Paul then urged the Corinthians to regard servants of Christ
as custodians or guardians of the revealed truths of God following his discussion
that everyone belonged to Christ. The emphasis is on the fact that the servants
are people who act under instruction. They have no authority of their own. They
are the channels through whom God disseminate His mysteries. The “mysteries of
God” here is referring to the truth that God had revealed. These mysteries Paul
spoke about cannot be discovered through human reasoning, it only comes through
God’s divine initiative. Since servants of Christ are just custodians, the
essential quality they must have is faithfulness. Personally, they must be
trustworthy. As servants they must be faithful to the master; and as custodians
of truth, they must be faithful to the content they disseminate. They must
faithfully declare the integrity of the whole truth of God to the people
without mixing it with their own speculations or human and worldly ideas.
Since ministers are stewards and custodians of the truth,
they are accountable to the Lord, who had commissioned them. Hence Paul said
that the one who alone had the right to judge him was the Lord and not the
Corinthians, nor the world and not even himself. Furthermore, he was
unconcerned about what opinions the Corinthians might have of him. That’s
because he could not identify any area of unfaithfulness in his life. Yet he
did not allow this to prove him guiltless because his final arbitrator is the
Lord Himself.
Since God has the final authority, believers should also not
pass judgment and assume what is rightly the Lord’s now. They should not
presume on His decision but instead wait for His appearance. For when He returns
he would shed light on what is hidden in darkness and expose the motives of the
heart of men. Then He, God Himself, would praise those to whom praises are
due.
In verse 6 Paul said that the things he had said about the servants
of God starting from 1 Corinthians 3:5, he had applied to himself and Apollos. In
so doing, he was making his lessons concrete and not abstract, so that
believers in Corinth could learn from both their examples.
He gave these teachings so that they would rightly estimate
the leaders and not go beyond scriptural standard. Paul did this to assist them
not to take pride and exalt one leader over another. Paul rounded up in verse 7
by dealing with self-arrogance and prideful thinking. He pointed out that no
one had any basis to be proud, esteeming himself or herself better than others.
Even if anyone is truly superior, it’s not the person’s own making. It was God
who had made him so. Therefore to be self-inflated would be bothering on
absurdity and being unchristian.
Pride often trips us up. It causes us to upside against one
another. We need to deal with our pride and be careful not to upside one
another. The point is this: we are all on the same side, running under the same
banner of Christ. Let all leaders stay faithful in their role and everyone
faithful in the race!
No comments:
Post a Comment