1 Corinthians 4:21

21. What Now St. Paul brings the assertion of his apostolic absoluteness to its final and sharpest point.

A rod An emblem denoting right to punish, whether by parent, by tutor, or by magistrate, and St. Paul was now all three.

Love As the antithesis of severity, which, however, is often only a form of love.

Spirit The temper.

Meekness Gentleness in action.

On this chapter we note:

1. St. Paul claims to speak with a binding authority; not because he was personally infallible in all he said and did, but because he was writing to the Church in his apostolic office, whereto he was called by Christ, and wherein he spoke with the inspiration and authority of Christ. Reciprocally the spiritual in the Church was endowed with more or less power to discern the Spirit of Christ as speaking in him with a divine authority. So St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:15 appeals to the wisest Corinthians to judge what he says; in 1 Corinthians 14:33 he quotes the “Churches of the saints;” and in 1 Corinthians 14:37 he appeals specially to the judgment of the “spiritual.” Hence it is by the double witness of inspired apostle and inspired Church that our holy canon of Scripture is authenticated.

2. The Church is, indeed, earlier and older than Scripture. The Church of the New Testament was for a time without a New Testament. And we may concede to the Romanist that it is the Church that gives the Scriptures to the world. Nevertheless the same Spirit that gave the Church gave also the Scripture, as rule and law to the Church. Just because tradition is, by lapse of time, liable to mutation and misunderstanding, the Spirit moved holy men to write. The Church of Corinth, being endowed by the Spirit to realize the divine authority of the apostle, was bound by that authority. So even the Church that gives the Scripture is not superior, but subordinate, to the Scripture she gives, and must be judged by it.

3. Doubtless the apostles wrote many a letter which has not been preserved, as they spoke many a word that was never recorded. It does not follow that those lost letters were inspired, or that the loss was a loss to the sacred canon. Very probably the Church, as a whole, was moved and overruled to deposit in her archives, to read in her Sunday service, and to hand down to posterity, only those writings that were truly canonical.