Who's Boasting

DEVOTION

1 CORINTHIANS

WHO’S BOASTING

1 Cor 4:6-7

6 Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written." Then you will not take pride in one man over against another. 7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

NIV

It is certainly true that some men might think that God has spoken directly to them rather than sticking to what has already been recorded of what He said. There must have been a few of these men in Corinth who were puffed up all over themselves regarding what they thought was there great knowledge of the Gospel. They surely must have thought themselves better than the rest and were even boastful about it. Paul was telling them that any knowledge they had of the Gospel came from him because as an Apostle, he heard directly from God and told them, but they were boasting as though they had not received that knowledge from him, but rather directly from God. It would seem not much has changed in the church. Some men have gone beyond what is written and created their own form of the Gospel message adding all sorts of rules and regulations which are imposed on others. It is true, that not all think of themselves as better than those they impose those added features of the Gospel on, but there surely is a significant number of them. It would do us all good to recognize that we all have the Spirit of God to lead us all into all truth, which is course what already has been written. “There is nothing but the truth, so help us God”. We have but one mediator between us and God and that is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We should not make any man greater the Jesus, nor should we ever think that we are greater than any man, or that any man is greater than us. We have all received the same truth from the mouth of God, recorded and saved through the ages for our benefit to be able to know the way of salvation. No other man has any additional truth to be added to the Gospel. If men preach, teach or write about any supposed truth which is not expressly declared in the Word of God, they surely are among those who think more of themselves then they should, boasting in self rather than God. We need to always be aware the truth is the truth and we all have the knowledge of the truth because we all have the Spirit and thus we all are the same as everyone else. We all are saved by grace and not of any works, skill, talent, knowledge, education, or wisdom, lest anyone of us boast about anything other than Christ.