“What do we have that we did not receive?
Years ago, I went to an event which honoured a brother for his many years of work for the Kingdom of Christ. He had faithfully served God, church and family and was worthy of all that was said about him. His son, an effective speaker, had many good things to say about his dad. His speech was quietly powerful and full of emotion. At one point in his speech he began to read something. Something that made me sit up and think, “That sounds very familiar. In fact, I wrote that…!” I was honoured. I guess, saying, ‘As John Staiger wrote…’, would have ruined the emotional impact of the moment for him, so he left it out. To give a brief and humbling context to this story, yes, the words he read were all mine, but what I had written about was something done by his father which proved to be faith-lifting for all present—He was merely reading my account of his father’s work. I tell this story about myself to illustrate an important point. When spiritually appraised, every word we speak (or write), every deed we do, proves Solomon’s words: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl.1:9). It proves that no matter what our contribution to life might consist of, we are all propping each other up at all times. We will all fall down into a meaningless heap without the support of those around us.
If you rate among the best of humanity, it is only because you have drunk from the well which supplies the best that humanity has to offer—the Holy Spirit. And lest we begin to think of ourselves more highly than we ought, remember that Nebuchadnezzar, an empire builder in his own right, ate grass for seven years for his attempt to take credit for the glories of Babylon (Dan.4:28-37). Only humble submission to God restored him. The Corinthian brethren felt that they had outgrown the simplicity of the gospel preached by Paul. Instead, they reached for the ‘wisdom and knowledge of the world’ to bolster their foolish notions of superiority. Paul asks three very pointed questions: “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?” (1Cor.4:7). Indeed, what do we have that we did not receive?
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