The Job Description of a Minister
Tom Shrader expounds 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, unpacking Paul's description of ministers as 'under-rowers' of Christ and stewards of God's revealed mysteries, including the kingdom, lawlessness, faith, godliness, and the church. He emphasizes that the primary qualification for any teacher or preacher is trustworthiness to the Word, not eloquence or popularity, and that human judgment—including self-evaluation—is insufficient because only God sees hidden motives. The teaching calls every Christian who teaches, at any level, to measure faithfulness by God's standard alone, knowing that a final, perfect judgment is coming.
“We have been entrusted with the stewardship of this word, and there's nothing, no one, no person, no power that we can yield to in the presentation of this other than desire to obey and to please God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Corinthians
Recorded: 2001 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 42 min
Themes: faithfulness, stewardship, humility, accountability, teaching, service, judgment, trustworthiness, pastor, sunday school teacher, new to leadership, struggling with pride, small group leader, mentor, feeling unworthy, elder
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, 1 Corinthians 3:5-9, 1 Corinthians 3:13-15, 1 Corinthians 5:1-3, Matthew 3:2, Mark 1:15, 1 Timothy 3:9, 1 Timothy 3:16, Colossians 1:27, Ephesians 3:1-6, 2 Corinthians 13:5, Acts 5:29, 1 Thessalonians 2:4, Galatians 1:10, Matthew 18
Theological Themes: stewardship of mysteries, divine judgment, servant leadership, biblical authority, eschatology, pastoral calling, word of god, ecclesiology
Full Transcript
The Job Description of a Minister
First Corinthians chapter 4, verses 1 through 5 is one of those great examples of why we encourage you to read a letter like this in one sitting. That is the way Scripture was read in the early church, and it would do you well to go back today and start at chapter 1, verse 1 of 1 Corinthians and work your way through it, seeing how Paul weaves together this letter in a very logical progression that builds. Each point really hangs on the point prior to it, and that is especially true today. Paul brings together two things he has talked about prior to this: the apostles as servants, in chapter 3, verses 5 through 9, and the idea of coming judgment, in chapter 3, verses 13 through 15. He brings them together here.
I am not one for titles, and I am usually scrambling for one, but we would title this passage "The Job Description of a Minister." Here is what Paul says. He gives you the job description right here: "Let a man regard us." He uses the plural personal pronoun — us — referring to himself, Apollos, and others, but what he is really describing is anyone who stands in the position of preacher or teacher. On Wednesday night I came on campus for the first session of adult education, and there was Chris and Nancy Christensen teaching a marriage class, Paul Zurd talking about Mormonism, and Kurt and Will discussing the doctrines of grace. That is who Paul is talking about here. It is not just the person standing at the front of the pulpit. It is anyone. If you are in a room with third-graders, you are in the position of teacher, and it is really important for you to understand this job description.
Servants and Stewards
Paul says, "Let a man regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God." Those are the key words. Do not think of yourself as some sort of big shot, something special, or even a leader in the elevated sense. You are a servant and a steward. Let us look at those words very closely.
The word Paul uses here for servant is a unique word. It is used only 20 times in the New Testament, whereas the general word for servant appears several hundred times. This particular word means literally "under-rowers." If you can picture in your mind's eye the movie Ben-Hur, there is the slave rowing the boat. On both sides of a central aisle, men sat and rowed, facing toward someone elevated on a platform at the front — the person in charge of the vessel. If he wanted them to row faster, he would signal and they would row faster. If he wanted them to stop, they would stop. Paul says, that is what we are — under-rowers. Our whole business is to be obedient to the One who is telling us what to do. Paul does use other words for servant elsewhere, words that speak of giving yourself to another's will, or of supplying food and the necessities of life to attend to another's needs. All of those ideas are wrapped up in the concept of servant, but the driving word he has in mind here is that of the under-rower. We are servants, under-rowers, of Christ.
The second word is steward. Steward means literally "house manager" — one put in charge of and in control of the complete household of his master. Paul says we are servants, we are under-rowers, we are stewards, we are managers. That word steward should be very important to us. It is a serious word, and for us as Christians it describes all of our life.
