OUR FATHER WHO PUTS HIS APOSTLES ON DISPLAY BEFORE ANGELS AND MEN

1 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 6 - 13 captures the apostle Paul advising the Conrinthian church to discard the divisive factionlism that was pitting one believer against another due to feelings of superiority over one another.

Paul describes the Corinthian church as being blessed where they were already ascendant in their society and had gained political and material advantages and became leaders in their culture. Considering this fact, Paul compared their elevated position with his own lowly position and realized that it was the Lordˋs deliberate policy to  take the apostles and display them for all creation to be seen under constant pressure of shortages, harrassment, humiliation and displacement.

Even in these conditions, the apostles were expected to respond with grace and decorum to the treacherous conditions that perpetually followed them. 

6 Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other. 7 For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

8 You are already full! You are already rich! You have reigned as kings without us—and indeed I could wish you did reign, that we also might reign with you! 9 For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored! 11 To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. 12 And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; 13 being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.

The apostles are made the personification of the scripture in this same letter to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 27 which says, But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 

The apostles were the ones held up as examples of weak and dishonerable fools for Christ and they unrelentingly suffered reviling, persecution, defamation and treated as though they were disgusting garbage.

Those in the most elevated spiritual rankings are subjected to the most degrading hardships while the physical realm and must widthstand these conditions with grace and aplomb.

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