1 Corinthians 4:1

οὕτως ἡμᾶς λογιζέσθω ἄνθρωπος. ‘Of the things of which we have spoken this is the sum.’ We are not to be regarded for any qualifications we may have of our own, but simply as ‘the servants of the Most High God.’

ὑπηρέτας Χριστοῦ. Not ministers in the technical sense, but attendants, in the modern sense of the word. The ὑπηρέτης was either, (1) the under-rower, one who rowed under the direction of another, or (2) one who sat in the lower bank of oars. John Mark (Acts 13:5) was the ὑπηρέτης of Barnabas and Paul. See also Luke 1:2.

καὶ οἰκονόμους μυστηρίων θεοῦ. Literally, house-ruler, or house-feeder. Cf. German Hauswalter from walten to rule, and the English housekeeper. What a steward’s office is, we learn from Matthew 24:45. μυστήριον is derived from μύω, to shut the eyes, and was in the old Greek civilization used to denote those rites which were only permitted to the initiated, and were kept a strict secret from the outside world. Of such a kind were the well-known Eleusinian mysteries, which were kept every fifth year at Eleusis in Attica, the rites of the Bona Dea, which were observed at Rome, and those of Isis and Mithras, which were of Egyptian and Persian origin. (See Article ‘Mysteria’ in Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities.) The word is used in Scripture in two senses, (1) of things hidden from the ordinary understanding, (2) of things formerly concealed in the counsels of God but revealed to those who believe the Gospel. We have examples of the former meaning in ch. 1 Corinthians 13:2 and 1 Corinthians 14:2 of this Epistle, in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, and in Revelation 1:20, and of the latter in Matthew 13:11; Romans 16:25; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:26, as well as in ch. 1 Corinthians 2:7. The present passage appears to include both meanings. The ministers of Christ are to nourish their people on the knowledge of the truths of His Gospel, a knowledge (ch. 1 Corinthians 2:10-16) revealed only to the spiritual. As Chrysostom says, they were to do this οἷς δεῖ, καὶ ὅτε δεῖ, καὶ ὡς δεῖ. No instance of μυστήριον in its more modern Greek sense of Sacraments is to be found in Holy Scripture. In the Septuagint it is frequently found in the Apocrypha (as in Tob 12:7; Tob 12:11), but the only instances of its occurrence in the Canonical books are in the Septuagint translation of the book of Daniel, ch. Daniel 2:18-19; Daniel 2:27-30; Daniel 2:47, ch. Daniel 4:6 (where it is the translation of a Chaldaic word signifying ‘a thing hidden,’ which in our Authorized Version is translated secret) and in Isaiah 24:16, where, however, the translators, as those of the Vulgate, appear to have been misled by the similarity of the Chaldee word to a Hebrew one (Luther, Ewald, and the English version translate the word by ‘leanness’). It is also found in some editions in the Greek of Proverbs 20:19. Cf. for similar sentiments to the above passage, Titus 1:7, and 1 Peter 4:10.