Rowing

The word means "rower" but what implications it has for the readers of Paul’s letter to Corinth.

Paul called himself a servant in 1 Cor 4:1 but he used a unique word: hupêretês, which literally means a rower, but was used in Paul’s day to indicate an underling.

Remember Ben Hur, with the men pulling long oars in the belly of the Roman ships? Those men rowed in time with a drummer and they had nothing to say about when they worked or how long they pulled those oars. It was ugly grunt work.

And that’s what Paul called himself. He was a rower for Christ, an underling willing to do whatever the Lord asked him to do.

He cared not if the church at Corinth judged him. In fact, he didn’t even judge himself. The One who judged him was the Lord and no other.

He recognized the Lord as far superior to him.

The great apostle, who wrote much of the New Testament, who evangelized many gentile cities and planted many churches across Asia and Greece, saw himself as a rower, a servant in the great ship that carried his Lord.

It’s a magnificent image, isn’t it?