Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 4:17

"For this cause have I sent unto you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who shall put you in remembrance of my ways which are in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every church." — 1 Corinthians 4:17 (ASV)

For this reason.—When St. Paul contemplated visiting the churches in Macedonia and Achaia, he sent Timothy and Erastus in advance (Acts 19:21–22). An allusion is made to this fact here—from 1 Corinthians 16:10, we see that the Apostle did not anticipate Timothy’s arrival in Corinth until after this letter had reached them.

The rumors of the existence of factions in Corinth had reached St. Paul before Timothy departed. These rumors were the reason he desired Timothy to visit Corinth before he himself did, to bring the Corinthians to a better frame of mind before the Apostle’s arrival.

After Timothy’s departure from Ephesus, the Apostle heard from the household of Chloe how much worse the state of affairs in Corinth was than he had imagined from the previous rumors. It was not advisable to let such a condition continue to grow and intensify until Timothy could arrive, delayed as he would be by visiting other places in Macedonia and Achaia en route. Nor, indeed, would it be safe to leave someone with Timothy’s nervous (1 Corinthians 16:10) and gentle temperament (perhaps resulting from his having been brought up and educated entirely by women, 2 Timothy 1:5) to deal with the kind of anarchy the Apostle now knew to exist in Corinth.

Furthermore, the letter from Corinth had arrived since Timothy had left, and it required an immediate answer. These reasons undoubtedly influenced St. Paul to send this letter to Corinth immediately, so as to anticipate Timothy’s arrival there.

So that you might return to the dutiful position of sons, I sent you one who is a son—a beloved and faithful spiritual child—who will not be an addition to the too many instructors already at Corinth, but will instead, by what he says and by his own example, remind you of my teaching (see 2 Timothy 3:10), which he fully understands and which never varies, being the same for every church.

The emphatic use of the phrase “my son” here in reference to Timothy, considered with the clear expression in 1 Corinthians 4:15 of what was involved in that spiritual relationship, shows that St. Paul had converted Timothy to the faith (Acts 16:1). In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul speaks of Timothy as his “brother” (2 Corinthians 1:1).