What Stewardship Really Means
Now, if you have been around churches for any length of time and someone begins to talk about stewards or stewardship, your hand instinctively goes down to make sure nobody gets into your wallet. That is the first thing people think of. When we began talking about needing more buildings, the first questions I received were, "Are you going to do a stewardship campaign?" or "Are you going to teach on stewardship?" — meaning four or five weeks on giving. The money part of stewardship is certainly there, but stewardship is a much larger concept than that.
Let me demonstrate. I have a dollar. I could give it to Mindy and say, "Mindy, this is yours — do whatever you want with it." At that point, I transfer ownership from myself to Mindy. She can spend it any way she likes, invest it according to her own agenda. It is hers. But if I give Mindy that dollar and say, "I am giving this to you to manage — I am transferring possession to you, but not ownership," now she is a steward. She now has a stewardship relationship with me, a fiduciary relationship. And her responsibility is to invest and use that resource according to my will and my agenda, not her own.
Stewards of What God Has Entrusted
We tend to think of stewardship in terms of money. My brother is a stockbroker and money manager. I called him Friday, assuming he had a fairly rough week, and he said it had been brutal. He said what is happening now is people are just starting to do really stupid things — people are selling at the very bottom, and that is just stupid. I understand your concern about your money, but let me put a little different twist on this. You also invested 168 hours last week. How did you invest those? You are a steward of those just as much as you are a steward of that dollar.
We did a baby dedication this hour, one this morning. It is very important to understand that we use the phrase "this is Russell and Anne's baby," and we let that go, and that is fine. But technically, it is not their baby. It is God's baby that He has entrusted to them. They do not own that child — they are stewards of that child. There is a vast difference.
That is what Paul is saying: you are stewards of the mysteries of God. A mystery is simply something that was kept secret and has now been revealed. We have talked about that before. Matthew 2, verse 7 introduces this same idea — the mysteries of God. We are going to take a quick look at four or five of these mysteries of which we are stewards.
The Mystery of the Kingdom
The first is the mystery of the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven. Notice how we use those terms interchangeably. Matthew 3:2 says, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Mark 1:15 says, "The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand." Matthew is the only gospel writer who uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven" — he uses it 32 times in his gospel. The other gospel writers use the phrase "the kingdom of God." Both are essentially interchangeable.
John MacArthur writes that there is no real significant difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. One phrase emphasizes the sovereign rule of the kingdom, the other emphasizes the kingdom itself, but basically it is the same thing. We are talking about the mystery of God's sovereignty, God's control, God's rule, and God's authority.
The Mystery of Lawlessness
The next mystery is the mystery of lawlessness — the King James calls it the mystery of iniquity. It is the idea that lawlessness is already at work in our lives. This is not just about the lawless one, the Antichrist, but about sin in our own life — that we are desperately lost in our sin, and because we are bound in that sin, we are hopelessly committing the same mistakes generation after generation. The philosopher Hegel said that history teaches us that history teaches us nothing. We make the same mistakes, we have the same sin, generation after generation after generation.
The Mystery of Faith and the Mystery of Godliness
Paul speaks of the mystery of faith in 1 Timothy 3:9, saying we are "holding to the mystery of faith with a clear conscience." He is talking there about the whole body of truth — the incarnation of Christ, and all of the things that pertain not just to salvation, but especially to salvation.
Then Scripture speaks of the mystery of godliness, which is the antidote to the mystery of lawlessness. Paul addresses it again in 1 Timothy 3:16: "By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness. He was revealed in the flesh and was vindicated by the Spirit, beheld by the angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed in the world, taken up to glory." When Paul talks about the mystery of godliness, he is talking about Christ come in the flesh, but he is also talking about the transforming power that has in our life. All of a sudden, rather than living like the rest of the world, there is a desire to be godly in Christ Jesus.
This is what Paul means in Colossians 1:27 — "Christ in you, the hope of glory." There is something different, something unique about you. You desire to do what is right because it is right, even when it does not instinctively feel right, or when in an emotional moment it is not even something you want to do.
