Verses 14 to 17
The Corinthians didn’t leave Christ here i.e. turn their back on Jesus Christ. As Barclay reminds us. They just forgot about the Gospel truths. What a way to have been reminded though! Paul always says what needs to be said. Now Paul is comforting the Believers in Corinth after having given them a metaphorical bruising. St Paul and the Corinthian Christians had a very close relationship and that is why he could get away with some harsh statements. As Paul says in verse 15 that ‘In Christ he was their father’. Then he says, ‘be imitators of me’ and he cared that much about their situation that he would send Timothy to them.
14 I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 16 Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. 17 For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church.
He has now finished about the cliques in the church. Paul is moving on to another more serious problem in the Church. The next few verses are a primer for what is to come!
18 Now some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out, not the words of those who are arrogant but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power. 21 What do you desire? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a spirit of gentleness? 1 Corinthians 4:14-21 NASB
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