Let a man so account of us as servants of Christ, and stewards of [the] mysteries of God.
Paul has just told the Corinthians to stop lining up behind favourite teachers. Now he tells them how to rate a servant of God. Two phrases carry the weight: servant "of Christ," and steward of the "mysteries of God."
The Corinthians had turned gifted men into rival banners. This turns the usual instinct of honour upside down, and both sides share the blame.
Paul, and here he joins Apollos with himself, would have them remember that such men are only ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. It is not the servant whom people generally exalt, but the master. But what was happening at Corinth? What has happened in the Church of God? The Master is absent in person, and people ignore the presence of the Holy Spirit. So they have exalted the servant and made much of him. How foolish on the part of the saints! How wrong on the part of the stewards!
Paul's word for "servant" points to the lowest rank of worker.
Servant (hyperetes), really an under-rower, an underling. Such was Paul always in relation to Christ. This puts the labourer in his right place. If only all such men remembered this.
Low as the place sounds, it comes with an appointment. That appointment frees a man from a fear that would otherwise silence him.
Though they took the place of servants, they were not the servants of parties, but "the servants of Christ." We are told that the word used here for "minister," or "servant," means "an appointed servant." Christ appointed Paul and his fellow-workers as His servants. This matters, because the servant fears the One who appointed him and must answer to Him. In Christianity, as Scripture sets it out, the true servant is "the servant of Christ." That frees him from the fear of man. So he can set out the full truth with great plainness of speech.
Belonging to someone and taking orders from them are two different things.
Paul and Apollos belonged to the saints, but they were not subject to the saints. They were subject to Him who had given them their charge. So let those who thought about them and their teaching think of them in relation to Him. They taught in His name and by His authority.
The word does not mean a puzzle, and it has nothing to do with religious rites.
In Scripture, "mystery" does not mean something that cannot be explained or understood. It means something no one could understand without God's revelation in the New Testament… So much so, that Scripture now calls the ministers of grace stewards of the mysteries of God. Some people have long been inclined to make mysteries of the sacraments, but that is never the meaning of the word in Scripture. Mysteries are New Testament revelations. God kept these truths to Himself in the Old Testament, and now He has revealed them.
The trust itself explains why the world had no use for these men.
The servants of Christ are also "stewards of the mysteries of God" — not the unholy mysteries of the pagan world around the Corinthians, but the precious truths of God, which the Holy Spirit revealed to the apostles. As the servants of Christ, they served One whom the world had rejected. As stewards of the mysteries of God, they handled things the world could not grasp. So neither the ministers of Christ nor the stewards of God's mysteries could ever be popular with the world.
One quality outranks everything else a servant might bring.
They both served Christ and brought Christ to others. They also received a stewardship: to administer rightly the truth of the mysteries of God. God had revealed those truths to them for the sake of all His saints. What a blessed honour, yet what a solemn charge! For the requirement of first importance in a steward is that he be found faithful. Human intellect, zeal, ingenuity and ability are all worth nothing if this one thing, faithfulness, is missing. In this the steward answers to God, not to men.
Faithfulness has a shape: keep the message unchanged when clever people call it nonsense.
We are also to be "stewards," and of "mysteries" at that, keeping the distinctive things of divine revelation uncorrupted and intact. Reasoning men may not accept them. The cross was foolishness to such people. But we must not hand that mystery over to them in any way.
- Master, not servant. Corinth exalted the messengers. Paul sends the honour back to the Master who appointed them.
- Under-rower. The word for "minister" means a man under orders, appointed by Christ. That appointment frees him from the fear of man.
- Trust, not property. The mysteries are truths God kept hidden until the New Testament. Stewards pass them on; they do not edit them.
- Unpopular by design. A servant of a rejected Christ, carrying truths the world cannot grasp, should not expect the world's applause.
- Faithful is the whole test. Ability, zeal and intellect count for nothing if a steward fails to deliver his Master's goods intact.
Here, further, it is sought in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
Paul has just told the Corinthians to see their teachers as servants, trusted with truths God has revealed. Verse 2 gives the one test for such a trust, and it is not the test the Corinthians were using.
