27 - The Dangers of Arrogance

The Dangers of Arrogance; 1 Corinthians 4:3-21

The chapter has basically three divisions in it. In vv. 1-5 the main idea is that God is the only qualified judge and evaluator of a pastor's ministry. In vv. 6-13 the emphasis is on the dangers of arrogance and how arrogance fragments not only the individual but also the congregation. Then in vv. 14 on Paul apples that to the congregation and warns them of the dangers of their continuing in arrogance.

Definition of the gift of pastor-teacher: The Gift of pastor-teacher is an enhanced ability provided at salvation by God the Holy Spirit to extract the meaning of the Scriptures through a process of study, investigation and analysis of the Word of God, and to explain its meaning so that believers can grow spiritually and to lead a congregation toward spiritual maturity.

What is means by an enhanced ability is that there are a lot of people who have natural talents in teaching but it is not a spiritual gift. This is a gift that is given by the Holy Spirit and it is an enhanced ability to communicate. It doesn't have anything to do with natural talent. What is involved in this gift is the ability to extract the meaning of Scripture. That doesn't come automatically. You are trained as a pastor-teacher, you are trained in the skills of Bible study, it is not an automatic insight into the Scriptures. Just because a person has the gift of pastor-teacher it doesn't mean that can just flop their Bible open and read a verse, then tell you what it means. That is not what the gift means; that is a mystical distortion of the gift. It involves training, maturity, and a thorough understanding of other parts of Scripture. So it is not an automatic insight, not an automatic ability to get into the Word, and there is no automatic desire to study. One of the greatest dangers to every Christian is arrogance and one of rhe greatest dangers to pastors is arrogance, and one of the greatest manifestations of it is laziness. The volition to study is part of their responsibility.

In verses 3-5 Paul emphasizes the fact that in light of this responsibility and requirement as a pastor no human being has the knowledge required to perform that evaluation. You can evaluate a man on the basis of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 because that is something that is obvious and evident in a person's life, but in terms of a person's faithful teaching of the Word of God, especially teaching in fellowship, teaching under the power of God the Holy Spirit, that is not evident to any human being. We do not have the ability to even evaluate our own lives and determine what is producing gold, silver and precious stones and what is wood, hay and straw. 

1 Corinthians 4:3 ^NASB "But to me it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you, or by {any} human court; in fact, I do not even examine myself." This is an idiom in the Greek and it means that it is insignificant that Paul should be judged by them. In other words, the Corinthians evaluation is not relevant. He uses the Greek word ANAKRINO [a)nakrinw] and this word is used several times in this context. It means to evaluate and to examine. "…or by any human court." Literally in the Greek is means "a day of man." That is a Greek idiom for public opinion. Then he says that he doesn't even "examine" himself, and he uses that same word. In 1 Corinthians 2:14 ^NASB "But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." The word there is ANAKRINO, and then in verse 15 he says, "But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one"—ANAKRINO. In other words, as a believer the unbeliever cannot understand us, cannot understand the issues going on in the believer's life, and so there is nothing the unbeliever can do in terms of evaluating the believer. These issues have to do with spiritual growth and spiritual advance which is not discernable in this life. Paul uses that same word in 4:3. We cannot even examine ourselves. We can go to a certain extent but this is not the concept of self-examination in 1 John 1:9, it is in terms of evaluating our own life to discern what is going to be gold, silver, and precious stones or wood, hay and straw at the judgment seat of Christ. We can't evaluate one another on this basis because we don't have the frame of reference or the knowledge necessary.

[4] "For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord." The word translated "acquitted" is DIKAIOO [dikaiow] which is the verb for justified, but it is not used in that technical sense of justification here. What Paul is saying is, "I am not aware of anything overt that is negative about my ministry, but that doesn't acquit me because there are things I don't understand." The one who examines him is the Lord and that judgment only takes place at the judgment seat of Christ.

