An area that is attracting a great deal of attention in Paul's letters is the role of authority. The letter of 1 Corinthians is an important one to consider in this regard since Paul was the founder of the church at Corinth and dealt with leadership issues throughout his correspondence with this church. In Paul as an Administrator of God in 1 Corinthians, John Goodrich provides a study of two critical passages from 1 Cor 4 and 9 where Paul employs the word oikonomos and oikonomia for steward and administrator. What emerges is an engaging study with fresh insights on Paul, leadership, and authority.

Goodrich's first chapter surveys apostolic authority broadly within 1 Corinthians. He rightfully notes how the letter of 1 Corinthians reveals in a unique way Paul's theology in practice, particularly how his gospel applies to real people and problems. Goodrich observes that several scholars have examined apostolic authority in various ways. Some consider how authority was constructed. J. H. Schütz examined Paul's authority and concluded that Paul's authority rested on two figures of interpretation: the gospel and the apostle himself. Scholars such as K. H. Rengstorf, J. B. Lightfoot, and K. O. Sandnes have studied the word apostolos, aiming to expose the nature of apostleship by examining this title's origin. J. N. Collins has considered the word diakonos, while others like S. J. Joubert and T. J. Burke have studied Paul's metaphor of being a father.

Others have examined instead how Paul's apostolic authority has been asserted. B. Holmberg, G. Shaw, E. A. Castelli, and S. H. Polaski have written regarding Paul's assertion of his authority. These studies have raised significant questions about the purity of Paul's motives and effects of Paul's apostolic authority. While E. Best, K. Ehrensberger, A. Long, and R. F. Talbott have also written about the assertion of Paul's authority, their studies provide a counter opinion. They claim that Paul's authoritarian practice can be explained more positively by other motives. For Best, Paul is using authoritative language that would naturally derive from the fact that he was the founder of the church at Corinth. For Ehrensberger, Long, and Talbot, any of Paul's language that would seem to be imposing was used to bring communities to an equal standing with Paul.

Goodrich takes a different approach to authority than these previous studies. Rather than defining Paul's power by the means that he constructed it or asserted it, Goodrich examines Paul's authority in both ways by examining the word administrators (oikonomoi). A book-length study of this image is absent within recent studies. Those that have considered this image are few, and their results are out of date.

When scholars have considered this word, some have examined it in terms of religious history, Jewish overlaps, Greco-Roman regal administrative backgrounds, Hellenistic moral philosophy, or Greco-Roman managerial slavery. Goodrich chooses to examine the word in relation to the three main administrative contexts in which it was used-regal, municipal, and private. Given that the Greco-Roman background is well-established as a means for evaluating Paul's writing, Goodrich's approach is a good one.

Goodrich's study then turns to a lengthy examination of administration (oikonomoi). This takes about half of the rest of the book and becomes a key contribution for his study. His examination of this term within Greco-Roman culture is considerable. For its use for regal administrators, he looks at its appearance within sources that date from the Ptolemaic, Seleucid, Attelid, and Macedonian Kingdoms. When he considers the word's use for civic administrators, he considers sources from Hellenistic Greek cities, Roman Greek cities, and Roman colonies and municipia. For his examination of oikonomoi in private administration, he considers the economic handbooks from the Hellenistic philosophical tradition as well as the caricatures and stereotypes of private administrators. These are supplemented by Greek and Roman sources that use synonyms to oikonomoi.

He then brings the fruits of this Greco-Roman study to Paul's description of his administration within 1 Corinthians. The overlaps with Corinth's economy make sense as to why the oikonomos idea should be considered with the backdrop of private administration in mind rather than the regal or civic administration background. This is a helpful distinction as he proceeds further.

Goodrich then proposes that administration (oikonomoi) should be considered as a metaphor within 1 Corinthians. This particularly makes sense in 1 Cor 4:1 as Paul is providing a comparison. Paul declares that he and his fellow workers are to be considered as servants (hōs oikonomoys). The metaphor concept is also helpful in evaluating 1 Cor 9:17. In this text Paul declares that he has been entrusted with a stewardship (oikonomian).

Ideas from the Greco-Roman background to administration are then applied to the contexts of 1 Cor 4 and 9. In 1 Cor 4:1-5, Goodrich finds that oikonomos contributes to the understanding of hierarchy where the oikonomos had an intermediate position between that of the superior and those he was leading. As an oikonomos, Paul was vastly insignificant in comparison to his God. He was like a slave and his immediate delegate as were his other coworkers. As a result, there could be no real tension among his coworkers. These conclusions dovetail well with other studies on words like diakonos by J. N. Collins in which he also finds that 1 Cor 3-4 deemphasize a hierarchical role for Paul. Goodrich does rightfully see, however, that Paul as an oikonomos is not completely without authority. An oikonomos had a restricted authority when operating for his sovereign. He had authority when dispensing the message from his sovereign God, and he was accountable to him.

Goodrich also applies the Greco-Roman ideas of oikonomos to 1 Cor 9:16-23. In doing so he counters the perception that Paul receives no pay because he has merely done his slave duty as Dale Martin proposes or foregoing pay that he rightfully deserves as Abraham Malherbe advances. With the private administrative backdrop in mind, Paul had a right to a wage. He foregoes the wage, however, because of the greater concern of ministering for the benefit of others.

Goodrich's study challenges a number of held viewpoints on the interpretation of 1 Cor 4 and 9. The Greco-Roman backdrop on the concept of administration does provide a number of fresh interpretations for Paul's role as a Christian leader. It rightly challenges those who assume that Paul is motivated by asserting his authority in their midst. It would be helpful if Goodrich would reconcile some of his thoughts with those brought by others who have examined the Jewish backdrop in several of these passages, particularly 1 Cor 9. In this passage, Paul has been considered to be functioning as a prophet from the OT. Some have seen that Paul is compelled to preach like OT prophets. In 1 Cor 9:5-18 Paul applies the ideas of preaching under compulsion (Amos 3:7-8; Jer 4:19; 20:7-9) as well as the self-directed woe of the prophets (Isa 6:5; Jer 15:10; 45:3) to his ministry. Some attention to the Jewish perspective would likely support a number of the good conclusions that are made in Paul as an Administrator of God in 1 Corinthians.

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