Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Read Chapter 4
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul says this because some of the Corinthians were denigrating him. He did not preach anything different from the apostles. By calling himself a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God, Paul implicitly points out who the false apostles are. He denies that what they preach is of Christ, because it is not in accord with apostolic tradition. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
s14 , 15.—I write not these things . . . for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel. And therefore I alone am your spiritual father. Other teachers are but schoolmasters who educate the child sent them by the father. Paul hints that the Corinthians should be ashamed of themselves for passing by the Apostles, who had converted them to Christ, and who were suffering so much for their sake, and for following after vain-glorious teachers, and for wishing to be called their disciples.
Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ. I have forbidden you to boast yourselves in Paul or Apollos; but lest any man should therefore despise us, I say that every one should regard us as minsters of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Kemnitius raises a railing objection based on these last words, that the Council of Trent was wrong in relying on this passage to prove that the Pope can give dispensation in the matter of vows and laws; for he says that a steward"s duty is not to relax laws but to distribute goods. I answer that the Council knew this very well; but that its argument was simply this: If the stewardship of the affairs of the Church has been intrusted to the Pope, therefore he can in certain cases, when there is need, dispense, that Isaiah , dissolve vows and oaths, and remit penances and the debt of temporal punishment, just as the steward of a household can, when the honour or profit of his lord demands it, make dispensations, grants, or remis...
SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER
S. Paul proceeds in his task of uprooting the divisions, the pride, and the boasting of the Corinthians, and especially of some of their teachers who held him in contempt. And—
i. He shows that he cares nothing for their judgment, or for that of other men, but for God"s only.
ii. He reproves their elation at their gifts (vers7 , 8.).
iii. And chiefly he urges upon the, the example of himself and of the other Apostles, who, as the offscouring of the world, preached the Gospel with humility, despised and persecuted by all (vers9-14).
iv. He exhorts them as his children, as having begotten them in Christ, and threatens to come soon to Corinth to rebuke and punish these false, boastful, and puffed-up teachers (vers15-21).
Paul honors the Corinthians by calling them servants and makes this even more precise when he adds the term stewards. For we should not give the mysteries of God indiscriminately to everyone, but only to those to whom they are due and to whom it is right that we should minister.
5. Let a man so account of us, as of ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. After he had cast down their spirit, mark how again he refreshes it, saying, as ministers of Christ. Do not thou then, letting go the Master, receive a name from the servants and ministers. Stewards; says he, indicating that we ought not to give these things unto all, but unto whom it is due, and to whom it is fitting we should minister.