A Steward of Truth in Practical Decisions
I received an email this week — a lengthy email, by the sender's own admission. I had to hit print and get a copy of it just to work through it. In essence, the email was this: there is a lady who is in love with a fellow and romantically involved with him, and the question was whether they should get married. But here is the issue — as they think about marriage, they keep talking about their children, and the issue comes down to this: should they raise the children in her faith as a Christian, or in her potential husband's faith as a Jew? There were a whole range of other complications layered on top of that, and then at the end, she asked me to tell her what to do.
I wrote back and said my answer is short and quick: run from this guy. Some may say that seems harsh, that I do not even know him. I do not need to know him. Years ago, someone called and said they had a prayer request for the prayer chain. I got my pen and asked what it was. The request was: should I marry Bobby? I said I would pass that along, but tell me about Bobby. She said Bobby was a stud, that Bobby was studying to be a doctor, that Bobby was going to do all these things. I asked where Bobby went to church. Bobby did not go to church. Now, you can be a Christian and not go to church, but that is pretty shaky ground over a period of time. Your desire to be with believers should overwhelm anything that would keep you away.
The Mystery of the Church
The church was designed to be different. That is why when Paul lays out in Timothy and in Titus the prerequisites for leadership — to be a deacon or an elder — you don't look in there and see financial statements, or success in business, or any of that. What you see is: what is this person about? Because the church is a very different place.
Paul writes about a unique aspect of it in Ephesians 3. He said, "…for this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief, and by referring to this, when you read this you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ." Here is the insight. He said, "…which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men." That is our definition of a mystery — something that was secret that is now made known. "…as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit."
He said, "…to be specific," and here is the point: "…that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel." That is the mystery of the church. God took Jew and Gentile and brought them together so that we are now fellow heirs, fellow members, fellow partakers.
The Responsibility of the Steward
Here is what Paul is saying. As a preacher or a teacher, you are responsible for accurately communicating this message. Take this Word and don't let it change. Teach it all — cover to cover, the whole counsel of God. That is why we cling to the fact that this is the inerrant Word of God. It does not err. It cannot err. There are no contradictions in it. There may be things we don't understand, and there may be some things that as human beings we don't like, but as transformed people we love. But these things have been passed on, and Paul says to those who are slaves of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God: your responsibility is to accurately communicate them.
That is why verse 2 makes perfect sense. The most important characteristic of a steward is that he is trustworthy. "Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy." Humanly speaking, a master is going to take all of his resources and put them in the hands of a steward — a house manager — and what he wants more than anything else is not an intellectual powerhouse, or someone who is eloquent or charismatic or successful or even wise. He wants someone he can trust. He wants to go away and come back and find that the steward has been faithful to his agenda.
That is exactly what Paul is saying. When we are looking for teachers, when we are looking for preachers, when we are looking for people to teach, we want them to be faithful to the Word above all else. That becomes the very first thing we look at.
Judged by Human Courts
Paul understands what naturally happens when someone stands in front of others. Someone pointed out to me this week that the number one spectator sport in the country is NASCAR. I don't think so. The number one spectator sport in this country is judging the people in the front. There is just no question about it — we love to judge each other. Paul understands that, and so here is what he says.
Verse 3: "But to me it is a very small thing that I should be examined by you or by any human court." He is starting with what is least important to him. He is saying, I really don't care what you think. Does he mean not at all? Remember the context. He is not the same man who said to the Jew, I am a Jew, and to the Greek, I am a Greek, without any concern for others. What he means is this: when it comes to being a steward of this Word, he is not concerned about whether people like what he says or don't like what he says. The word translated "examined" means to investigate, to question, to evaluate — it is different from rendering a verdict. He says, evaluate all you want, but it does not really matter to him how others look at him.
In fact, look at the second part of verse 3. This is incredible. He says, "I do not even examine myself." Verse 4: "I am conscious of nothing against myself." One response to that might be: how could you be conscious of anything against yourself if you don't examine yourself? But we know Paul does examine himself. He is constantly telling us to do the same — in 2 Corinthians 13:5 he says, "Examine yourself." What Paul is saying is that he does examine himself,
The Limits of Self-Judgment
Even when I look at my own life and draw the conclusion from verse 4 that there is nothing I am doing that would disqualify me from being a servant or a steward, I am still not acquitted — because I am not the right judge. Only the Lord can truly examine me. The reason only the Lord can fulfill this unique responsibility is because He looks at the things that are hidden in darkness and discloses the motives of men.
