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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 1 Corinthians 4:9 - 4:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
For
Introducing a contrast between the inflated self-satisfaction of the Corinthians and the actual condition of their teachers. You have come to reign, but the case is very different with us, for I think, etc.
Hath set forth (ἀπέδειξεν)
Only twice in Paul's writings; here, and 2Th 2:4. See on approved, Act 2:22. In classical Greek used of publishing a law; shewing forth, and therefore naming or creating a king or military leader; bringing forward testimony; displaying treasure, etc. So here, exhibiting.
Last (ἐσχάτους)
As in Mar 9:35, of relative rank and condition: as having in men's eyes the basest lot of all.
Appointed to death (ἐπιθανατίους)
Rev., doomed. Only here in the New Testament. Probably an allusion to the practice of exposing condemned criminals in the amphitheatre to fight with beasts or with one another as gladiators. The gladiators, on entering the arena, saluted the presiding officer with the words Nos morituri salutamus, We who are to die greet you. Tertullian paraphrases this passage, God hath chosen us apostles last as beast-fighters. “The vast range of an amphitheatre under the open sky, well represents the magnificent vision of all created things, from men up to angels, gazing on the dreadful death-struggle; and then the contrast of the selfish Corinthians sitting by unconcerned and unmoved by the awful spectacle” (Stanley). For a similar image of spectators watching the contest in the arena, see Heb 12:1. Compare also 1Co 15:32.
Spectacle (θέατρον)
Primarily, a theatre; then that which is exhibited. Compare the kindred verb θεατριζόμενοι being made a gazing-stock, Heb 10:33.
Unto the world (τῷ κόσμω)
The universe, a sense not usual with Paul; compare 1Co 8:4. The words to angels and to men define world; so that the rendering of the American Rev. is preferable, both to angels and men. Principal Edwards remarks: “This comprehensive use of the word kosmos is remarkable, because, on the one hand, it is an advance on the Old-Testament conception of two separate spheres of existence, heaven and earth, not comprehended under any wider designation; and, on the other, because it differs from the meaning attached to the word among the Greeks; inasmuch as the apostle uses it of the spiritual as well as the physical totality of existence.” The spiritual oneness of the universe is a conception eminently characteristic of St. Paul; but it is foreshadowed by Plato. “Communion and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice bind together heaven and earth and gods and men; and this universe is therefore called kosmos or order; not disorder or misrule” (“Gorgias,” 508).