Most of you are likely familiar with the novel Pride and Prejudice and the movie that resulted from it. I don't know much about it other than that has been on my TV more than any other single movie; it's my wife's favorite movie and it probably qualifies as a chick flick. I believe the major story line is not guy gets girl, but girl gets guy, so that's understandable. The theme is how pride and prejudice nearly destroyed the heroine's opportunity to find true love, and it was only when she rejected her own pride and resulting prejudice that she found true love.
Pride and Prejudice could also be a title for the book that we're currently studying, I Corinthians. For these two qualities were major characteristics of the Christians, of all people, who made up the Church at Corinth. and these were also the attitudes that were preventing the Christians in Corinth from experiencing the love of Christ among themselves. Because of their pride and prejudice, the church at Corinth was fragmenting and jealousy and strife characterized their relationships rather than the self-sacrificing love of Jes8us. .
As the Apostle Paul has diagnosed the problem it seems that the sinful nature of the Christians at Corinth had actual hijacked the character of the church. What Jesus Christ intended as a place that would be characterized by His Spirit, a spirit of humble, self-sacrificing love intended to build up one another had instead become a place in which people acted like mere men, as he put if, like non-Christians, because instead of being empowered and influenced by the Spirit of Christ, they were under the control of their sinful natures, and did the stuff that unfortunately comes naturally and is in accord with typical human nature.
Now, as we've mentioned in earlier messages on this letter of Paul to the Church at Corinth. the particular form that pride and prejudice had taken in the church at Corinth is that cliques or divisions of the church had begun to take pride in their preferred spiritual leaders in the church over against the cliques or groups of people who took pride in and identified with other leaders in their church. It was a petty childish sort of thing—the sort of thing I did as a boy with my friends, when we said to each other "Well, my dad can beat up your dad." Only it took the form of "My guy's better than your guy," "My spiritual leader is superior to your spiritual leader," and "my clique is better than you clique." The result is that there was on-going jealousy and strife in the church, a clear sign that the deeds of the flesh, rather than the fruit of the Spirit had taken over.
But before we go further, if you're with us for the first time, let me review the salient facts about I Corinthians that will give you a context for what we're talking about here. First, the Apostle Paul who wrote this letter is the great Apostle to the Gentiles, who had once been a Jewish Pharisee who persecuted the church of Jesus Christ with great zeal, but was converted to Christianity when he met the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. He had come to Corinth, Greece, preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Gospel, that men could be assured of eternal life through faith in the Jewish Messiah in about 50 A.D. He won thousands of converts and thus a large and influential Gentile Church was born in the midst of an extremely pagan and idolatrous culture. It's now about six or seven years later, 56 or 57 A.D., the Apostle Paul is in Ephesus on the western coast of what is now called Turkey, and he's heard there are problems in the Church at Corinth. So, he writes this letter and another one that have ended up in the New Testament in an effort to correct the problems. In our section this morning, chapter 4, he will mention another very influential Christian preacher and teacher by the name of Apollos, who was a very powerful preacher and mighty in the Scriptures who had come and taught at Corinth and had a major impact for good among the Corinthians. Although Paul and Apollos were not among the teachers who were responsible for the divisions at Corinth, Paul uses himself and Apollos to figuratively apply to the circumstances the Corinthians were facing, perhaps in an attempt not to embarrass the spiritual leaders in Corinth who were the objects of devotion among those who were part of the contentious cliques that had developed in the church.
So, Paul has been addressing this problem for most of the first three chapters, among the many problems that existed in the church at Corinth. The real bottom line was the need for love, the love of Christ to be expressed in the church at Corinth, and this love was being undermined by the pride and prejudice that were characteristic of the sinful natures being manifested in the lives of the believers there. And his focus in chapter four at the outset is going to be the proper attitude toward spiritual leaders, ministers, pastors or teachers. And the message is going to be that they should respect faithful spiritual leaders, but reject the pride and prejudice that results in quarrels and conflicts. Respect faithful spiritual leaders, but reject the pride and prejudice that results in jealousy and strife.
S,o the question you might be asking is how is this relevant to you. This is relevant to you and I with regard to how we relate to the spiritual leaders and teachers who help us in our spiritual lives. Whom do we follow? How do we evaluate their ministries? And when does devotion to a mere human spiritual leader go too far?
And in verse one Paul tells us to respect our spiritual leaders who are faithful servants of Christ, but to ultimately follow them only as far as they follow Christ. Having brought both himself and Apollos into the discussion in chapter 3, he continues with this comment in verse one: "Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God."
