What is “the filth of this world”?  Is it the womb of evil of which the national syndicate crime is born?  Is it the cult of ritual murderers and abortionists? Is it the perverted molester or rapist or the coven of unrepentant witches? Is it the evil business genius operating in international upheavals? Was it Babylon? Is it Rome? Is it sin? Has a tribe of evil spirits and demons been located bearing this repulsive title? What is it?   

A thousand guesses at this question might provide a thousand different answers with not one of them correct. The right answer is the very antithesis of our expectation. This “filth of this world” is neither men nor devils. It is not bad, but good – nay, not even good – but the very best. Neither is it the material, but spiritual; neither is it of Satan, but of God. It is not only of the church, but a saint. It is not only a saint, but the saintliest of saints, the Kohinoor of all gems. “We apostles,” Paul says, “are the filth of this world.” Then he adds insult to injury, heightens the infamy, and deepens the humiliation by adding “[and we apostles are] the off scouring of all things”    

 I Corinthians 4 [13]  Being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the off scouring of all things unto this day.    

Any man who has so assessed himself “filth of the earth” has no ambition – and so has nothing to be jealous about. He has no reputation – and has nothing to fight about. He has no possessions – and therefore nothing to worry about. He has no “rights”- and so therefore cannot suffer any wrongs. He is already dead – so no one can kill him. In such a state of mind and spirit, can we wonder that the apostles “turned the world upside down”? Let the ambitious saint ponder this apostolic attitude to the world. Let the popular, unscarred evangelist living in “Hollywood Style” think upon his ways.    

Loeonard Ravenhill

Who then hurt Paul far more than his one hundred and ninety five stripes, his three stonings, and his triple shipwrecks could ever hurt him?  The contentious, carnal, critical, Corinthian crowd. This Church was split by carnality – and cash!  Some had rocketed to fame and become the merchant princes of the city. So Paul says, “Ye have reigned as kings without us.” Ponder the glaring contrasts in 1 Cor. 4:81 Cor. 4:8
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
8 Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.  

WP-Bible plugin “Ye are full ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us,” “We are fools; we are despised; we both hunger and thirst and are naked” (verse 10). The blessed compensation is in verse 9, “We [apostles] are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.”    

It was not hard for Paul to claim after all this that he was “less than the least.” Then, Paul pointed all this truth against those whose faith had lost its focus. These Corinthians were full, but not free. (A man escaped from his cell is not free who still drags his chains.)  Paul is not grieved that they have super abundance and he nothing. He groans that their wealth has brought weakness of soul. They have comfort, but no cross; they are rich, but not reproached for Christ’s sake.  He does not say they are not Christ’s, but that they are seeking a thorn-less path to heaven. He declares, “I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.”  Indeed they reigned in a time-bound temporal realm (of which Paul had no interest ) for he knew that what the world gives in time will be taken by the same world also in the course of time. Rather Paul sought to reign with Christ eternally.    

But who wants to be thus dishonoured, despised, and devalued?  Such truth is revolutionary and upsetting to our corrupted Christian teaching. Can we delight in being esteemed fools? Is it easy to see our names cast about as an evil thing? Communism levels men down; Christ levels men up! True Christianity is far more revolutionary than Communism (though of course, bloodless). The bulldozers of socialism have tried to “push over” the hills of wealth and “fill in” the valleys of poverty. They thought  that by education they could “make the crooked places straight”- by an act of parliament and a mere waving of the political wand, the millennium, so long delayed, could be delayed, could be brought in. But those changes in Russia have been merely a change of bosses with the underdog still the bottom dog. Today plenty of people are rich by making others poor, but Paul said he was “poor, yet making many rich.” Thanks be unto God! The bag of Simon Magus who commercialises the gospel still gets no attention from the Holy Ghost!  If we have not yet been taught how to esteem “the mammon of unrighteousness, ” how shall we be entrusted with the “true riches”?    

And so Paul, bankrupt materially and socially, was bracketed with the choice few who are listed “as the “filth of the world.” Certainly this helped him understand that, as filth, he would be trodden under foot by men. Even though he could answer the philosophers, Stoics, and Epicureans on Mars Hill, yet for Christ’s sake he was willingly rated a “fool.”  To Jesus, the world’s antagonism was fundamental and perpetual…    

 ”Give me the love that leads the way, The faith that nothing can dismay, The hope no disappointments tire, The passion that will burn like fire, Let me not sink to be a clod: Make me thy fuel, Flame of God  “    -   Amy Wilson Carmichael    

(The article is an excerpt adapted from “Why Revival Tarries” by Leonard Ravenhill)    

I Peter 2 [9]  But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:    

 My God reigns … By your grace make me worthy to reign with you forever – Lord Jesus.    

Bode