The Subordination and Authority of the PT; 1 Corinthians 4:1
The problem in the church at Corinth is first outlined back in 1:12 NASB "Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, 'I am of Paul,' and ' of Apollos,' and ' of Cephas,' and ' of Christ.'" Paul isn't really focusing on the individuals who seem to be the heads of the various cliques that are developing in the congregation. He is using himself as an example to stand for those who are creating problems in the congregation, sort of developing personality cults, and the reason is the Greek culture out of which they have been saved. The idea is that truth is really related to a personality, the person who can best express it. Truth has something to do with style and rhetoric and is not objective in the sense that it is something revealed by God, and the role of the pastor-teacher, the apostle, the prophet is a purely secondary role as one who communicates that which God has given him. The Greek concept of truth was based on a more relative basis, much as truth in our culture is based on a relative basis, and so people were attracted and would align themselves with basic key leaders in the different philosophical systems.
The way Paul addresses this problem in Corinth is not to start at a superficial level with the problem itself, but he goes to the core issue which is understanding who and what we are as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ; that every single believer has the same problem: we are all sinners, we are born with a sin nature, Adam's original sin has been imputed to that sin nature, and we have committed personal sins. The bottom line from the Scriptures is that we are born condemned because of that inheritance of the sin nature and Adam's original sin. We are not condemned because we commit personal sins, that is a consequence of the first two problems. We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. We are born sinners, we are born corrupt, we are born with a sin nature and Adam's original sin imputed to that at the instant of our physical birth. Consequently, every one of us is brought down to the same level at salvation. We all have to recognize that Jesus did everything; we do nothing. It is not based on who we are or on our talents, abilities or IQ, or anything else. The problem is with the spiritual life. Often we forget that point of humility at the cross, recognizing that Jesus did everything for us and we do nothing, and then after salvation we start thinking we can help God out or that somehow God should be impressed with our own talents and abilities; and this is a problem that the Greeks faced.
As a result of that Paul is going to focus their attention to everything at the point of salvation in terms of positional truth, that everything they have, spiritually speaking, was given to them at salvation. We all have the same assets, we all have the same relationship to the Holy Spirit, we all have the same position in Christ, the same priesthood, the same inheritance; all these things were given to us at the instant of salvation. From that point on the issue is, what are you going to do with that which God supplies? So he starts at the basics and then in chapter two he goes through the description of how we come to Learn God's Word and it is based upon first, regeneration, and secondly, right relationship to God the Holy Spirit. In the third chapter he covered the judgment seat of Christ, that the issue isn't just being saved, it has to do with spirituality and spiritual growth, and those who do not grow spiritually, who do not advance to spiritual maturity, who do not recognize the fact that they have been set apart as a temple for the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the Shekinah glory of Jesus Christ, will suffer loss at the judgment seat of Christ. Then in chapter four he comes back to the issue of applying all of this doctrine. So often people get the idea that doctrine is just abstract, that is has nothing to do with everyday thought, everyday realities, and they don't see that it is related to everyday life. All doctrine, all theology at some point is applicable and affects at some level how you think. It may not be the kind of thing that you go home and use this afternoon or use this next week, but it is important for building your frame of reference so that in the future you can look at and approach life, and evaluate life, and think critically about life and decisions in life from the divine viewpoint. So all theology at some level is applicable or it is not biblical because all theology reflects God's view of reality. So if we are divorced from doctrine and we are not paying attention to doctrine we are not going to understand reality the way God has made the creation.
Now in chapter four Paul is going to apply this to the relationship of the Corinthians to their teacher. He has established these doctrines in chapters two and three and now he is going to bring it home in terms of how the congregation relates to its teachers. The application for this, even though the teacher in terms of strict interpretation has to do with the apostle Paul, is also applicable to a congregation relationship to its pastor-teacher.
1 Corinthians 4:1 NASB "Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God." Paul begins in v. 1 with an imperative. It doesn't appear to be an imperative in the English but it is in the Greek. "Let a man regard us in this manner" – the verb is LOGIZOMAI [logizomai], translated regard or consider. It really has the idea of thinking. It was a word that was used in accounting and it had to do with rational thinking and an orderly presentation of information. The verb is a present middle imperative. Whenever there is a verb in the Greek that ends with this suffix, OMAI, that is what is called a deponent verb. That means that it has a middle or passive ending but it has an active voice meaning. The reason is that in the development of the language for some reason in this particular class of verb the active voice form just dropped out of use. It is always translated as an active voice verb. So LOGIZOMAI means to think, and as a third person singular. "Let a man/person think." This is a command, not an option. The present imperative indicates something that is a standard practice for the believer, that we are to think in a certain way about pastors. The word translated "in this manner" is the Greek word HOUTOS [o(utwj], a demonstrative adverb that is used here to emphasize a degree or manner or extent, and should be translated "in this manner, in this way, to this degree, think." So we are to think a certain way about the pastor, or in this case the Corinthians were to think of Paul in a certain way in terms of his particular ministry.