Therefore he draws a conclusion [5] "Therefore do not go on passing judgment 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 man's praise will come to him from God." Don't get involved in judging any pastor's ministry because you don't know what the real issues are. There are levels of evaluation, in some form of overt sin that is bringing shame upon himself and the congregation, then that needs to be dealt with if it is a violation of those standards in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Aside from that, don't wander around evaluating somebody's ministry. But this qualification should be added: That is a different issue from evaluating the doctrine that is taught in somebody's ministry. That is different. We are called upon as believers to exercise discernment, and there are time when it is necessary to examine or evaluate what someone teaches. It is not personal, you are not evaluating them as to where they are spiritually, but it is important to evaluate a system of doctrine that is being taught because its negative effect on the body of Christ. Sometimes it is important to identify who teaches false systems because sheep don't always identify who the false teacher is.

Paul sets the principles in the first five verses related to the requirements and the responsibilities of a pastor. In his case he is an apostle and the problem that is going on in Corinth is that they are dividing themselves up and aligning themselves with different personalities and different pastors that have come their way just as they did as unbelievers. The focused on personalities, different intellectual skills, and so these divisions within the congregation developed.

[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." In chapter one he has said that some were saying "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ." There were probably more groups than that and those probably weren't the actual groups. He is just using that, figuratively speaking, in order to identify the fact that they were identifying themselves and aligning themselves with different charismatic figures and intellectual heroes in their congregation. "…so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written." In other words, you have to stick with what the Scripture says, "…so that no one of you will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other."

The problem in Greek culture was philosophy. At the very foundation of studying doctrine is exegesis, and exegesis is related to a particular passage. And the exegesis must be related to context. The next step is to begin to build a synthesis, you begin to identify various categories. As these various categories are developed that are being taught in the passage, then you start comparing those with other Scriptures. This leads to a third level which is what we will call biblical theology. For example, you look at how Paul uses certain terminology, then how John uses the terminology, Peter, and so on. The Holy Spirit inspires the Word of God but each author writes within his own style and his own personality. So there are certain distinctions. After the biblical theology then you go to the crowing achievement which is the systematic theology, and that then comes back and helps with the exegesis. The danger is that when systematic theology becomes so abstract that it cuts itself loose and becomes an absolute in itself and you develop a hardened, calcified systematic theology and read that back into the passage. That is what happened after the Reformation. In Lutheran theology, rather than continuing to develop in their understanding of the Scriptures things hardened into various creeds that were written in the 16^th century and those creeds, then, become the way the Bible is interpreted. The issue is no longer what does the Bible say, the issue is what does the theological system teach, and that then determines how you interpret various passages. This is because historically there was this impact of Greek philosophy on the early church, and the tendency in Greek philosophy is to get theology and abstract it where you separate it from its grounding in the Word. (Prep school teachers: When you teach principles of doctrine, always ground it in a biblical event and a biblical situation)

At the conclusion of verse 6 Paul says, "so that no one of you will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other." The Greek word translated "arrogant" is the Greek word and it means to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, to be bloated, to be puffed up with air, to think that you have come up with things that you haven't. This is the idea of generating theology to go far beyond anything that you can demonstrate through the text. This is apparently what they were beginning to do and it was leading them into all kinds of areas where they were becoming intellectually impressed with themselves with what they were coming up with about Scripture. And remember, they didn't even have a completed canon. So Paul brings them back to reality with three questions in verse 7. All three of these questions are to bring them back to recognizing that God is the source of everything, that we must have a theocentric view of life.

[7] "For who regards you as superior? 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?" First of all, Who makes you different? Everybody is different. Some people have one talent, other people have another talent, some people are smarter, some people aren't, but we are all sinners and we are all equally obnoxious to God. Any positive differences in us, whether it is intellectual, whether it is material, whether it has to do with talents or gifts, are all due to God's grace. At salvation the Holy Spirit distributes spiritual gifts to us and throughout life God's grace distributes different blessings to everyone. Everyone is different, the positive differences are due to the grace of God and the negative differences are due to our own failures following our own sin natures. So the first question is to focus attention on the ultimate source of all their positive blessings, and that is God. Second, What do you have that you did not receive?  The emphasis here is, don't boast in all of these things that you think you have accomplished, it was God who gave you the ability and the accomplishment. The third question, which is really his conclusion, And if you did receive it [if you didn't generate that difference on your own], why do you boast as if you had not received it? Why are you bragging about it? Paul is emphasizing the fact that they have completely failed at grace orientation. Grace orientation recognizes that everything we have has been given to us by God, and only when we recognize that can we have genuine humility.

