1 Corinthians 4:6

Ver. 6 is the transition from the foregoing exposition to the practical conclusion.

Vv. 6. “Now these things, brethren, I have presented, by way of applying them to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to go beyond this limit: that which is written; that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.”

By the address, brethren, Paul puts himself by the side of his readers. The verb μετασχηματίζειν properly signifies: to present a thing or person in a form different from its natural figure, to transform, disguise. It is in this sense that it is applied to Saul in the LXX., 1 Samuel 28:8 (Heinrici); comp. also 2 Corinthians 11:13-14. St. Paul means that in the preceding passage (from 1 Corinthians 3:5) he has presented, while applying them to himself and Apollos, the principles regarding the ministry which he was concerned to remind them of, in view of certain preachers and of the Church, which misunderstood them. He did not wish to designate those preachers by name, lest he should shock susceptibilities already awakened. He explains this method, which he thought himself called to use in the delicate circumstances, by the words δἰ ὑμᾶς, for your sakes, which here signify: “the more easily to gain your acceptance of the truth thus presented.” Expressions like these: “Paul is nothing, Apollos is nothing” (1 Corinthians 3:7), applied to other leading persons at Corinth, would have seemed injurious, while in the form used by Paul the truth declared lost all character of personal hostility. Hence it follows that the word ταῦτα, these things, applies solely to the last passage concerning the ministry, and not at all to the previous passages regarding the nature of the gospel. It is therefore a mistake to find here a proof in favour of applying to Apollos or his partisans the polemic against human wisdom in the first two Chapter s. The passage rather shows how thoroughly Paul felt himself one with Apollos, seeing he could treat him as a second self, and distinguish him so pointedly from the teachers who opposed him at Corinth.

After explaining the method used by him in the previous statement of doctrine, he points out the object of this teaching. In speaking thus of himself and his friend, he meant to indicate a limit they should never cross in estimating preachers whom the Lord gives them. All glory is to be refused to man in the spiritual work of which he is the agent. The T. R. gives as the object of μάθητε, that ye may learn, the infinitive φρονεῖν, to think of, aspire: “that ye may learn not to go in your thinking beyond...” But, according to the authority of the MSS., this word is probably a gloss; Hofmann thinks it borrowed from Romans 12:3. Rejecting it, the meaning remains the same; but the turn of expression is briefer and more pointed: that ye may learn the: not going beyond what is written (Greco-Lat. and Byz.), or the things which are written (Alex.). But of what is the apostle thinking in this ὃ or ἃ γέγραπται ? The words might relate to what Paul himself has just written in the foregoing passage. In this case we must adopt the Alex. reading, ἅ, the things which; for the form, what (ὅ) is written, would naturally apply to the Old Testament. But even with the Alexandrine form the application of the words to the preceding passage is far from probable. Would not Paul rather have said: ἃ προέγραψα or ἃ προεγράφη, what I have, or what has been written before? comp. Ephesians 3:3.

Or it has been thought that Paul was here referring to the words of Scripture which he had quoted above (1 Corinthians 3:19-20; 1 Corinthians 1:31). But those quotations were too remote to lead the readers to understand such an allusion. Bengel, Meyer, Kling, Edwards refer the words, what is written, to the Old Testament in general, that supreme law of human thought, which takes all glory from man and ascribes all success to God. But a quotation so vague and general is far from probable. It seems to me, as to several modern commentators, that we must here see a proverbial maxim, in use perhaps in the Rabbinical schools: “Not beyond what is written!” The article τό, the, which precedes the words, seems in fact to give them this quasi-technical character; comp. the article τό, Romans 13:9 and Galatians 5:14, thus used before well-known formulas. The meaning would then be: that ye may all retrace your steps in connection with what I have just told you of ourselves (Apollos and me), within the limit of a healthy appreciation: “Not beyond what Scripture says (Scripture which everywhere teaches the nothingness of man)!” This meaning thus amounts to the same as the previous explanation.

This first that, which is the explanation of for your sakes, must be a means in relation to a second more remote end. The meaning of the last proposition seems to me to come out clearly from the contrast between the two prepositions, ὑπέρ, in favour of, and κατά, against. The apostle has in view those members of the Church who were captivated by one teacher to the disparagement of another. The apostle calls this infatuation a being puffed up, because in exalting another man, one takes credit to himself for the admiration which he feels; one glories in being able to appreciate a superiority which others fail to know; the pride of the head of the party thus becomes the pride of the whole. The last words, against another, may refer either to this or that other teacher who is despised, or this or that other member of the Church who does not share the same infatuation, or who feels a quite different one. The contrast between the two adjuncts, for the one and against the other, seems to me to decide in favour of the first meaning. The pronoun εἷς, one, is used instead of τίς, anyone, with the view of isolating more completely the individual who poses as judge, and thereby breaks the unity of the body. And when this one is each one, what becomes of the Church?

It is difficult to explain the form of the word φυσιοῦσθε. If it is the indicative, this mood does not agree with the conjunction ἵνα, that; and if it is the subjunctive, the regular contraction would be φυσιῶσθε. This dilemma has driven Fritzsche and Meyer to give to ἵνα the meaning of where; which would signify, “a state of things in which.” But this meaning would be superfluous, and the word ἵνα is nowhere used in this way in the New Testament; even in classic Greek this use is found only in poetry. It must therefore be held either that in this case the apostle used an incorrect contraction, but one which might be common in later Greek or in the spoken language, or that he used the indicative mood with the conjunction ἵνα. This takes place often enough with verbs in the future, when it is wished to emphasize the reality of the action dependent on the that. By applying this construction here in the present, Paul would remind them forcibly that the fact, which ought not to be, is really passing at the time at Corinth. The same form reappears, Galatians 4:17 (ζηλοῦτε for ζηλῶτε), and again in the case of a verb in οω; this circumstance might incline us to the first explanation.

The following verse proceeds to show all there is to be condemned in such a puffing up.