1 Corinthians 4:15,16

“For though ye should have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. 16. I beseech you therefore: be ye imitators of me.”

In 1 Corinthians 4:15, Paul presents the almost ridiculous figure of a flock of pupils placed under the rod of several thousands of tutors. There is an allusion to that host of teachers who had risen up at Corinth after the departure of Paul and Apollos, and to whom was addressed the warning in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15, regarding those who continued a building once founded. The pedagogue (tutor) among the Greeks was the slave to whom a child's education was committed till he reached his majority; literally: he who guides the child to school. ᾿Αλλά : here, like the at of the Latins. It was Paul to whom God had given to beget the Corinthians to that new life which the others only promoted; comp. a similar figure, Galatians 4:19. This term γεννᾶν, to beget, applies not only to the ministry of preaching, but to the intense labour of the whole man which is carried out in his personal relations and in the act of prayer.

It should be remarked that Paul prefixes to the idea of his labour the two qualifications: in Christ Jesus and by the gospel. It was in virtue of the communion and power of Christ, and by means of the gospel which he received from Him, that he was able to produce this spiritual creation. He thus excludes beforehand every appearance of boasting in what he says of himself in the last words: ἐγὼ ἐγέννησα.

But if it was Christ who acted with His power and word, it was nevertheless through him, Paul (ἐγώ, I), that He produced this creation. Hence Paul's right and duty to exhort them, and even to admonish them as he does.