I Pray All Is Well With Everyone… And Your Hearts And Minds Are Full Of Love, Joy, And Compassion… For Yourselves And Everyone Else… All Around The World. And Self-Love Is The Most Important Love On This Earth; Not Vain Self-Glorifying Love – Vanity; But The Love Of The Living God That Dwells Within Us… Our “Mighty I AM Presence”… Our Life Stream… THE SELF… THE SPIRIT… THAT KEEPS US LIVING!
When We Begin To Truly Acknowledge That “Presence” As The Living God That Animates Our Beings… Begin To Truly Love The Eternal “Presence” Within Us… More Than The Temporal Flesh That Covers Us… And Its Outer World Attachments; Then Having Sincere Love In Our Hearts For Everyone Else… Becomes Easier.
And Know That – LOVE IN ALL ITS POWER – Is Not Gullible Or Weak! But When That Sincere Love For Ourselves And Others Is Activated… Then Radiated Throughout Our Communities And Systems Of Living – By As Many Individuals As Possible; That Collective Love And Light Power – In All Its Intensity – Can Annihilate The Selfish Hold Of The Evil, Hatred, And Darkness… That Continually Seeks… Mankind’s Destruction. Amen… 🤗💜💜💜
Give Thanks And Praises For Love And Life… 🙏🏾💞
And Y’all Be Love… 💗💗💗
“… We have here the apostles’ behaviour under all, and the return they made for this mal-treatment: Being reviled, we bless, being persecuted, we suffer it, being defamed, we entreat, (1 Corinthians 4:12-13). They returned blessings for reproaches, and entreaties and kind exhortations for the rudest slanders and defamation, and were patient under the sharpest persecutions.
Note. The disciples of Christ, and especially his ministers, should hold fast their integrity, and keep a good conscience, whatever opposition of hardships they meet with from the world. Whatever they suffer from men, they must follow the example, and fulfil the will and precepts of their Lord. They must be content with him and for him, to be despised and abused.
1 Corinthians 4:14. Here Paul challenges their regard to him as their father. He tells them, 1, That what he had written was not for their reproach, but admonition; not with the gall of an enemy, but the bowels of a father, (1 Corinthians 4:14); I write not to shame you, but as my beloved children, I warn you.
Note. In reproving for sin, we should have a tender regard to the reputation, as well as the reformation of the sinner. We should aim to distinguish between them and their sins, and take care not to discover any spite against them ourselves, nor expose them to contempt and reproach in the world. Reproofs that expose commonly do but exasperate, when those that kindly and affectionately warn are likely to reform. When the affections of a father mingle with the admonitions of a minister, it is to be hoped that they may at once melt and mend, but to lash like an enemy or executioner will provoke and render obstinate. To expose to open shame, is but the way to render shameless.
2) He shows them upon what foundation he claimed paternal relation to them, and called them his sons. They might have other pedagogues or instructors, but he was their father; for in Christ Jesus, he had begotten them by the gospel, (1 Corinthians 4:15). They were made Christians by his ministry; he had laid the foundation of a church among them; others could only build upon it. Whatever other teachers they had, he was their spiritual father. He first brought them off from pagan idolatry to the faith of the gospel and the worship of the true and living God. He was the instrument of their new birth, and therefore, claimed the relation of a father to them, and felt the bowels of a father towards them.
Note. There commonly is, and always ought to be, an endeared affection between faithful ministers and those they beget in Christ Jesus through the gospel. They should love like parents and children.
3) We have here the special advice he urges on them: Wherefore I beseech you, be you followers of me, (1 Corinthians 4:16). This he elsewhere explains and limits, (1 Corinthians 11:1), “Be you followers of me, as I also am of Christ; follow me as far as I follow Christ; come up as close as you can to my example in those instances wherein I endeavour to copy after his pattern. Be my disciples, as far as I manifest myself to be a faithful minister and disciple of Christ, and no further. I would not have you be my disciples, but his, but I hope I have approved myself a faithful steward of the mysteries of Christ, and a faithful servant of my master Christ; so far, follow me, and tread in my steps.”
Note. Ministers should so live that their people may take pattern from them, and live after their copy. They should guide them by their lives as well as their lips, go before them in the way to heaven, and not content themselves with pointing it out.
Note. As ministers are to set a pattern, others must take it. They should follow them as far as they are satisfied that they follow Christ in faith and practice.
