1 Corinthians 4:8

Fools for Christ’s Sake

6 Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written, that none of you may be¹ puffed up on behalf of one against the other.

7 For who¹ makes you differ from another? And ^awhat do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

8 You are already full! ^aYou are already rich! You have reigned as kings without us—and indeed I could wish you did reign, that we also might reign with you!

9 For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a ^aspectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.

10 We are ^afools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! ^bWe are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored!

11 To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless.

Library

<< 1 Corinthians 4:7

1 Corinthians 4:9 >>

Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain 1 Corinthians 4:8:

I Corinthians 4:8-9

Now, this has all been background material, foundational understanding for the correction he is about to administer to the Corinthians. Let us drop down to verse 8, this is the other side of the coin here. Paul is being sarcastic, but by it he exposes what the Corinthians thought of themselves, first of all, as compared to what they thought of Paul and Apollos. Notice the attitude.

He is talking, actually here, not sarcastically. He is using a metaphor of being in a triumphal procession in Rome, where all the captives and the people that they defeated would be displayed before the people of Rome, and the apostles are so low in that pecking order of defeated peoples that they come last. I mean, who is left but the janitors sweeping the way as evening comes on.

Excerpted from What Do We Have to be Proud Of? (Part One) by Richard T. Ritenbaugh

Sermons

Two Realities
Why Are We Afflicted?
Letters to Seven Churches (Part Eleven): Laodicea

<< 1 Corinthians 4:7

1 Corinthians 4:9 >>