1 Corinthians 4:15

1 Corinthians 4:15. For if you should have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begat you through the Gospel. Three agencies are named here as factors in conversion: Christ, as the proper Agent (through His Spirit); the Gospel, as the instrumental means; and the preacher who brings the message (in this case the apostle himself). Every spiritual father will feel something of the jealousy here expressed, in relation to others who after him have dealings with his converts; and all the more, since any insensibility to or forgetfulness of what they owe to their spiritual father argues either decline in their spiritual life, or some unwholesome influences operating upon them.