1 Corinthians 4:1

Let a man so account of us -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."

and stewards of the mysteries of God Literally, house-ruler, or house feeder. Cf. German Hauswalterfrom waltento rule, and the English house-keeper. What a steward's office is, we learn from St Matthew 24:45. And he is appointed to dispense the mysteriesof the Gospel. This word is derived from a word signifying to close, to shut, 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) for 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. The latter sense is met with in Romans 16:25; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:26, &c. 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. No instance of the word in its more modern Greek sense of Sacramentsis 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. 1 Corinthians 4:9 (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.