This week’s text seems almost too personal to preach, on a couple different levels. First, I Corinthians 4:1-5 seems very much about Paul claiming for himself and his fellow apostles exemption from judgment by the congregation at Corinth. Second, insofar as it has extended application it seems to address those who like Paul have a vocational ministry in the church. So how to have this passage address the larger church?
The best I can make of it is to take what Paul says here about being servants and stewards (“those entrusted”), about being faithful, AND about not being judged until the end and apply these thoughts to Christians in general. We are all in some way servants of Christ and stewards of His Gospel. And we all struggle with issues of self-justification and the judgments of others.
There’s an old joke about the first mate on a slave galley coming to those who sat chained and pulling at the oars with “good news and bad news.” The good news was that the captain was giving them an extra long lunch break and double rations. After the cheering dies down, the first mate says, “The bad news is that after lunch the captain wants to water ski.”
The original derivation of the word translated “servants” in verse 1 (not the usual diakonos, but hyperetes) was something like “under rowers,” those who rowed at the lowest bank of oars on a galley. By Paul’s time it had lost that nautical sense, but it clearly designated someone in subservience to a master, an assistant. Perhaps, in language made popular in recent film, a minion. Paul’s self-assessment as a galley slave of Christ, totally subordinate to His will, calls for a similar self-understanding by us all.
Yet that awareness of one’s role as Christ’s servant also allows a certain self-confidence which stands against the proclivity of human beings to assess, judge and condemn each other. Paul is able to stand up under the attacks of opponents in Corinth through his awareness that his ministry and motivations would ultimately be judged by God alone at the return of Christ. He’s able to counsel the Corinthians against any hasty judgments of himself (and we would presume of anyone else), leaving that to the light which would reveal everyone’s heart in the day of the Lord.
There’s a great deal of confusion about judgment in the contemporary church, because we read passages like this (see Jesus’ own words in Matthew 7:1) and suppose that it means all judgment and critique is forbidden. But in just the next chapter of I Corinthians in 5:12 & 13 Paul wonders why there is not some judgment taking place within the church, and in 6:2 asks the Corinthians to judge even legal disputes between members. Clearly judging is not ruled out all together.
It’s a rough distinction, but I think we might distinguish between judging and even punishing actions and judging motivations (Paul’s concern in this Sunday’s text). The first is a necessary part of protecting community life from those who would do harm. The second is God’s province and not ours. Hence the command not to judge.
In our attempts to minister to and shelter the homeless here at Valley Covenant, we’ve recently dealt with a young man who has abused our hospitality through disrespect for rules, possible theft and unpredictable behavior. We sadly made the decision to ban him from the property and call the police to deal with him as a trespasser if he returns. That all seems within the bounds of the first sort of judgment. However, we make no guesses or judgments about the state of the young man’s motivations and his relationship with God. Perhaps he is a believer and we will see him more clearly in the light of that Day. Yet for now we need to protect our congregation and property.
Paul’s message for us here is that we leave knowledge of the heart and the eternal quality of each person’s soul to God. We are all servants of Christ and we must not usurp the place of our Master in dealing with each other. May we offer each other the same kind of grace which He offers us.