Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
In Power, Not in Word
1 Corinthians 4:18-21
18 Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. · WEB
Some had grown confident on the assumption he would not come; he promises to come, and offers them the choice of what he finds when he arrives.
Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you 1 Corinthians 4:18.
The diagnosis has a cause attached. Their inflation rested on an assumption about his absence — talk is cheap when the person who could answer it is four hundred miles away across the Aegean. Distance had emboldened them, which is a recognizable feature of church conflict in any century.
But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord is willing. And I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power 1 Corinthians 4:19.
The answer is a visit, and the qualification if the Lord is willing is not a formality — his travel plans did in fact change, and the next letter defends him against the charge of vacillating over exactly this 1 Corinthians 16:5–7 2 Corinthians 1:15–17. What he intends to examine is the difference between word and power. Anyone can produce the word. Power is what shows when someone is present to test it.
For God's Kingdom is not in word, but in power 1 Corinthians 4:20.
The principle behind the visit, and it reaches back to the beginning of the letter. Paul had refused persuasive words of human wisdom in favor of a demonstration of the Spirit and of power 1 Corinthians 2:4; the kingdom is measured the same way. This is not a preference for the miraculous over the articulate — the power Paul has been describing in this chapter is a man blessing when cursed and working with his own hands 1 Corinthians 4:12. A congregation that could talk about the Spirit fluently while suing one another 1 Corinthians 6:6 had plenty of word and was short of power.
What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness? 1 Corinthians 4:21.
The chapter ends by handing them the decision, which is the fatherhood of verse 15 in action — a father may carry a rod, and would rather not. The alternative is not indulgence: love and a spirit of gentleness is still a father coming to deal with the matters chapters five and six are about. What changes is whether he finds the work done.
And the question is genuine rather than rhetorical. Everything from here to the end of the letter is, in effect, the opportunity to answer it — which is why the very next verse turns without pause to the worst thing in the congregation 1 Corinthians 5:1. He has told them he is coming and what he will look for; now he says what he expects to have been dealt with before he arrives.
held with reason What this mark means