The Corinthians measured their teachers by talent. Paul names a different standard, and it is one the Lord Himself had already used of a steward.
The Apostle goes on to show what a steward most needs. It is not cleverness, nor eloquence, nor popularity, but "faithfulness". This agrees with the Lord's own teaching, when He spoke of the "faithful and wise manager" (Luke 12:42; older versions, "steward"). Later, near the end of his life, the Apostle could write to Timothy, "What you have heard from me … entrust to faithful men" (2 Timothy 2:2). We, like the Corinthian believers, may at times value servants by their knowledge or their gifts. But God measures their spiritual value by their faithfulness.
Gift and energy are not disqualified — they are simply weightless without this one thing.
How great an honour, yet how solemn a charge! For the requirement of highest importance in a steward is that he be found faithful. Human intellect, zeal, ingenuity, ability, are all of no value if this one matter of faithfulness is missing.
Faithfulness always has a direction. A steward's place comes from someone, and that someone decides who he must please.
Verse 2 stresses the great qualification a steward needs. He must be faithful to the one from whom his place and authority come. His highest achievement is to please his master and serve his interests, whether or not he pleases others in doing so.
This has an uncomfortable side. Doing the job well and getting thanks for it are two different things.
The preacher's faithfulness stands in relation to the one who entrusts him. A steward handing out provisions is very unlikely to please all the servants in the house. Such officers get the least thanks when they do their work best. Anyone who sets out to please people takes on an endless and needless task. A wise doctor tries to cure his patient, not to please him.
The trust here is truth — what God has revealed. Faithfulness means refusing to trim it to fit what clever people accept.
But we are also to be "stewards", and stewards of "mysteries" — keeping the distinctive things of divine revelation pure and untouched. Thinking men may not accept them. The cross was foolishness to such people; and "the rulers of this age", the philosophers who claimed to be wise, did not know the "secret and hidden wisdom of God". But we must not hand that mystery over to them in any way. Our stewardship is of these things.
The same rule reaches everyone who has received anything from God.
"As each has received a gift", they were to use it to serve one another, "as good stewards of God's varied grace". The point is not each person's right, but the obligation arising from God's gifts to use whatever it may be in responsibility to Him. "It is required of stewards that they be found faithful" (1 Cor. 4:2), from the greatest to the least.
The standard is faithfulness, not visible results. Commentators press this in different directions. One warns that outward success can hide an empty heart.
Faithfulness is worth more than outward, visible success. Wisdom is worth more than the most brilliant gift, as 1 Corinthians 13 shows. There may be a great deal of what passes for success where there is little heart-faithfulness to God. There may be little self-denial, little personal fellowship with the Lord, little separation from the world and its ways, little real submission to the word of God, and little prayer.
Another adds a balance. Do not mistake indifference to results for faithfulness.
It is perfectly true that what Christ values is not success, but faithfulness. "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matt. 25:21, 23). At the same time, remember that the faithful servants in the parable were also the successful ones.
"Found" points to an assessment. Paul goes on to say who makes it. Human verdicts, including his own about himself, settle nothing.
He does not say that the Corinthians' opinion of him does not matter. He says it matters least of all. Nor does he rely on his own examination of himself. He is not aware of any wrong motive in himself. But that will not clear him of all unfaithfulness before the Lord. The Lord knows the secret thoughts of the heart, and He alone can assess the measure of faithfulness in each of His servants. No one will know this "until the Lord comes". So the true servant does not look for, or place great value on, the approval of men.
- Entrusted — a steward manages what belongs to someone else. Here it is the truth God has revealed, and he must not soften it for those who find it foolish.
- Required — the trust asks one thing: faithfulness. Cleverness, eloquence and popularity are not the test. Gift without faithfulness counts for nothing.
- Accountable — the steward serves the Master who gave him his place. He may serve the household best on the days it thanks him least.
- Everyone — the rule runs from the greatest to the least. Anyone who has received a gift holds it in responsibility to God.
- Found — the verdict is not the crowd's, nor your own; the Lord who reads hidden motives gives it when He comes.