1 Corinthians 4:1

a. Apostles are dispensers of God’s mysteries, to be judged solely by God, 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 .

1. A man Any or every person.

Us The apostles, and, inferentially, all true ministers.

Ministers The Greek word signifies etymologically under-rowers; as if Christ were chief navigator in the boat and his apostles were rowing under him. Thence it commonly means any servant or subordinate aid.

Stewards Any dispensers of any treasured value, as cashiers or distributers of property.

Mysteries The entire mass of divine truths, hitherto held secret by God, but now for the first time revealed in Christ; hence embracing all that was truly new to the world, Jews or Gentiles, in the doctrines and institutes of the Christian dispensation. The disclosing these mysteries was the high office of the first commissioned evangelists and apostles. To them primitively Christ had said, (Matthew 13:1,) “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” In this, Paul means to say, consists the broad difference between the Christian apostle and the sages of Greek philosophy. The former received their system by revelation from Christ; the latter invented theirs from their own brains. Christ is alone the divine original.