So, the question really being addressed here is who are Paul and Apollos? and who are the other ministers like them in relationship to God and the believers at Corinth? Are they themselves gods, or gurus that deserve the absolute unquestioned devotion of their followers? Absolutely not. As he has said before, so now he says again, they are merely servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Now both those labels deserve further explanation.
As mere servants of Christ, they clearly don't deserve the devotion or the worship that Christ, the only begotten Son of God and Savior does. As servants of Christ, they are all about bringing people into proper relationship and devotion to Christ and not to themselves. They are merely men serving Christ, not the object of worship or devotion themselves. They, therefore, don't deserve the glory or the credit that is due to Christ for His love and sacrifice to save us.
The particular Greek word used for servant here is not the usual one. It's used a few other times in the New Testament, and in this case, it is the same word that was used to describe the "under-rowers" on a Roman Galley. If you've watched the movie Ben Hur, you perhaps remember the dramatic scene of a naval battle occurring involving warships that were powered by dozens, if not hundreds, of slaves who paddled the boat with long oars to the beat of a captain, or "over-rower" as they attempted to ram other ships in the battle. Was one under-rower more important than another? is Pau's question. No, all were important, but equally important in achieving the goal of the master, and were rowing, or working according to the master's orders and objectives. So, Paul's saying, don't make too much of us! Don't take pride in men or become devoted to a single "under-rower.' The one we're all working for, who deserves your devotion and credit is the Lord of the under-rowers, the example to us all, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then he speaks of himself and Apollos and other ministers like them as "stewards" or "managers" of the Mysteries of God. And both of these terms deserve some explanation.
A steward in ancient times was simply the house manager for a rich man. Though he owned nothing, he was responsible for the care and efficient operation of everything that belonged to his master. Greg Catt was a property manager for British Petroleum, for instance. And in this sense he was a steward, or a manager of British Petroleum's resources. While in their employ, he cared for British Petroleum's assets with their purposes in mind.
So it was for Apollos and the Apostle Paul. They didn't own God's resources, or the revelation of God. But they were responsible before God for the care and management, and the distribution of God's Word.
Now we see the Lord Jesus employ this figure or illustration in a number of places in his parables in the New Testament, but the one that is perhaps most salient is found in Luke 12:42-48. It's worth reading:
And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. 44 Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45 But if that slave says in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; 46 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. 47 And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, 48 but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of]a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more."
Now if we might go a little further with this Parable: The rations that Paul and Apollos were responsible for distributing were the Gospel and the Word of God—it's spiritual food rather than physical food. For the text tells us that they were stewards of the Mysteries of God. What are the Mysteries of God? I Corinthians 2:7 defined that for us—"but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory."
In other words, Paul is speaking of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the New Testament revelation of God's will as we have it in our hands today. It is the message from God that saves from sin and judgment and guarantees eternal life. It is a revelation which had been hidden in ages past but now, only recently, withiin Paul's lifetime, it had been revealed through Jesus Christ, and both Paul and Apollos as well as other ministers or teachers in Corinth had been called by God to proclaim and teach to the world this great revelation of God without fail. They were stewards or managers of God's message and revelation on earth and would be held accountable by God as such! Just as I will also be held accountable by whether I have been a faithful manager and steward of God's Word here in this congregation as well.
And so. your proper attitude toward any minister, pastor, teacher or spiritual leader is that I am, we are, simply servants of Christ and God, and stewards, house-managers, so to speak, of the precious revelation of God's message of salvation meant for you. So, Paul's saying here, have proper respect for people who do such things, but the point is to follow and worship Christ and Christ alone. Your devotion is not to be primarily to any mere human leader, but, of course, to God and Christ whom they serve as well.
And yet not all such stewards are faithful with the revelation of God. Not all ministers are trustworthy to accurately convey God's revelation and God's Good News. And so, it's important for them to be evaluated, or examined for their faithfulness to their calling before you follow their teachings, or are devoted to their ministry.
So. we come to a second principle with regard to human ministries and human ministers. Inspect spiritual leaders for their faithfulness to God's Word. Inspect spiritual leaders, ministers, pastors and their ministries with regard to their faithfulness, or trustworthiness to God's Word and God's purposes.
This is why Paul says, in verse two: "In this case, moreover, it is required of a steward that one be found trustworthy.'
Yep, if you've read Luke 12;42-48, you better believe it is required by God that those who manage His Word, teach His revelations, be found trustworthy both in their teaching and practice of God's Word. As Paul exhorts Timothy to be a faithful teacher of God's Word, he says to him in II Timothy 2:15: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth." What we're talking about here is, at the very least, the accurate presentation of the Word of God. Being careful not to distort or twist it in any way, which according to II Peter 3 leads to the spiritual ruin of those who do so, not to mention their hearers. The one who preaches and teaches God's Word has in his hands the ability to both save those who hear them or ruin them based on whether he accurately teaches and preaches the content of God's Word.
