The apostle Paul was neither afflicted with false modesty nor with any sort of apostolic pomposity. He understood his role and his office in the household of God. At times we find him needing to assert his apostolic office to the end that his readers would heed him as they would the Lord. On other occasions we find him passionately putting himself in place. He strove valiantly with the Corinthians to maintain their firm grasp of his apostolicity that they might obey his charge to regard him rightly as a man, a servant, and a steward, and most certainly not a king, a deity, or a little messiah.
As we read between the lines of Paul’s letters, attempting to become more intimately acquainted with our beloved older brother in the faith, we come away with the impression that he hated the celebrity that seemed so often to accompany his office, and one thing is abundantly clear from what we read here in chapter four, considering the Corinthians’ borderline deification of the apostles, Paul saw himself as nothing more, and nothing less, than a steward.
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