I cannot do that to you, and you cannot do that to me. You cannot look into my heart, you do not know what my motives really are, and there are things we do that no one else will ever see. But there is a day coming when there will be a Judge and a judgment, and that judgment will be rendered by an omniscient, omnipresent God who will shed light on everything that was hidden.
We tend to think immediately of the bad things — here comes the light, here come all the things I did wrong. But there may also be good things that were hidden, things nobody saw. God is going to open our eyes so we can see not just the deeds but the motives behind them.
Three Sources of Judgment
The practical point of all this is that Paul identifies three sources of judgment. First, there is the judgment of others. Second, there is self-evaluation. Third, there is God Himself.
Are we to judge one another? People come into church regularly and say, "I don't know a lot of Bible, but I know this: don't judge one another lest you be judged." But look at what Paul does at the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and into chapter 5. He has just finished saying not to be judging — and then he writes this: "It is actually reported that there is among you immorality, immorality of such a kind as it does not exist among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife." Paul is saying there is immorality in their church that the pagans would not even tolerate. Someone is sleeping with his mother — most likely a stepmother.
Verse 2 continues: "And you have become arrogant and have not mourned." They had not been broken over this sin, they had not confronted the person, and they had not removed him from their midst. Then look at verse 3, where Paul — the very man who cautioned against judging — writes: "I on my part, though absent in the body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this as though I were present."
So which is it, Paul — judge or not judge? The answer is straightforward. Paul is saying there are many peripheral issues that do not affect whether someone is a good servant or steward, and his instruction is to let those go. But when there is blatant sin, you have to deal with it.
The Prescription of Matthew 18
This is precisely the prescription given in Matthew 18. If someone has sinned against you, or you know someone is in sin, you go to them and confront them in that sin. If they stop, the matter is ended. If they do not stop, you bring one or two others with you. If they continue in unrepentant sin, the outcome is clear: you stand before the whole body, name the person, name the sin, and instruct the congregation to have nothing to do with them.
"Who are you to judge?" That is the prescription God has given us for dealing with sin in the body. What Paul is warning against is the natural tendency to judge and compare on surface-level, peripheral matters — while failing to confront actual sin. People will know someone in their life who is genuinely in sin, refuse to confront them, and say nothing about it. Meanwhile, they are eager to render opinions on everything that does not matter.
Judging What Is on the Surface
A couple of years ago I was invited to speak to a junior high class and had no idea what I was going to say. The night before, I got a call from one of the parents asking whether I had something prepared. When I said not exactly, they suggested I talk about peer pressure. I thought that was perfect.
So I stood up and told the kids that I had received a call from one of their parents asking me to address peer pressure — and then I told them I wanted to talk about the peer pressure their parents are under, because it is considerable. The kids had pressure to have the right shoes. Their parents had pressure to have the right car, parked in the right garage, attached to the right house, in the right neighborhood. If you are honest with yourself, some of your biggest purchases in life — as well as the small ones — were made based on what other people think. You buy a certain shirt because it has the right logo. You cannot just buy a shoe to cover your foot and get from one place to another; the shoe has to make a statement as you walk.
I spoke with a man not long ago who spent a hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars on a car. At some point, that is no longer about transportation. I am not even making a judgment about that —
Pleasing God Rather Than Men
Three passages deserve your attention here. In Acts 5:29, in 1 Thessalonians 2:4, and in Galatians 1:10, you see Peter and John in one case and Paul in another, speaking about their desire to please and obey God rather than men. The classic passage dealing with this is Galatians 1:10, where Paul says, "For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God, or am I striving to please men? If I were trying to please men, I would not be a bond servant of Christ." The very next verse continues, "For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to men." He is saying, in effect: I got it from God.
In all three of those instances — Acts 5, 1 Thessalonians 2, and Galatians 1 — the consistent message is: I strive to please God, not man. And in every case, the context is the presentation of the gospel. That is precisely what we are talking about.