How critical is this issue today? It is being ignored by many who claim to be ministers of Christ. When we hear that only 37% of pastors in America today even hold to, much less teach a Biblical worldview, then, Houston, we have a problem. This principle is being ignored and abused to the ruin of those who are under the so-called ministry of such pastors and teachers.
And what is the standard that is set for their lives—to be examples, even as Paul was. The standards Paul provides for spiritual leadership are found in two places, I Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 1:5-9. We will just read briefly verses 1-7 of I Timothy what the essential qualification of an elder, or a pastor, are:
"An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?), and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. 7 And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil."
Now these are the standards that God has set for the kind of spiritual leaders that you should be following. As you evaluate any teacher, pastor, minister or ministry these are the basics for determining who the faithful servants and stewards are. Do they accurately preach and teach God's Word? And then do they faithfully practice what they preach?
Now with respect to this, Paul has some further comments about his own accountability as a trustworthy steward, beginning in verse 3. Ultimately, he's going to tell us that his accountability is to God Himself, and not so much to the Corinthians or any human judge. .
Now this is a little difficult to understand, so bear with me for a moment. Paul writes, "But to me it is a very small things that I be examined by you, or by any human court, in fact I do not even examine myself. For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted, but the one who examines me is the Lord."
Now at first glance, it may appear that Paul is rejecting any kind of human accountability for himself. However, that is not the force of his argument at all. Paul, in his relationship especially with the Corinthians, had been forced to endure all sorts of unkind and unjust criticisms. As a result, he had to develop some tough skin, or he wouldn't have survived in ministry. He's simply saying to the Corinthians that his accountability goes way beyond their often fickle and petty expectations of Him, or of any human being's petty judgments of Him. His accountability even went beyond the fallibility and confines of his own conscience—"In fact, I do not even examine myself. For I am conscious of nothing against myself." Ultimately, the final examiner and judge of his words and actions, was the Lord, and He trusted the Lord would make it obvious if he was erring in anyway.
Why Paul needed to say this becomes clear when we consider the kind of criticisms he endured as he ministered to the Corinthians. He quotes some of their criticisms in II Corinthians 10:1 and 10:10: Here's how they judged him: He was meek when face-to-face, but bold when absent. His letters were weighty and strong, but his personal appearance was unimpressive, and his speech was contemptible. And he was accused of being a vacillator, not a man of His word, in II Corinthians 1. If he had let the petty criticisms and judgments of the carnal Corinthians bother him, he would have been drummed out of the ministry. Because they judged him not on the basis of spiritual considerations, but their worldly expectations—they didn't like how he looked or how he spoke. He was not all that impressive in those ways, in ways that matter in this world, but don't matter to the Lord. He was out to impress an audience of one--the Lord Himself.
This is the same kind of thing that goes on with respect to ministers and ministries today. Pastors and teachers are often judged by how large their congregations are, how big their buildings are, and how eloquent or impressive they are as speakers. But these are petty issues with respect to God's concern. He is concerned that pastors and teachers and preachers accurately present the Word of God to their hearers, whether they be many or few, and that they faithfully follow what they preach. The standard for a minister of the Gospel is not how popular they are, or what kind of following they have, but whether they truly follow the Lord and His Word in their preaching and their practice. If preachers aren't careful, they'll listen to the petty criticisms of their flock rather than the commands of their Lord, and they'll be drummed out of ministry. As I nearly once was, when the Lord had to remind me: "Don't look to the right or the lift but keep your eyes on me."
Now you do have a responsibility here. To inspect spiritual leaders and their ministries for their faithfulness to God's Word. Now I receive many solicitations though the mail from Christian ministries to support their ministries. I count myself responsible to inspect their ministries to see whether they are trustworthy before I send money to them. Just a few years ago I received a solicitation from a Christian ministry in Florida called "Food for the Poor." Before I gave, I checked them out on the internet only to find that one of the heirs to the ministry, one of the children, I believe, of the ministry's founders, had managed to take tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars from that ministry to spend on a romantic interest. He had been caught, and the money had been restored. But do you think I gave to that ministry? Not on your life! You better believe that God is going to hold me to be accountable to be a good steward of the financial resources he's entrusted to me as well as being a good steward of the Word of God.
