1 Corinthians 4:14

14 I am not writing this to shame you. You are my dear children, and I want to warn you.

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 We work hard with our own hands. When others call down a curse on us, we bless them. When we are attacked, we put up with it.

13 When others say bad things about us, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the world's garbage. We are everybody's trash.

14 I am not writing this to shame you. You are my dear children, and I want to warn you.

15 You may have 10,000 believers in Christ watching over you. But you don't have many fathers. I became your father by serving Christ Jesus and telling you the good news.

16 So I'm asking you to follow my example.