Now these things, brothers, I have transferred in figure to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that you may learn in us the matter of not going beyond what has been written, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one, against the other. (1 Cor 4:6 Recovery Version)
1 Cor 4:6 is a text that some (not all) apologists for Sola Scriptura use to support the doctrine (e.g., Matt Slick). I have an exegesis countering such a claim in my lengthy work, Not by Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura.
I recently received the Recovery Version of the New Testament from Living Stream Ministry in Anaheim, California (disturbed by “Bibles for Europe”). While being very pro-Evangelical Protestant in their footnotes, they do not argue, as Slick and others do, that “what has been written” supports the formal sufficiency of the Bible; instead, it refers to what had been written previously in 1 Corinthians, something similar to the exegesis I offered in my essay:
This must refer to what had been written in the preceding chapters, such as “Was Paul crucified for you” (1:13) and “What then is Apollos? And what is Paul?” (3:5). They were simply ministers of Christ, a planter and a waterer (3:5-7). They were not Christ, who was crucified for the believers. They were not God, who causes the believers to grow. They should not be appraised beyond what they were. Otherwise, their appraisers, like the fleshly Corinthian believers, might be puffed up on behalf of one, against the other.
