“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
The Basket Case Chronicles #35
“For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it” (1 Cor. 4:7).
The context here is that of boasting in your Bible teachers, whether Luther, or Calvin, or any other valued servant of God. In the backdrop is this: if it is bad teaching, why boast in it? If it is good teaching, then it is a gift, and this means that you ought not to boast in it either. If you were given a bad thing, don’t boast—it is bad. If you were given a good thing, don’t boast—it was given.
Paul is here identifying a particular way in which Christians give way to vainglory. He says that they glory in what they have been taught, and this glory is a false glory that acts as though they did not receive it as a gift. Calvinists are the worst when they fall into this, because there are multiple layers of irony involved. They say that they alone among Christians teach that no glory can accrue to the creature, and that all glory must go to the Creator alone. Having said this, they glory in the fact that they said it.
Now the particular instance of this principle that Paul applies has to do with teachers of Scripture. But the principle applies across the board—it applies everywhere God gives gifts, and that of course is everywhere. How can you boast in your blue eyes, in your intelligence, in your height, in your race or ethnicity, in your birth place, in your birth order, in your attractiveness, or in the shape of your nose? What do you have that wasn’t a present? Way too many of us were born on third base and we think we hit a triple.