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Paul continued to talk about how the Corinthian believers should think about their Christian leaders, especially himself. He said that Christian leaders are servants of Christ and should be judged only by Christ. Some Corinthian believers were saying that they did not have to listen to Paul’s teaching. Paul encouraged the Corinthians to respect and obey him as their spiritual father.
Other possible section headings include:
Paul encouraged the Corinthians to respect him and Apollos
Paul and Apollos deserved respect as Christ’s servants
Paul wanted the Corinthians to change the way they were thinking about him and accept his authority again. So he used another metaphor—that of a father with his children—to help them understand how they should respect and obey him.
Some of you have become arrogant,
Some of you have become proud/arrogant
Some among you have started to boast.
Some of you have become arrogant: The Greek verb that the BSB translates as have become arrogant is the same word as in 4:6d, where the BSB translates it as “take pride.” It refers to a bad kind of boastful pride. Other ways to translate this include:
Some of you have become proud. (NCV)
Some of you have apparently grown conceited. (JBP)
as if I were not coming to you.
as though I were not coming back to you.
You think/say that I will never come to Corinth again.
as if I were not coming to you: After Paul had started the church in Corinth, he left. At the time he was writing this letter, he had been gone from Corinth for two and a half or three years. We do not know why some people in Corinth were saying that Paul was not coming back. But this was not true. In your translation, use the form of a verb for something that people believe to be true but is not true. For example:
as though I were not coming back to you
thinking that I will not come to you again (NCV)
because you think I won’t pay you a visit (GW)
In some languages it may be natural to reverse the order of these two verse parts, following the Greek sentence structure. For example:
18bNow some people there think that I am not going to visit you again, 18aand so they have begun to talk proudly about their own importance/authority.
Some of you think I am not coming for a visit, and so you are bragging. (CEV)
But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant. (NRSV)
In some languages it may be more natural to translate this verse using a direct quote, for example:
18bSome of you are talking like this among yourselves: “Paul will not come here again.” 18aAnd so you have begun to be proud and boast about yourselves.
Note 1 topic: grammar-connect-words-phrases
δέ
and
Here, Now introduces a development in the argument. Paul starts addressing some of the Corinthians who are proud. If Now does not introduce a new part of the argument in your language, you could use a word or phrase that does do this. Alternate translation: [Moving on,]
Note 2 topic: writing-pronouns
τινες
(Some words not found in SR-GNT: Ὡς μή ἐρχομένου δέ μού πρός ὑμᾶς ἐφυσιώθησαν τινές)
The word some refers to some of the Corinthians. If it would be helpful in your language, you could express what some refers to by clarifying that it identifies some Corinthian believers. Alternate translation: [some from among you]
Note 3 topic: figures-of-speech / activepassive
ἐφυσιώθησάν
(Some words not found in SR-GNT: Ὡς μή ἐρχομένου δέ μού πρός ὑμᾶς ἐφυσιώθησαν τινές)
If your language does not use the passive form in this way, you can express the idea in active form or in another way that is natural in your language. If you must state who does the action, Paul implies that the people “puff” themselves up. Alternate translation: [have puffed themselves up]
Note 4 topic: grammar-connect-condition-contrary
ὡς
(Some words not found in SR-GNT: Ὡς μή ἐρχομένου δέ μού πρός ὑμᾶς ἐφυσιώθησαν τινές)
Here Paul speaks of him not coming as something that is a possibility. However, he is convinced that this is not true, since he will “come” to them. Use a natural form in your language for introducing a condition that the speaker believes is not true. Alternate translation: [as if]
Note 5 topic: figures-of-speech / go
μὴ ἐρχομένου & μου
(Some words not found in SR-GNT: Ὡς μή ἐρχομένου δέ μού πρός ὑμᾶς ἐφυσιώθησαν τινές)
Here Paul is speaking about his plan to visit the Corinthians at some point. Use a form in your language that indicates future travel plans to visit someone. Alternate translation: [I were not about to arrive where you live]
4:6-21 Paul again rebukes the Corinthian Christians for their arrogance (4:6-13) and then admonishes them as a father (4:14-21).
Note: The OET-RV is still only a first draft, and so far only a few words have been (mostly automatically) matched to the Hebrew or Greek words that they’re translated from.
Acknowledgements: The SR Greek text, lemmas, morphology, and VLT gloss are all thanks to the CNTR.