For Paul, Christianity is first and foremost life with Christ in His Kingdom, and witness to Him and to this life. This is why the apostle says below that the Kingdom is “not in word, but in power.” Judging by the apostle's words to the Christians in Corinth, for them it was...
For Paul, Christianity is first and foremost life with Christ in His Kingdom, and witness to Him and to this life. This is why the apostle says below that the Kingdom is “not in word, but in power.” Judging by the apostle's words to the Christians in Corinth, for them it was different. It is no accident that Paul speaks of authentic Christian life as the life of people who are persecuted, poor, and unsuccessful. He seems to contrast such a life with the life led by many Christians in Corinth who had found their place in the world. It is possible, of course, that some of Corinth's church leaders had indeed built something resembling an ecclesiastical career—although at that time it was naturally quite unlike what it became later, when church institutions were not only legal but even official and highly influential.
Yet the problem was not one of scale but of the inner condition of those who pursued such a career. The problem was precisely that these people had found themselves in this world and had settled into it, perhaps not as luxuriously as ecclesiastical careerists in other ages, but quite comfortably. The trouble was not that they had become leaders of certain local church or church-adjacent groups and movements; it lay in their inner condition, which the apostle describes in a single word: you have become rich. They had lost the spiritual condition that Jesus—and Isaiah of Jerusalem centuries before Him—called poverty. What matters here is not what a person has or how much, but what they rely on, and whether they think they truly possess anything. God's poor person understands perfectly that they are empty and ready to receive into themselves, into their life, soul, and heart, whatever God may wish to fill them with. With their whole being they sense that they have nothing in this world on which they could rely, and indeed nothing valuable at all, nothing worth clinging to.
The rich person, on the other hand, is certain that they possess something of the sort—something that belongs to them by right, not because God gave it to them, but because they earned and deserved it. One can rely on what one has earned and deserved; it will not fail. It is yours. You are rich. Yet this wealth proves earthly, of this world, and unrelated to the Kingdom. The rich person may be rich in words about the Kingdom. But only the poor person attains its power, and the apostle knows this perfectly: he himself was richer than many, yet chose poverty for the sake of Christ and the Kingdom.
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4:9 God hath set forth us last, as appointed to death - Alluding to the Roman custom of bringing forth thosepersons last on the stage, either to fight with each other, or with wild beasts, who were devoted to death; so that, if they escaped one day, they were brought out again and again, till they were killed.
4:10 We are fools, in the account of the world, for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ - Though ye are Christians, ye think yourselves wise; and ye have found means to make the world think you so too. We are weak - In presence, in infirmities, in sufferings. But ye are strong - In just opposite circumstances.
4:11 And are naked - Who can imagine a more glorious triumph of the truth, than that which is gained in these circumstances when St. Paul, with an impediment in his speech, and a person rather contemptible than graceful, appeared in a mean, perhaps tattered, dress before persons of the highest distinction, and yet commanded such attention.and made such deep impressions upon them!
4:12 We bless - suffer it - intreat - We do not return revilings, persecution, defamation; nothing but blessing.
4:13 We are made as the filth of the world, and offscouring of all things - Such were those poor wretches among the heathens, who were taken from the dregs of the people, to be offered as expiatory sacrifices to the infernal gods. They were loaded with curses, affronts, and injuries, all the way they went to the altars; and when the ashes of those unhappy men were thrown into the sea, these very names were given them in the ceremony.
4:14 I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you - It is with admirable prudence and sweetness the apostle adds this, to prevent any unkind construction of his words.
4:15 I have begotten you - This excludes not only Apollos, his successor, but also Silas and Timothy, his companions; and the relation between a spiritual father and his children brings with it an inexpressible nearness and affection.