The Final Audit Text: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Introduction: The Corinthian Disease
The church at Corinth was a mess. It was a vibrant, gifted, and thoroughly carnal church. And one of their chief maladies, a spiritual sickness that was poisoning everything else, was their obsession with human evaluation. They were spiritual consumers, ecclesiastical food critics, treating their ministers like rival philosophers or competing gladiators in the arena. They had their fan clubs: "I am of Paul," or "I am of Apollos," or "I am of Cephas." They were judging these men based on worldly metrics, on eloquence, on charisma, on polish, on whatever criteria the pagan culture around them used to evaluate its public speakers.
This is not an ancient problem. The Corinthian disease is alive and well. We live in the age of the brand, the platform, the influencer. We have turned pastors into celebrities and sermons into TED Talks. We measure ministerial success by the same metrics the world uses: numbers, budgets, buildings, and online engagement. We have our own factions, our own celebrity preachers we follow, and we are constantly, incessantly, evaluating. We are addicted to the court of public opinion.
Into this shallow, man-pleasing, performance-based environment, the apostle Paul drops a bomb. He does not politely ask them to reconsider their criteria. He detonates their entire framework. He tells them that their court is a kangaroo court, that their judgment is irrelevant, and that they are not qualified to sit on the jury. He is not just defending his own ministry; he is fundamentally reordering their understanding of what ministry is, who a minister serves, and who the final judge must be.
This passage is a radical call to freedom. It is freedom from the tyranny of other people's expectations, freedom from the exhausting work of managing your own reputation, and freedom from the morbid introspection that paralyzes so many. It is the freedom of being an under-rower, a steward, whose only concern is the final audit by the Master.
The Text
Let a man consider us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found faithful. But to me it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you, or by any human court. In fact, I do not even examine myself. For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted. But the one who examines me is the Lord. Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and make manifest the motives of hearts. And then each one’s praise will come to him from God.
(1 Corinthians 4:1-5 LSB)
The Job Description (v. 1)
Paul begins by giving the Corinthians a new lens through which to view their ministers. He gives them the official job description.
"Let a man consider us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God." (1 Corinthians 4:1)
He gives two titles here, and they are both packed with meaning. First, they are "servants of Christ." The Greek word is huperetes. This is not the most common word for servant or slave. It literally means "under-rower." It refers to the lowest tier of oarsmen on a large galley ship, down in the hull, chained to their oar, unable to see where the ship is going. Their one job is to pull in time with the drumbeat set by the captain. This is a picture of unglamorous, absolute obedience. The minister of the gospel is not the captain on the deck, charting the course and feeling the sea breeze. He is an under-rower. He does not invent the mission; he receives his orders. His personal vision is irrelevant. All that matters is the captain's drumbeat. Christ sets the rhythm, and the servant rows.
Second, they are "stewards of the mysteries of God." A steward, an oikonomos, was a household manager. He was a slave, but a high-ranking one, entrusted with the master's entire estate. He managed the finances, distributed the goods, and ran the household. He had immense authority and responsibility, but he owned nothing. It was all the master's. And what is the household good that Paul has been entrusted with? The "mysteries of God." This refers to the gospel, the plan of salvation, hidden for ages but now revealed in Jesus Christ. The minister is not an innovator. He is not a manufacturer of new doctrines. He is a manager of revealed truth. His job is to faithfully dispense the goods that the Master has placed in the storeroom, not to cook up new recipes in the kitchen.
The Sole Requirement (v. 2)
If that is the job description, an under-rower and a steward, what is the key performance indicator? What is the one thing God is looking for?
"In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found faithful." (1 Corinthians 4:2 LSB)
Notice what is not on the list. It is not required that he be successful. It is not required that he be popular, or clever, or eloquent, or have a massive church. The single, solitary requirement is faithfulness. Is he rowing to the beat? Is he dispensing the Master's goods without diluting them? Is he a reliable manager of the mysteries?
This is a devastating critique of how we so often evaluate ministry. We are obsessed with the metrics of the world. God is obsessed with faithfulness. A man can preach to a congregation of fifty people in a forgotten town for forty years, see little visible "success," and be welcomed into glory with "Well done, good and faithful servant." Another man can pastor a megachurch, write bestselling books, and have a global platform, yet be found to have been an unfaithful steward who compromised the mysteries for the sake of applause. God is not grading on a curve, and He is not impressed with our numbers. He is looking for fidelity.
