Verse 9
Paul may have had the Roman games in mind here, specifically the battles between condemned criminals and wild beasts in the amphitheaters. [Note: Bruce, p. 50.] Another view is that Paul was thinking of the Roman triumph, a figure that he developed more fully elsewhere (2 Corinthians 2:14). At the end of that procession came the captives of war who would die in the arena. [Note: Fee, The First . . ., pp. 174-75.] In either case, Paul seems to have been thinking of the apostles as the ultimately humiliated group. They were the leaders, and their sufferings for the cause of Christ were common knowledge. How inappropriate it was then for the Corinthians to be living as kings rather than joining in suffering with their teachers.
"The Corinthians in their blatant pride were like the conquering general displaying the trophies of his prowess; the apostles were like the little group of captives, men doomed to die. To the Corinthians the Christian life meant flaunting their pride and their privileges and reckoning up their achievement; to Paul it meant a humble service, ready to die for Christ." [Note: Barclay, p. 45.]
Paul evidently meant good angels since he sometimes used "principalities and powers" to refer to what we call bad angels (cf. Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 1:16; Colossians 2:15).
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