Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - 1 Corinthians 3:5 - 3:5
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
What then? (ti ouṉ). He does not say tis (who), but ti (what), neuter singular interrogative pronoun.
Ministers (diakonoi). Not leaders of parties or sects, but merely servants through whom ye believed. The etymology of the word Thayer gives as dia and konis “raising dust by hastening.” In the Gospels it is the servant (Mat 20:26) or waiter (Joh 2:5). Paul so describes himself as a minister (Col 1:23, Col 1:25). The technical sense of deacon comes later (Phi 1:1; 1Ti 3:8, 1Ti 3:12).
As the Lord gave to him (hōs ho Kurios edōken). Hence no minister of the Lord like Apollos and Paul has any basis for pride or conceit nor should be made the occasion for faction and strife. This idea Paul enlarges upon through chapters 1 Corinthians 3; 4 and it is made plain in chapter 1 Corinthians 12.