Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 4:15

"For though ye have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet [have ye] not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begat you through the gospel." — 1 Corinthians 4:15 (ASV)

For.—This is the reason he has a right to address them as a father would his children. Since their conversion, they may have had many instructors, but they could have only one father who begot them in Jesus Christ. That father was Paul. He states, I have begotten you. I is emphatic, as opposed to “many.” The word rendered “instructors” originally signified the slave who led the child to school, but subsequently had the larger meaning which we attach to the word pedagogue . There is a contrast implied between the harsh severity of a pedagogue and the loving tenderness of a father.