1 Corinthians 4:17. Here, first, He tells them of his having sent Timothy to them, to bring them into remembrance of his ways in Christ, as he taught everywhere in every church, (1 Corinthians 4:17), to remind them of his ways in Christ, to refresh their memory as to his preaching and practice, what he taught, and how he lived among them.
Note. Those who have had ever so good teaching are apt to forget, and need to have their memories refreshed. The same truth, taught over again, if it give no new light, may make new and quicker impression. He also lets them know that his teaching was the same everywhere, and in every church. He had not one doctrine for one place and people, and another for another. He kept close to his instructions. What he received of the Lord, that he delivered, (1 Corinthians 11:23). This was the gospel revelation, which was the equal concern of all men, and did not vary from itself. He therefore taught the same things in every church, and lived after the same manner in all times and places.
Note. The truth of Christ is one and invariable. What one apostle taught every one taught. What one apostle taught at one time and in one place, he taught at all times and in all places. Christians may mistake and differ in their apprehensions, but Christ and Christian truth are the same yesterday, today, and forever, (Hebrews 13:8). To render their regard to Timothy the greater, he gives them his character. He was his beloved son, a spiritual child of his as well as themselves.
Note. Spiritual brotherhood should engage affection as well as what is common and natural. The children of one father should have one heart. But he adds, “He is faithful in the Lord – trustworthy, as one that feared the Lord. He will be faithful in the particular office he has now received of the Lord, the particular errand on which he comes, not only from me, but from Christ. He knows what I have taught, and what my conversation has been in all places, and you may depend upon it, he will make a faithful report.”
Note. It is a great commendation of any minister that he is faithful in the Lord, faithful to his soul, to his light, to his trust from God; this must go a great way in procuring regard to his message with those that fear God.
Second, He rebukes the vanity of those who imagined he would not come to them, by letting them know this was his purpose, though he had sent Timothy: “I will come to you shortly, though some of you are so vain as to think I will not.” But he adds, if the Lord will. It seems, as to the common events of life, apostles knew no more than other men, nor were they in these points under inspiration. For, had the apostle certainly known the mind of God in this matter, he would not have expressed himself with this certainty. But he sets a good example to us in it.
Note. All our purposes must be formed with a dependence on Providence, and a reserve for the overruling purposes of God. If the Lord wills, we shall live, and do this and that, (James 4:15).
Third, He lets them know what would follow upon his coming to them: I will know not the speech of those that are puffed up, but the power, (1 Corinthians 4:19). He would bring the great pretenders among them to a trial, would know what they were, not by their rhetoric or philosophy, but by the authority and efficacy of what they taught, whether they could confirm it by miraculous operations, and whether it was accompanied with divine influences and saving effects on the minds of men. For, adds he, the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power, it is not set up, nor propagated, nor established in the hearts of men by plausible reasonings nor florid discourses, but by the external power of the Holy Spirit in miraculous operations at first, and the powerful influence of divine truth on the minds and manners of men.
Note. It is a good way in the general to judge of a preacher’s doctrine, to see whether the effects of it upon men’s hearts to be truly divine. That is most likely to come from God, which in its own nature is most fit, and in event, is found to produce most likeness to God, to spread piety and virtue, to change men’s hearts, and mend their manners.
Fourth, He puts it to their choice how he should come among them, whether with a rod, or in love and the spirit of meekness, (1 Corinthians 4:21); that is, according as they were, they would find him. If they continued perverse among themselves and with him, it would be necessary to come with a rod, that is, to exert his apostolical power in chastising them, by making some examples, and inflicting some diseases and corporal punishments, or by other censures for their faults.
Note. Stubborn offenders must be used with severity. In families in Christian communities, paternal pity and tenderness, Christian love and compassion will sometimes force the use of the rod. But this is far from being desirable if it may be prevented. And therefore, the apostle adds that, it was in their own option, whether he should come with a rod or in a quite different disposition and manner, or, in love, and the spirit of meekness, as much as if he had said, “Take warning, cease your unchristian feuds, rectify the abuses among you, and return to your duty, and you shall find me as gentle and benign as you can. It will be a force upon my inclination to proceed with severity. I had rather come and display the tenderness of a father among you, than assert his authority. Do but your duty, and you have no reason to avoid my presence.”
Note. It is a happy temper in a minister to have the spirit of love and meekness predominant, and yet, to maintain his just authority.”
Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1 Corinthians 4:12-21, by Matthew Henry, 1706
