1st Corinthians Chapter 4 verse 8 Holy Bible

1st Corinthians 4 : 8 Bible Verse Songs

• Need You To Reign by Angel Benard
• Casting Crowns Liftng Hands - Adonai You Reign on High by Nathaniel Bassey

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 8. - Now ye are full, now ye are rich; rather, already ye have been sated, already ye grew rich. There is a strong but healing irony in these expressions, and in the entire contrast between the comfortable, full fed, regal self satisfaction of the Corinthians, and the depression and scorn in the midst of which the apostles lived. The loving delicate irony is, in a different way, as effective as the stern denunciation of St. John: "Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Revelation 3:17). St. Paul's satire is always akin to charity; it is never satire with no pity in it. Ye have reigned as kings. The word simply means "ye reigned." Like the Stoics, so each little Corinthian sectarian regarded himself as a king. "To reign" was, however, a proverbial phrase (like the Latin vivo et regno) for being "happy as a king." Without us (comp. Hebrews 11:40). The Corinthians were cultivated enough to appreciate the deep irony of the phrase, "We poor apostles have become quite needless to you in your lordly independence." And I would to God ye did reign. The words "to God" should be omitted. The loving heart of St. Paul could never long keep up a strain of irony. He drops the satire, and passes on to impassioned and affectionate appeal. That we also might reign with you. If the exalted eminence which you now only enjoy in your own conceits had been but real, then we, whose "hope, and joy, and crown of exultation you are in the presence of Christ" (1 Thessalonians 2:19), should share the grandeur with you.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(8) Now ye are full.--These three following sentences are ironical. The emphasis is on the word "now." Ye are already (as distinct from us Apostles) full, rich, kings. You act as if you had already attained the crowning point in the Christian course. "Piety is an insatiable thing," says Chrysostom on this passage, "and it argues a childish mind to imagine from just the beginnings that you have attained the whole; and for men who are not even yet in the prelude of a matter to be highminded, as if they had laid hold of the end."Without us.--The Apostle would have his converts be to him as his crown of rejoicing; but they now assume to have "come into the kingdom" without any connection with him who had won them to God.And I would to God.--Here the irony is dropped, and these words are written with intense feeling and humility. The Apostle, reminded, as it were, by the word "reign," that the time will come when the war and controversies of the Church militant shall end, expresses his deep longing for that blessed change. (See 1Corinthians 3:22; 1Corinthians 9:23, where similarly the Apostle shows that in rebuking the folly of the Corinthian Church he does not under-estimate their privileges.)