In this chapter we will talk about evaluating a pastor, and too often people aren't evaluating pastors, they are criticizing, gossiping, running him down, and it is a very subtle attack on the authority of the pastor. Unfortunately we live in an era when the prestige, the respectability, the honor that has been typically given to pastors over the last two or three hundred years of this nation's history has been solely because of the behaviour of some nationally-known pastor, some of whom have been involved in television ministries, and in the last few years the trust level, especially in some denominations where there have been those who have been guilty of criminal activity, has been seriously reduced.
Two principles to always keep in mind in relationship to a pastor-teacher: 1) We have to recognize that every pastor-teacher is growing spiritually, just like we are. He is to be dealt with in grace, just as we are. 2) Pastor-teacher is a spiritual gift, it is not a personality type. Don't make the mistake of confusing a certain personality with the gift of pastor-teacher.
So how are we to think about pastor-teachers—and it would apply to evangelists as well—and those who are in professional Christian ministry. Paul goes on to say, "Let a man think about us [those in professional teaching Christian ministry] as servants of Christ." The word for servant here is not the standard word DIAKONOS [diakonoj] which emphasizes the function and operation of that person in his relationship to other believers. The word is used in three different senses in the New Testament. It is used for the leader of a state or national identity. E.g. Romans 13:4 NASB "for it is a minister of God to you for good." That is, the authority in the national entity. He is there to serve the citizenry. It is also used of every believer, e.g. 2 Corinthians 3:6 NASB "who also made us adequate {as} servants of a new covenant…," also 6:4 and 5:18. Then it is used to refer to the pastor-teacher in passages such as Ephesians 3:7; Colossians 1:23, 25; 4:7; 1 Timothy 1:12. But this is not the word that we find in this passage. We find a word that has a distinct emphasis and is rarely used of the pastoral ministry, and its use here is important. It is the word HUPERETAS [u(phretaj] which has to do with subordination to authority, in contrast to DIAKONOS which emphasizes serving or helping someone else. The term here emphasizes its position in relationship to a higher authority. It refers to someone who is a subordinate, a servant with emphasis on working for someone else. The main idea is it is someone who is under the authority of someone else. So the idea in the background here is the idea of authority relationship that the apostle, the pastor-teacher, is a servant of Jesus Christ. The pastor is not an authority to himself but he is under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is contrasting this to the thinkers in the Greek culture who would be an authority unto themselves. They were originating their own teaching, their own philosophical thinking; but the pastor-teacher and the apostle in the church is under the authority of Jesus Christ. He is not inventing truth, he is not the source of truth, he is just taking the mind of Christ and then communicating that to the congregation.
The idea of subordination to authority is a central principle in leadership. You don't start at the top in life, you start at the bottom. You can't be a good leader unless you are a good follower. You can't exercise authority well unless first of all you have learned humility. Every good leader recognizes that he is under authority.
The principle here is that the pastor-teacher in any congregation is under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we must ask the question: How is the pastor-teacher to relate in terms of authority and accountability to a local congregation and the local church board? There are historically, in terms of the history of Christianity, three forms of church government which have been developed. The first is called an episcopal form of government. It was formed early in the church when in the Roman empire one bishop [EPISKOPOS] out of a group of local churches rose to the top and became first among equals. Before long that developed into a hierarchical system where there were pastors, and then over the pastors one person who would then would be called the bishop. That eventually developed into the system seen in the Roman Catholic church, and it is basically the system seen in the Episcopal church, and to some degree in the Methodist church. The second form of government is usually referred to as simply elder rule of Presbyterian government, from the Greek word PRESBUTEROS [presbuteroj] which is another word used to refer to the pastor. In 1 Timothy 3:1 Paul uses the term EPISKOPOS [e)piskopoj], which emphasises his function as an overseer. In Titus he uses the term PRESBUTEROS, a term which means older in age but also refers to somebody who is more mature spiritually. So there is another group of people who take this word out and translate it as "elder," and they emphasize this role of the pastor. The problem with the way many elder governments are set up is that the other elders think that they have more authority than the pastor, and he becomes not first among equals but one among equals, just another "one of the guys." He is no longer the elder, you don't have any one person leading the congregation, it is basically leadership by committee. The third governmental approach is congregational government. As the word indicates it is where the congregation tends to have a larger role in decision making than in an elder government.
What is the relationship of the pastor to the authority of the congregation?
1) The pastor-teacher is the leader of the congregation. That is the emphasis in POIMAINOS [poimhnoj] as a pastor—a shepherd. A shepherd leads the sheep. He leads the congregation in the teaching of the Word of God. As such he is under the authority of the local board only in a sort of secondary or derivative way.
2) He is not to be viewed as an employee of the board or the congregation. Along with this same point we must realize that a church doesn't pay a pastor in the same sense that a person is paid for the jobs he does. A pastor is serving the Lord Jesus Christ and a congregation is giving financially to support the pastor so that he can spend his time studying and teaching and not be distracted by other events in life. When that money leaves the hand and hits the offering plate or box, it is no longer yours or the pastors, it is the Lord's.
3) That brings us to the third part of verse 1: "stewards of the mysteries of God." That has to do with the teaching of doctrine. A pastor teacher is an administrator of the mystery doctrine of the church age.