1 Corinthians 4:9 Commentary and Bible Study

This is not a total change of tack, but it is a slight change of tack. It is really about how ministers should be treated and about the simple lifestyle of the preacher or minister. Now there are in different places, very occasionally in this country, much more so in the United States; there are preachers who receive an awful lot of money, payment. This is true not only of the heretical prosperity preachers; it is even true of some sound preachers, Reformed preachers, and they are wealthy people, and are paid enormous sums. People will say ‘Oh but they earn it. They should be well paid for this reason, for that reason.’ Well what does the Scriptures say? The Scripture teaches much more the simple lifestyle of the preacher, the reasonable lifestyle of the preacher. The apostles are not exactly to be taken as a pattern for all preachers. They were called to rigours far greater, and Paul, particularly, than most preachers generally. So they are not an absolute pattern, but they are an example. For ‘I think’, read, ‘I consider, I observe’: this is what is meant. I consider ‘that God hath set forth us the apostles last.’ Now this is controversial rendering, but among the old Bible versions, some go slightly differently. ‘I think that God hath set forth us, the last apostles.’ The apostle may be speaking about himself in particular, but it applied to all the apostles to an extent. He was appointed for special suffering, and those who worked with him. We are called to appear before the world as prisoners under death sentence. A prisoner under death sentence would be paraded before the people, to humiliate him and to show him to the people in a degraded, dejected state, awaiting execution. He would be paraded, but only for a time, and then he would be beheaded, or crucified, or poisoned in some back dungeon. ‘I think that God has set forth us, the apostles as it were’, as those awaiting death sentence, ‘for we are made a spectacle.’ Spectacle is ‘theatron’ in the Greek: ‘theatre’ is our word. We are made theatre to the world and to angels and to men. We are exhibited before the world as those who are to be martyred, those who the world rejects and seeks to get rid of. Now that is not true of the generality of pastors and preachers, of course, but it was true for most of the apostles, and certainly for the last of them, Paul. A spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men. Whatever could that mean? The world, the angels, and to men? Why would God call the apostle Paul to be a theatrical demonstration of a prisoner awaiting death before the world? Well the church would soon lose its earthly founders – of course the only founder of the church of Jesus Christ, but just permitting the latitude of language for a moment – the church would see its earthly founders all rejected and all perish as their Saviour was. And yet, for all that, the church would grow and prosper and spread mightily in that first century, and then around the world. What a testimony! Supposing all the apostles and Paul in particular, had lived to a ripe old age and died and been buried in honour and been acclaimed by those who loved them for their faithfulness and their work. All history would have been able to say, ‘The success of the church was due to its founding apostles and their power and acceptability.’ No, the earthly apostles must all perish in ignominy and rejection, so that the great flourishing of the church of Christ would be seen to be, without doubt, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and not to the ingenuity of its earthly founders. That would explain why the suffering of the apostles was a theatre, a demonstration, an exhibition to angels as well as to men. The angels would look on and see that it was all due to the power of God, not the power of man. As a result people would look and see the truth of the resurrection of Christ. These were the men who had all seen the risen Lord, and testified to him, and they died and perished and sustained terrible cruelty of suffering rather than deny it. What a proof to the early church of the reality of the resurrection. The first preachers and the apostles must be seen as genuine men, not concerned about self-exhibition. Most of them, possibly all were martyrs for the resurrection and for the faith that they preached.