1 Corinthians 4:10-21
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
10 We are fools on Christ’s account, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in disrepute.(A) 11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless(B) 12 and we toil, working with our own hands. When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure;(C) 13 when slandered, we respond gently. We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment.
14 I am writing you this not to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.[a] 15 Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.(D) 16 Therefore, I urge you, be imitators of me.(E) 17 For this reason I am sending you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord; he will remind you of my ways in Christ [Jesus], just as I teach them everywhere in every church.(F)
18 [b]Some have become inflated with pride, as if I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord is willing, and I shall ascertain not the talk of these inflated people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.(G) 21 Which do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a gentle spirit?(H)
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- 4:14–17 My beloved children: the close of the argument is dominated by the tender metaphor of the father who not only gives his children life but also educates them. Once he has begotten them through his preaching, Paul continues to present the gospel to them existentially, by his life as well as by his word, and they are to learn, as children do, by imitating their parents (1 Cor 4:16). The reference to the rod in 1 Cor 4:21 belongs to the same image-complex. So does the image of the ways in 1 Cor 4:17: the ways that Paul teaches everywhere, “his ways in Christ Jesus,” mean a behavior pattern quite different from the human ways along which the Corinthians are walking (1 Cor 3:3).
- 4:18–21 1 Cor 4:20 picks up the contrast between a certain kind of talk (logos) and true power (dynamis) from 1 Cor 1:17–18 and 1 Cor 2:4–5. The kingdom, which many of them imagine to be fully present in their lives (1 Cor 4:8), will be rather unexpectedly disclosed in the strength of Paul’s encounter with them, if they make a powerful intervention on his part necessary. Compare the similar ending to an argument in 2 Cor 13:1–4, 10.
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