We do care deeply about you, about what is good for you and what is best for you, and we do try to be as accommodating as we can be. But when it comes to the teaching of this Word, I never approach it wondering how you are going to react. It does not matter to me. There are things we deal with at this church — especially God's plan for salvation — that I know are very difficult issues for some of you, but not one time do I wonder whether we should teach them or not.
We should teach them with love. We should teach them with understanding. We should make them as clear as we can possibly make them. But understand that we have been entrusted with the stewardship of this Word, and there is nothing — no person, no power — to which we can yield in the presentation of it, other than the desire to obey and to please God. That is the driving force. That is the heart of what we do in adult ministry. That is what drives Tim, that is what drives Jamie, and that is what should drive every teacher on this campus. This is God's Word, and there is no place where we can waver — and we do not even want to waver. It is the only thing we have to say or offer. It is the truth.
The Limits of Self-Judgment
Paul says that when you judge, we really cannot be primarily concerned about how people receive this teaching, or whether it offends them. Paul also says he can look at himself and find some judgment there that is helpful, but in the final analysis, he cannot even examine his own life very effectively, because he is riddled with pride. He is never going to give himself the same scrutiny that someone else would. There is an old proverb that says the only people who will tell you the truth about yourself are an enemy who is angry or a friend who loves you deeply. That is it.
We said a couple of weeks ago that in every relationship, at every moment, you are either manipulating or ministering. I think that is probably pretty true. My heart is so wicked that I do not even know, in certain circumstances, whether I am ministering or manipulating. Perhaps the same is true of yours.
Think about it this way. You have a Bible study, or you are meeting with a high-profile businessman in the community. Are you reaching out to him because you are truly concerned about his soul and his spiritual well-being, or do you simply want to be seen with him? He can get you good tickets to a concert. The point is that even in your own mind, the motivation is not always clear.
Here is a personal example. The girls were away, and I came home to Susan. I said to her, "You really look good tonight. You look good every night, but tonight you really look good." Now — I honestly do not know if I was ministering to her, encouraging her, building her up, or if I was trying to manipulate her. I presume I was trying to minister to her, but you see the point. Maybe this proves that you cannot accurately judge yourself. In either case, you see what Paul is getting at.
Even when you judge yourself, you need to understand this dynamic. Sometimes you instinctively know something is wrong and you are doing it anyway, and you give yourself a free pass. But there are other times when you genuinely do not even know why you are doing what you are doing.
God Alone Is the Final Judge
What you must remember is that ultimately you will be judged by God, and nothing escapes Him. His eyes are not shut. Nothing is hidden. He will miss nothing. He will judge. And He alone can do so rightly.
Look at verse 5: it is the Lord who comes to bring light to things that are hidden and to disclose the motives of men's hearts. That is what He does. Only God can truly judge, because only He can see the things that are hidden, and only He can fully understand your heart.
The Stewardship of the Word
This is really a call to all servants — and the words servant and minister are interchangeable, because to be a servant is to minister to one another. Understand that you are a servant of Christ and a steward of His Word. This applies especially to those who preach and teach, and equally to those who benefit from that preaching and teaching: we are stewards. This truth has been given to us.
When Paul says at the end of his life, "I kept the faith," what he is saying is: I received from God this body of truth, I did not change it, and I passed it on unchanged. I taught the truth — the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When the President of the United States stands and says, "I promise to protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution of the United States," we take an oath deeper than that — to protect, to preserve, and to defend the Word of God.
Closing and Benediction
God's truth is what drives us, and we ought to love that. Our care for you is real, and we want to be as available as we can to serve and to nurture. But it is always going to be regulated by what God says and what His truth is.
Paul is not quite done yet. Look for next week as he continues just a little bit more, opening up for us this whole idea of a servant and a steward.
Let's pray. God, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for Your Son Jesus Christ. Thank You for putting a desire in our hearts to live godly and holy and righteous. Father, it is You that we desire to please.
We pray that in all we say and all we do as preachers and teachers, it would be a sweet sound to Your ears. God, we pray that we would not be judgmental unnecessarily, and that in things of sin, we would indeed judge those things You have judged. That our focus of judgment on issues of preference is limited to our own life, and even there we understand that sometimes we cannot even see that clearly.
So we leave the judging to You. God, we pray this to You in our Savior's name. Amen.