1 Corinthians 4:6

I have in a figure transferred

(μετεσχηματισα). First aorist active (not perfect) indicative of μετα-σχηματιζω, used by Plato and Aristotle for changing the form of a thing (from μετα, after, and σχημα, form or habit, like Latin habitus from εχω and so different from μορφη as in Philippians 2:7; Romans 12:2). For the idea of refashioning see Field, Notes, p. 169f. and Preisigke, Fachworter). Both Greek and Latin writers (Quintilian, Martial) used σχημα for a rhetorical artifice. Paul's use of the word (in Paul only in N.T.) appears also further in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 where the word occurs three times, twice of the false apostles posing and passing as apostles of Christ and ministers of righteousness, and once of Satan as an angel of light, twice with εις and once with ως. In Philippians 3:21 the word is used for the change in the body of our humiliation to the body of glory. But here it is clearly the rhetorical figure for a veiled allusion to Paul and Apollos "for your sakes" (δια υμας).That in us ye may learn

(ινα εν ημιν μαθητε). Final clause with ινα and the second aorist active subjunctive of μανθανω, to learn. As an object lesson in our cases (εν ημιν). It is no more true of Paul and Apollos than of other ministers, but the wrangles in Corinth started about them. So Paul boldly puts himself and Apollos to the fore in the discussion of the principles involved.Not to go beyond the things which are written

(το Μη υπερ α γεγραπτα). It is difficult to reproduce the Greek idiom in English. The article το is in the accusative case as the object of the verb μαθητε (learn) and points at the words " Μη υπερ α γεγραπτα," apparently a proverb or rule, and elliptical in form with no principal verb expressed with μη, whether "think" (Auth.) or "go" (Revised). There was a constant tendency to smooth out Paul's ellipses as in 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Corinthians 1:26; 1 Corinthians 1:31. Lightfoot thinks that Paul may have in mind O.T. passages quoted in 1 Corinthians 1:19; 1 Corinthians 1:31; 1 Corinthians 3:19; 1 Corinthians 3:20.That ye be not puffed up

(ινα μη φυσιουσθε). Sub-final use of ινα (second use in this sentence) with notion of result. It is not certain whether φυσιουσθε (late verb form like φυσιαω, φυσαω, to blow up, to inflate, to puff up), used only by Paul in the N.T., is present indicative with ινα like ζηλουτε in Galatians 4:17 (cf. ινα γινωσκομεν in 1 John 5:20) or the present subjunctive by irregular contraction (Robertson, Grammar, pp. 203, 342f.), probably the present indicative. Φυσιοω is from φυσις (nature) and so meant to make natural, but it is used by Paul just like φυσαω or φυσιαω (from φυσα, a pair of bellows), a vivid picture of self-conceit.One for the one against the other

(εις υπερ του ενος κατα του ετερου). This is the precise idea of this idiom of partitive apposition. This is the rule with partisans. They are "for" (υπερ) the one and "against" (κατα, down on, the genitive case) the other (του ετερου, not merely another or a second, but the different sort, ετεροδοξ).