. Paul develops this point in the next section.
Leadership and the Cross
9
For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death,
because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools
for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are
held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are
poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands.
When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We
have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
The phrase linked with the words exhibited and spectacle appears to draw from the
imagery of gladiators in the arena. Paul says that the apostles were like gladiators, but
Paul and the apostles had no chance of victory. They were doomed to die while everyone
looked on and watched them in the fight. Wherever they traveled they encountered
opposition, difficulty. They felt weak. They experienced abuse. In response to the abuse
they received, they blessed. Paul summarized their position as the scum of the world, and
the refuse of all things.
In reading this, one must wonder how Paul got the stamina to carry on when life was so
difficult. What motivated him? This is where the humiliation and the crucifixion of Jesus
indelibly shaped Paul’s understanding. Look at what Paul said in Philippians 3:7 and
10: Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ…that I may know him
and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his
death. It appears that Paul knew that the cross, in addition to being the means of our
salvation, also expressed in a most poignant way the very character of God.
Since the humiliation and the crucifixion of Jesus shaped the experiences, the
understanding, and the leadership of the apostles, from where did the self-proclaimed
triumphalism of the Corinthian teachers come? It did not come from the Holy Spirit. This
is why Paul viewed the Corinthians’ triumphalism as sheer folly.
As one who has served in the hard places, Paul’s insights and example are as valid today
as they were when he first wrote them.
Leadership with Grace
14
I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved
children. 15 For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many
fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 16 I urge you, then,
be imitators of me. 17 That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the
Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.
Paul quickly turns away from his sharp irony and expresses his heart. Paul did not want
to abuse the Corinthian community. He loved them. They were his dearly loved children
in the Lord. He had brought the gospel to them. He just knew the end result of going in
the direction they were going. Self-advancement, rivalry, and divisiveness would
eventually destroy the community. He cared for them and wanted them to avoid this at all
cost. Since he loved them and cared for them, he sent Timothy to them. Out of his love
and care he asks them to remember how he lived among them and imitate him.
Although Paul may be motivated by love, and wholeheartedly desire to be gracious, he is
a leader and he knows that he has a responsibility to the community to act decisively
when it is needed. Paul expresses this decisiveness in his ensuing final comments of this
section.
Leadership and Discipline
18
Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon,
if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their
power. 20 For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. 21 What do you
wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?
Here Paul pulls out the stops and asserts that some of these leader-teachers are arrogant.
He has been told that they assume he will not return. Therefore, they will not be held
accountable for their actions. However, Paul asserts he will return and he will hold them
accountable.
In what was Paul’s authority based and how would he exercise it? Paul had no civil
authority over these individuals. He could not send anyone to jail. Paul was dependent
upon the Lord to validate his authority and teaching among the members of the
Corinthian community. Paul knew that the Lord had called and anointed him for this
apostolic work. So, he was sure that the members of the community would hear his
teaching and be convinced that he was right. This was why he said that the kingdom of
God consists of power not of mere talk.
However, notice how Paul ends. Paul does not want to exercise his authority in a
disciplinary manner. He would prefer that they resolve their differences ahead of time.
His preference is that he come and encourage them. In this Paul demonstrates godly
leadership. The godly leader wants to guide and empower people, and then watch them
work things out on their own, doing what is right. Though Paul can appear very strong in
parts of some of his letters, and though he was a very determined person, Paul did not
have a controlling personality. Love for Christ and for others shaped who he was.
CONCLUSION
Paul had a radically different view of leadership. His understanding of leadership was
shaped by Jesus’ life and death as Messiah. Matthew records the character of Jesus with
these words: The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a
ransom for many (Matt. 20:28). Paul, likewise, described Jesus’ character in a similar
way:
who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to
be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human
likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to
the point of death— even death on a cross (Phil. 2:6-8).
Thus, the crucified Christ shaped the way Paul understood leadership. It was self-
sacrificial service. This understanding shaped the way he lived and shaped the way he
served the Lord as well as the Church. NT Wright described Paul’s life this way:
Nobody in Corinth, or any of the other towns outside Palestine, had ever before
witnessed somebody living the way Paul lived. Nobody had seen someone giving of
himself generously, living a life of self-sacrifice, and refusing to play the power-games
and the prestige-games that were the stock-in-trade, not only of the sophistic teachers
who came and went (and made a lot of money), but of the local rulers, the magistrates
and civic dignitaries, and those who promoted and ran the new imperial cult. Paul was
different, and the difference mattered, because he was modelling the Christ-life (Wright,
N.T., Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, 53).
Since the Crucified Christ shaped Paul’s view of leadership, Paul expected the leader-
teachers of the Corinthian community to follow Jesus, humble themselves, and serve
faithfully and responsibly like he did. These leader-teachers were unfortunately getting
sidetracked, getting caught up with illusions of their own significance. There were
members in the community encouraging this as well. They felt that they had come to
understand in a more complete way what ruling and reigning with Christ really meant.
Paul knew as one of Christ’s chosen apostles that this was all rubbish. Ruling and
reigning with Christ in this life meant service and hardship.
Therefore, Paul called on these leaders to be shaped by Jesus’ cross, accept hardship, and
serve the Lord’s community. Paul called on them to not go beyond what is written. This
means that they were to study the Word and accept the boundaries for life, teaching, and
leadership that the Scriptures set. In this we learn that the Scriptures are supremely and
uniquely authorized to be the only authority for our values, lives, and practices. We are
encouraged to study and teach them appropriately.
Paul was not afraid to lead, but he led with love, compassion, and grace.
These truths should shape the way we interact as international and interdenominational
communities. Paul would encourage us to be humble about our perspectives. Differences
in perspective can enhance a community as long as they do not become vehicles for
elitism. When elitism strikes a community, rivalry, personal advancement, and divisions
are sure to follow. To keep this from happening we ought to listen to one another
and diligently search the Scriptures together, learning from one another. Even after we
study together it is likely that we still will have differences of opinion. This is normal and
we are to graciously allow for differences in perspective. If we focus not on getting
agreement but on serving one another in love and encouraging one another, we will
glorify our one Lord in our host communities.
Following Paul’s advice is not easy to do. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to do this
well and to flourish as a community. And it is possible for divergent communities to
flourish. I have been part of communities where we flourished together. It is wonderful
when it happens.