And so, we have so far two important principles with regard to ministers and ministries. Respect spiritual leaders as servants of Christ, but follow Christ and Christ alone. And secondly, inspect spiritual leaders and their ministries for their faithfulness to God and His Word. And then we come across a final principle in verses five through seven. And it's this: Reject judging spiritual leaders by the wrong standards—at the wrong time, by mere human or worldly standards, or with the wrong motivation.
Our problem, and the Corinthian problem, with regard to coming to final judgments about human ministers, is our judgments are going to be somewhat incomplete, because we don't know everything, and we can't see everything as only God can.
And so, Paul warns against being too devoted to any single human spiritual leader because our judgments are going to be partial and incomplete.
First, our judgments are going to come at the wrong time, inevitably. With regard to the Corinthians pridefully comparing one spiritual leader's strengths over against the weakness of another, Paul says in verse 5: "Therefore, do not go on passing judgement before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts, and then each mean's praise will come to him from God.
Now again, yes, we must evaluate ministers for their faithfulness to God's Word. However, the problem in Corinth is that the Corinthians evaluations or judgments against some of their teachers in favor of others was very critical and potentially destructive, and it was based on appearance, rather than the absolute truth or facts of the matter. Paul is saying to them that they shouldn't be so cocksure that their preferred spiritual leader or clique is so much superior to some other spiritual leader or clique because they don't know all that they need to know. And they won't know until the time—the time of God's Judgment, the Judgment Seat of Christ, when every believer's life will be judged by the fires of God's judgment, and God will bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts, and then each man's praise will indeed justly come to him from God, who alone knows all things and the motives of men's hears. When we are unjustly critical of some faithful spiritual leaders based on petty preferences, or even suspicions, our judgment is premature and incomplete.
Then Paul finally explains in verse 6 that he has only used his own name and Apollos's name figuratively, substituting their names for the actual names of the leaders of Corinth around whom these cliques and divisions had formed. Verse 6: "Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written, so that no one of you will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other."
Here Paul gets to the root of the problem. Pride and prejudice were destroying the experience and expression of Christ's self-sacrificing love in the church. And in verse 6 he gives another reason why the Corinthians should not take pride in one spiritual leader over against another--they judge these men by the wrong standards. Rather than evaluatiing their ministries by the Word of God and its' values, instead they were "going beyond what is written"—"what is written" is an obvious reference to the Word of God. In other words, these Corinthians had substituted their own human, worldly and petty standards for God's standards in determining which spiritual leaders they preferred. They probably didn't like how someone spoke, or how they looked, or how he dressed, or an accent, or who knows what. I have been rejected as a preacher because "I wasn't funny enough or because I wasn't political enough. But are these the standards of God's word. Not at all! These are the petty preferences of worldly men who simply want to be entertained or have their ears tickled, when that's not what the messenger of God is to be all about. Do you evaluate minister and ministries by God's standards, or do you, too, go beyond what is written in determining your preferred spiritual leader, leading you to be wrongly and perhaps hyper-critical of any other spiritual leader?
And then in verse 7 he comes to the basic problem and motive that had fueled this entire problem of division and dissension in the Corinthian church. Pride. Each of the Corinthians wanted to believe that they were somehow superior, or better, than their neighbor. The same problem reflected in the humorous radio drama Lake Wobegon Days in which every child has got to be above average. We can't settle for being average. We've got to be better than our neighbor. And so they were judging their spiritual leaders according to their pride which resulted in ungodly prejudices.
And so, Paul here cuts to the root of pride and tells us that is has absolutely no basis, no foundation in the Christian's life, or in anyone's life for that matter. Verse 7; "For who regards you as superior? (The answer is quite obvious—each of the Corinthians regarded themselves and their preferred teachers as superior to all the others). And if you do regard yourself to be in some way superior to anyone else, then ask yourself the next question; "What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?"'
Think about this for a moment. What is it about yourself that you take pride in? Your intelligence, your looks, your loot, your house, your cars, your wisdom? Who provided those things for you? Who even gave you the ability to exist, much less think and the ability to work for anything. Who even gave you the power to live the Christian life, or the salvation in which you stand. Is it not God, our creator and sustainer? So who deserves the credit? The Lord, and the Lord God alone! Why are you acting like you are the source of all the blessings which are actually a gift to you from God? The truth is with regard to who we are, and all that we have, none of us have a reason to boast in ourselves, because everything we have and are comes from God, so all pride, and all of its resulting prejudice is unjustified from the get-go. So let go of it, and embrace in love the God who has given you all that you are and all things you enjoy.
The message the is this: Reject all pride and prejudice, respect faithful servants of Christ, but ultimately follow Christ and Christ alone.
Let's pray.
