1 Corinthians 4:3
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What does 1 Corinthians 4:3 mean?
But with me it is a very small thing
It stood for little or nothing, was of no account with him, what
judgment and censures were passed on him by men with regard to
his faithfulness in the ministry not even by the Corinthians
themselves:
that I should be judged of you;
not that the apostle declined, or despised the judgment of a
church of Christ, rightly disposed, and met together in the fear
of God, to try prove, and judge of his ministry, and his fidelity
in it; but he made no account of theirs, and slighted it as being
under bad influence, the influence of the false teachers, who had
insinuated many things among them to the prejudice of the
apostle's character; wherefore he set it at nought and rejected
it, and rightly refused to submit to it, and, indeed, to any mere
human judgment:
or of man's judgment:
it is in the Greek text, "or of man's day": in distinction from
the day of the Lord, or the day of judgment; and because that men
have their stated days for judgment, and because of the clearness
of evidence, according to which judgment should proceed. This is
not a Cilicism, as Jerom thought, but an Hebraism; so the
Septuagint render (vwna
Mwy) , in ( Jeremiah
17:16 ) (hmeran
anyrwpou) , "man's day"; and very frequently in the Talmud
F18 is the distinction of (Mymv ynyd) , "the judgments of God" and (Mda ynyd) , "the judgments of men"; the former the apostle was willing to be subject to, but not to the latter; he appealed from men to God; he cared not what any man thought or said, or judged of him; he not only was indifferent to the judgment of the Corinthians concerning him, whether they did or did not praise him, but of any other person; and so the Syriac version renders it, (vna rb lk Nm wa) , "or of any man": he adds,
yea I judge
not mine own self;
for though as a spiritual man he judged all things, and so
himself, his conduct, state, and condition; examined his own
heart and ways, and was able to form a judgment of what he was
and did; yet he chose not to stand and fall by his own judgment;
and since he would not abide by his own judgment, who best knew
himself, much less would he be subject to theirs, or any human
judgment, who must be greater strangers to him; and this he said,
not as conscious to himself of any unfaithfulness in his
ministerial work.
F18 T. Bab Bava Koma, fol. 22. 2. 29. 1.
47. 2. 55. 2. 56. 1. 91. 1. 98. 1. & Bava Metzia, fol. 82.
2.
