1 Corinthians 4:14

Paul’s Concern for the Corinthian Believers

14 I am not writing these [things] to shame you, but admonishing [you] as my dear children.

1 Corinthians 4:14 Meaning and Commentary

1 Corinthians 4:14

I write not these things to shame you
Though they had a great deal of reason to be ashamed of the vain opinion they had of themselves, and that they suffered the faithful ministers of Christ to want the necessaries of life, when they abounded so much with the good things of it; and though the apostle's view in giving this narrative was to bring them under a sense of their faults, and to a conviction of them, and so to shame for them, in order to their future reformation and amendment; yet it was not merely to put them to the blush, but to admonish and instruct them, that he enlarged on these things:

but as my beloved sons I warn you;
they being his children in a spiritual sense, for whom he had the strongest love and affection, as their spiritual Father; and as it was his place, and became him standing in such a relation to them, he warned, admonished, and put them in mind of their obligations and duty to him.

1 Corinthians 4:14 In-Context

12 and we toil, working with our own hands. [When we are] reviled, we bless; [when we are] persecuted, we endure;

13 [when we are] slandered, we encourage. We have become like the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all [things], until now.

14 I am not writing these [things] to shame you, but admonishing [you] as my dear children.

15 For if you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, yet [you do] not [have] many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I fathered you through the gospel.

16 Therefore I exhort you, become imitators of me.