Then a little sanctified sarcasm. [8] "You are already filled [you had it all], you have already become rich, you have become kings without us; and indeed, {I} wish that you had become kings so that we also might reign with you." Paul is trying to shame them by his tone. You really don't need us, you are so smart, and you have everything figured out that you are far beyond anything that we could do for you!

Then he comes back to emphasize the truth in verse 9. The truth is really the conflict of values between human viewpoint thinking and divine viewpoint. Human viewpoint puts its emphasis on intellectual ability, on material gain, on education, on fame, on all of the overt signs of success, but divine viewpoint puts its emphasis on character, a character developed on humility. The contrast in this chapter is arrogance versus humility. Remember, Satan is the architect of all human viewpoint thinking, what we call cosmic thinking. What God is demonstrating in the angelic conflict is that the only way the creature can have success it though genuine humility and grace orientation—authority orientation to God and reliance upon His grace; whereas Satan, the creature, is saying the way to have real success is for the creature to promote himself and to run everything independently of God. That is the essence eof arrogance. In divine viewpoint the emphasis is humility and dependence upon God in everything. The trappings of success that human viewpoint promotes are going to be just the opposite of the trappings of success that divine viewpoint promotes. [9] "For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles last of all [in the sense of priority], as men condemned to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men." Why were they a spectacle to angels and to men? To demonstrate the principle in the angelic conflict that it is only when the creature develops humility, grace orientation and dependence upon God that he can have real success, and real success is defined in terms of character and that which endures throughout eternity. So he is emphasizing the fact that God is teaching values that are 180 degrees opposite from the Satanic values of the cosmic system.

[10] "We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are prudent in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are distinguished, but we are without honor." It is not that they were in actuality fools, but that in the light of the value system of human viewpoint they were fools, they were not emphasizing the things that culture said should be emphasized. "but you are prudent in Christ," they were making the claim that they were the wise ones. He is emphasizing this contrast that the Corinthians were developing everything in light of the value system of the culture, and what the apostles were was insignificant to the value system of the culture.

[11] "To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless; [12] and we toil, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless" – this is humility because they have transformed their humility and grace 0orientation into real impersonal love for all mankind—"when we are persecuted, we endure; [13] when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, {even} until now." But even though they are rejected by man their character demonstrates that they are exhibiting the character of Christ.

Then in vv. 14-21 Paul is going to warn them against the arrogance because of its fragmentary consequences. [14] "I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children." Real humility is going to respond to criticism by saying, Well that's true, there is something valid there, I am going to learn from this and go through the corrective procedures. The person who is arrogant is going to react, he is going to be hostile whenever he is met with any kind of constructive criticism. Paul warns the Corinthians because of the judgment seat of Christ.

[15] For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet {you would} not {have} many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel." They don't have many fathers, i.e. those who are genuinely responsible for your spiritual welfare. He is saying to these false teachers that they may be promoting their own systems, they may be great teachers, they may give them great intellectual thrills and entertainment, but they are not really concerned about their spiritual welfare as he was. He was their spiritual father.

[16] "Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me." In what way? Were they to imitate Paul in being a tent maker? No. They were to imitate Paul in terms of grace orientation and humility. That is the character of Christ. So when we come to these passages of Scripture where Paul says, "Imitate me," that is a spiritually mature believer talking to those in his congregation that they need to imitate the character of Christ that has been formed in them already.

[17] "For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church." Notice that Timothy is faithful. What is required of a steward? That they be found faithful. They need to be reminded again and again of the values of divine viewpoint.

Then the warning in vv. 18-19 against arrogance. [18] "Now some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you." You think that because I am not coming back that you can start running the congregation, that you can do whatever you want. [19] "But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out, not the words of those who are arrogant but their power." Don't think you are going to get away with it because I will confront you when I come in person. We are going to be able to determine whether the power comes from your own sin nature or from the Holy Spirit. [20] "For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power." It is not rhetorical ability, it is not intellectual skill, it is not the ability to think through difficult theology, but it is power, the power of God the Holy Spirit. It is spiritual power that produces real spiritual growth and maturity, that produces the fruit of the Spirit exemplified as the character of Christ.

[21] "What do you desire? Shall I come to you with a rod [discipline], or with love and a spirit of gentleness?" It was up to them. It was their decision as to how Paul would come to them, as to whether they would apply doctrine and respond to his correction or not.