“For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? You are already filled, you have already become rich, you have become kings without us; and indeed, I wish that you had become kings so that we also might reign with you.”

Autobiographical to the max are Paul’s letters to the Corinthians as he interacts with these immature believers, like a father scolding his children. Who of us can’t remember a father-like figure saying, “You don’t see me doing that, do you?” A few verses later, he writes, “I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children” (1 Cor. 4:14; see also 2 Cor. 6:13, 12:14). The response of many who came to Christ under Paul’s influence was probably like that of the Galatian believers for whom Paul pleads, “I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me” (Gal. 4:15). So here, with the Corinthians, Paul banks on the parent-child-like relationship to the Corinthians to use himself as an example in shaming them for their carnal behavior.

Since Paul, Apollos, and Peter were simply servants and stewards, the ministry is not theirs, nor was it anything to boast about. So then, in what Christian universe is it OK for the rest of all Christ followers to carry around a sense of superiority over their fellow believers?! Nothing they brought into the Christian life and community—and nothing they have gained within it— provides a basis for boasting. Whatever they have, whether spiritual gifts, outstanding teaching, a community of fellowship, wealth—all is a grace from God, undeserved. Pride of their position in life? Which of them chose the family and level of society into which they were born?

Against all this, Paul wrote earlier that “in everything you were enriched in Him” (1 Cor. 1:5). Now he shifts to his trademark sarcasm, which he frequently uses with them. They were acting like they gained everything they had spiritually without the service of Paul, Apollos, or Peter. They were their own self-made spiritual people. They were like Christians who say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” but don’t realize that they are “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17). Sarcasm drips from Paul’s quill. What an irony then, that he, the one who led them to Christ, must therefore be inferior to them and should desire to be as exalted as them! The apostle adroitly pulls out all the withering stops in writing to them.

Lord, I confess that at times I have thought and acted with a superior attitude over others, and not like a servant and steward of Your grace.