Dismissing the Court (v. 3-4)
Because faithfulness is the only metric, and because only the Master can truly judge that faithfulness, Paul declares all other courts to be null and void.
"But to me it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you, or by any human court. In fact, I do not even examine myself. For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted. But the one who examines me is the Lord." (1 Corinthians 4:3-4 LSB)
This is breathtakingly bold. "It is a very small thing that I may be examined by you." He tells the Corinthians that their opinion of him is of negligible importance. Their praise does not validate him, and their criticism does not invalidate him. He extends this to "any human court," which literally reads "any human day." He is contrasting man's day of judgment with the Lord's Day of judgment. All the verdicts passed by men in this life are provisional, temporary, and often flat-out wrong.
Then he goes a step further: "In fact, I do not even examine myself." This is not a call to thoughtless living. It is a refusal to engage in morbid, paralyzing introspection. Paul knows that he is an unreliable judge of his own heart. He cannot see his own motives with perfect clarity. So he does his best, and then he leaves the final verdict to God.
He clarifies this in verse 4. "I am conscious of nothing against myself." His conscience is clear. He has sought to be a faithful under-rower. But, he says, "yet I am not by this acquitted." A clear conscience is not what justifies him. A clear conscience can be a misinformed conscience. Justification is a legal declaration from God, based on the work of Christ, not on our internal sense of well-being. The foundation of Paul's confidence is not his own performance, but God's grace.
And here is the anchor of his soul: "But the one who examines me is the Lord." There is only one Judge, one Auditor, one performance review that matters. And because Paul lives for an audience of One, he is liberated from the fear of the crowd. This is the secret to his courage.
The Great Moratorium (v. 5)
Paul concludes with a direct command. He tells the Corinthians to stop doing what they are doing. He issues a moratorium on passing final judgment.
"Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and make manifest the motives of hearts. And then each one’s praise will come to him from God." (1 Corinthians 4:5 LSB)
He tells them to stop judging "before the time." The time for final judgment is when the Lord returns. Why are we unqualified to hold this final court now? Paul gives two reasons. First, we don't have all the evidence. The Lord will "bring to light the things hidden in the darkness." We only see the surface. God sees the whole story. Second, and more importantly, we cannot see the heart. The Lord will "make manifest the motives of hearts." We can judge a man's actions, and we must. We can judge his teaching against Scripture. But we cannot judge his deep, internal motivations. The Corinthians were not just evaluating Paul's preaching style; they were judging his heart, and in doing so, they were usurping a prerogative that belongs to God alone.
And what will be the result of this final judgment? We might expect fire and terror. But look at how Paul ends. "And then each one’s praise will come to him from God." For the one who has been found faithful, the great and final day is not a day of dread, but a day of commendation. It is the day when the Master looks at the steward, opens the books, and says, "Well done." The praise of God is the only praise worth having. The Corinthians were chasing the cheap, fleeting praise of men. Paul exhorts them to seek the eternal, weighty praise that comes from God.
Conclusion: Living for the Final Audit
This passage should radically reorient us. First, it should change how we view our pastors. We are not to be consumers, rating them on their performance. We are to be parishioners, receiving them as stewards of God's mysteries and praying for their faithfulness. We should be far more concerned with our pastor's fidelity to the text than with his charisma in the pulpit.
Second, and more broadly, this should change how every one of us lives the Christian life. We are all stewards. We have all been entrusted with time, talent, and treasure from the Master. And we are all living before an audience. The question is, which one? Are you living for the fickle, ever-shifting judgment of the "human day"? Are you constantly checking your approval ratings with your friends, your boss, or your followers online? That is a path to anxiety, exhaustion, and slavery.
The gospel offers us a profound freedom. The final verdict on our ultimate standing before God has already been rendered in Jesus Christ. For those who are in Him, the sentence is "acquitted." We are justified. That frees us from the desperate need for human approval. We are already approved in the court that matters most. And because we are secure in that verdict, we are now free to live as faithful stewards, as obedient under-rowers. We can labor diligently, not for the praise of men, but in joyful anticipation of the final audit, when the Master will look at our lives, lived by His grace, and all the praise we could ever want will come to us from God.