1 Corinthians 4:14-21

1 Corinthians 4:14-21

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Paul’s Paternal Care

14 I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you. 15 For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. 16 Therefore I urge you, imitate me. 17 For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.

18 Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. 20 For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. 21 What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?

The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), 1 Cor 4:14-21

• Transcript

  Okay, just about ready. We're getting there. Sometimes it takes a few minutes for things to go live. Just give it one minute. There we go. Wonderful. Well, good morning or good afternoon. Good afternoon. Welcome to Coffee. And devotions is where every day you and I we get together. We have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word and we grow in our love and Lord together and this year 2022 will make it from the book of Acts to the book of Philemon. I'm so glad to be with you this morning. Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into the Lord's word. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the blessing it is to sit at your feet. God we pray that we would know who you are. Walk in your ways follow after you and love you all of our lives in Jesus's name, Amen. Here we go. We're going to pick it up at First Corinthians Chapter Four beginning at verse 14. I do not write these things to shame you. But as my beloved children, I warn you for though you might have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers for in Christ. I begat you through the gospel. Therefore I urge you imitate me. For this reason, I have sent Timothy to you who is my beloved and faithful son and the Lord who will remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach everywhere in every church. Now some are puffed up as though I were not coming to you, but I will come to you shortly. If the Lord wills and I will No, not the word of those who are puffed up but the power for the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. What do you want? Should I come to you with a rod or in love and a spirit of gentleness? Well, what a great passage we have for us we need to ask ourselves a What is this about? Be what's the best verses summarize this and see, why don't we call it the different response to these words, right. So a what is this? About? It's been this whole topic of divisiveness and fighting with each other stuff like that. And so now Paul has gotten to the point where he's saying Hold on here. What's really going on? Who's your teachers, right? Who first shared the gospel with you? Who are you to imitate and so here, he's coming in first Corinthians chapter four. And he's saying, Look, you might have a ton of instructors, but I'm the one who brought the gospel to you. I'm the one who brought you Christ. I'm the one who showed you these things. I'm the one who taught you these things. And he uses the imagery. This is now the third different image that he's used in chapters four, and it's the image of a father and children. So there might be many slaves who are guardians and many slaves who act like teachers and, and that's fine. But you only have one father, and I'm the one who brought you the gospel. He uses himself as his image of a of a father caring for his children. Now, we don't want to get too wrapped up about this, right. I mean, Jesus Himself is the one who says we aren't to call anyone father except our father who's in heaven. This is an imagery that Paul is using. He wasn't setting a precedent for people to call their pastors father. We know that's not the case. Because in First Thessalonians he talks about he loved them like a nursing mothers. So what are we going to do start calling the pastor's Mother No, that's not the point of what he's getting at. It's the imagery of it is that he leaves spiritual product or prodigies. Everywhere he goes, he raises up disciples who follow after Him. And so he says, there are people who act like I'm not even gonna come to you, but I'm gonna come to you if the Lord wills and we're going to see whether these people who are so divisive actually have the power of the Spirit or not. And he says, The time is going to tell you're gonna be we'll figure this out. And so, this is what he's getting at is, is that they need to imitate him. And he's not putting himself in the place of crazy saying, Imitate me in that everything that Paul is doing is about Christ. That's the one thing he's concerned about that this is who he is desiring to glorify, not himself, not to build up his wealth not to build up a fan club not to have a school of Paul No, it's about being absorbed with a love for Christ for loving Jesus Christ with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. It says, K again, carrying the idea of a father through the illustration he says when I come to you, how do you want me calm? Do you want when your dad comes home from work? Do you want to be that moment that your mom had said before? Just wait till your daddy gets home? I know I dreaded that time but I knew that my dad had the authority to discipline me right? He wasn't carrying the rod for no reason. Or did you want to run and hug your dad and care for him and rejoice? That's what Paul's bringing out here is this paternal love that He has for them. He's not afraid of church discipline he's not afraid of of disciplining for that are good his heart here is because he loves them. He wants to see them grow. He wants to see them flourish in their love for Jesus Christ. And so he's saying, I'll bring the rod if I have to, right. This was an image that we see all over the place with Roman fathers as they would carry a rod and they would discipline their children, beating their children to death, but this is lovingly caring for them. This is the imagery that Psalm 23 uses for Jesus right? His rod and his staff, they comfort me. And so this idea is that how would you rather behave in a way in which your father comes home and you rejoice? Or your father comes home and has to set the house straight? He's saying Why don't you set the house straight before I get there? So what's this about? This is Paul saying I'm sending you Timothy. He's following in my ways, he'll show you what I'm teaching and all the different churches I'm not being divisive in anywhere else. And let's get the house straight before I get there. Cuz I really want to fellowship with you. Get rid of the schools and these factions and stuff. Remember, I'm the one who shared the gospel with you. So follow after me. So, what's the best verse to summarize all this? Hmm, that's a really good question. You know, I might be tempted to underline the shortest verse in this part, verse 16. Therefore, therefore, I urge you imitate me. But do you think I'm gonna let you tell me, right? If you're on Facebook or YouTube, just write down in the comments. What would you underline as what you think is the best verse to summarize these passages? Why don't we go ahead and pray Father, we pray that we would be all about Jesus Christ. We pray that the church would be radically Christ centered. We pray that in our hearts, we would love you and not just some teacher, not just some guardian, not just some, you know, philosopher Lord but we pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would unite our hearts to Jesus Christ. And we thank You. We thank you for the apostle who gave this example of faithful discipleship. And Father, we thank you in our lives. For those men you have given us who have shown us the way to walk the past to go and Father we pray that we would imitate them as far as they were imitating Christ in Jesus's name we pray, Amen. May God bless you today. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. May your heart be undivided and your love for him and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai