and labour, working with our own hands. Railed at, we bless; persecuted, we suffer [it];
Paul has just put himself and the other apostles last of all, on public display as sufferers, while the Corinthians sat in comfort. Verse 12 shows what that low place looked like day by day: hands busy at a trade, and a mouth that answers abuse with blessing.
The words "working with our own hands" point to a trade. Paul earned his own living while he was in Corinth, and one writer sees God's own hand in that.
It pleased God to arrange things so that the great apostle worked at an honest trade to meet his needs, and did so in the wealthiest and most luxurious city of Greece. What a death-blow that is to clericalism on one side and to worldliness on the other! Yet, given the circumstances of both Paul himself and Corinth, this was exactly the course that was worthy of the gospel of the grace that sent it out.
The Corinthians were not impressed. One writer reads their unspoken complaint like this.
They thought it far beneath a Christian minister to work with his hands from time to time — often poor, sometimes in prison, knocked about by crowds, and so on. They put it all down to bad judgment, and thought he could have avoided it. They wanted a servant of Christ to be respectable, in public and in private.
The verse pairs each injury with an answer that reverses it.
As to the treatment they received from the world, they were "reviled", "persecuted" and "insulted". Yet this treatment only drew out of them a witness to Christ. When reviled, they blessed. When persecuted, they submitted patiently. When insulted, they entreated.
One writer sets that answer beside the comfort the Corinthians were enjoying.
Paul and his companions had been treated as the scum of the earth for Christ's sake, while the Corinthians were resting in luxury and ease… Patience and meekness were their only weapons.
"When reviled, we bless" is not about having a mild character. It is a choice made against a strong instinct. The first step is to stop handling your own case.
But if we are to gain the blessing in a time of suffering, we must first give up all thought of taking our case into our own hands and getting revenge on those who wrongly oppose and abuse us. Whatever the suffering, the believer is to hold back from taking vengeance. When reviled, the flesh is always ready to revile back. When it suffers wrongly, it is ready to threaten, and it would love to take vengeance on everyone who opposes and insults us with hard words.
Silence under insult does not mean the Christian has nothing to say.
Other Scriptures make it clear that the Christian may "entreat," "exhort," and even "rebuke," but he is never to revile or threaten.
One writer told believers under attack what to do with the names they were called.
If people call you Beelzebub, you know very well why you should bear it, giving back blessing for cursing. To be like our Master is a privilege we have little of.
The Corinthians wanted the honours now. One writer points to the place God has actually given His people for the present.
Those He put first in the church (1 Cor. 12:28) He put on show last, like the prophets before them, as examples of open suffering. What could be plainer than the place of affliction, apart from the world, that God marks out for the Christian here on earth? On no point is Christendom more at odds with Christ and His word to us.
- Hands — Paul earned his own living in the richest city of Greece. God arranged it, and it strikes a death-blow at both clericalism and worldliness.
- Snobbery — The Corinthians thought work, poverty and prison were beneath a minister. They wanted a respectable servant of Christ.
- Tongue — Insults and persecution did not silence the apostles. They answered with blessing, patience and entreaty.
- Vengeance — Blessing begins where self-defence ends. The flesh wants to revile back; the believer hands the case over instead. He may entreat, exhort and even rebuke, but never revile or threaten.
- Likeness — To be treated as the world's refuse is not bad luck. It is the privilege of being like our Master, in the place of affliction God marks out for us now.
insulted, we entreat we are become as [the] offscouring of the world, [the] refuse of all, until now.
Paul ends his list of hardships with the world's verdict on him and his fellow workers: they were the sweepings, the waste that gets thrown out. He writes to a church that was comfortable, admired, and sure its glory had already begun.
The Corinthians had built a religious world of their own, with its own schools and shows. Paul answers by describing the real road that Christ's servants walk.
Clearly those who misled the Corinthians, and the saints they misled, had made the church their world. Principles of the flesh had replaced the grace of Christ for their souls. They had their own schools and spectacles, just as the Greeks outside had. The apostle writes in a burst of the finest feeling. There is sarcasm in it, but also real love that could use sarcasm for good. He sets out the true path of Christ: suffering, but victory over the world.
Paul's two words come from the rubbish heap and the scouring pot. Older translations call them "the filth of the world" and "the offscouring of all things." They also end the verse "unto this day," where the ESV has "and are still."
When people reviled them, they answered with blessing. When persecuted, they endured it quietly. When misrepresented, they pleaded rather than defending themselves in anger. The world treated them as garbage to throw out, or unwanted residue to scrape off a pot. It is worth noticing the phrase "unto this day." This treatment lasts only through the present day of grace. What a change indeed when "the day of the Lord" comes!
Slander invites a fight. Paul's answer is to plead. One writer draws a line between pleading with people and clearing your own name.
This is what the church is called on to do among enemies it cannot set aside. If we are seeking God's glory, we will not want to justify ourselves. There may be pleading — "when slandered, we entreat" — but never proud self-vindication.
The judgment ran both ways. Paul had already called the world's glories filth, the same word the world used about him. And Christ's verdict is still to come.
As far as this world is concerned, the apostle treated all its glories as loss and filth (Philippians 3:8), while the world, on its side, treated the apostles as filth and the off-scouring of all things. How blessed it is that these servants followed in the steps of their Master. In their own measure they shared in His sufferings at the hands of men. Christ weighs their faithfulness perfectly. In the day to come they will have His praise and share His glories.
The apostles were not unlucky. Their place followed the place of the One they belonged to. That is what the Corinthians forgot while claiming Him.
They were reigning as kings, these people who could boast that Christ was theirs. Meanwhile Paul and his fellow apostles, men who fully owned that they were Christ's, were the refuse of all things. That is what we learn from chapter 4 of this letter. Paul could not reign where Christ was crucified; he had to be as his Lord.
This treatment did not end with the apostles. One writer ties it to how much of the message a preacher is willing to say out loud.
Hold part of it back, make something of man, and you may be a popular preacher even in Christendom. Declare it fully — the truth of Christ's rejection, and of His glory at the right hand of God; the resulting end of man, and the judgment of the world in the cross… and you must still be counted "as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things."
No one can copy this life detail by detail. One writer names what alone produces it, and the comfort that keeps such people going.
As a whole this is impossible — not in this or that detail, which superstition can easily imitate, but as a whole — except through the constraining love of Christ, which makes those who follow Him like Himself. He cheers those who set out and go on in such a path with the bright comfort of reigning together with Him.
- The cause. Paul could not be honoured in a world that had crucified his Lord. The servant's place follows the Master's.
- The words. Scum and refuse picture garbage thrown out and residue scraped off a pot. That was the world's estimate of the men who brought it the gospel.
- The answer. They met reviling with blessing and persecution with endurance. To slander they replied by pleading, never by proud self-defence.
- The estimate. Paul had already called the world's glories filth; the world returned the compliment. The verdict that decides everything is Christ's, given in the day to come.
- The clock. "And are still" sets a limit. This treatment belongs to the present day of grace. The Corinthians started reigning too early; the reign comes with Christ, in the day of the Lord.