1 Corinthians 9:9 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? ² If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

³ My defense to those who examine me is this: ⁴ Do we not have a right to eat and drink? ⁵ Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? ⁶ Or do only Barnabas and I have no right to refrain from working? ⁷ Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not consume some of the milk of the flock?

⁸ I am not just asserting these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does the Law not say these things as well? ⁹ For it is written in the Law of Moses: “You shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing.” God is not concerned about oxen, is He? ¹⁰ Or is He speaking entirely for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing in the crops. ¹¹ If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? ¹² If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. ¹³ Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar? ¹⁴ So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.

Before we look at 1 Corinthians 9, we need to tie it in to 1 Corinthians 8. In chapter 8 (please read my article on 1 Corinthians 8-10) Paul discussed what it meant to cause a weak brother to stumble and sin. Without going through the chapter here, we want to just focus on his last statement in chapter 8: ¹³ Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to sin. So in chapter 9, his basic point is: I am not an apostle like the other apostles (I saw the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus which qualifies me to be an apostle). He gave the Corinthians miraculous gifts by the laying on of his hands which made them the seal of his apostleship, proving that he was an apostle. I have the right to eat the meat offered to idols, but I choose to not eat. So he ends up discussing how he had. right to marry (like the other apostles) but chose not to; he had a right to not have to work for a living but chose not to. ¹⁵ But I have used none of these things. And I have not written these things so that it will be done so in my case. I chose not to use my freed to do these things, and I am not writing this to get you to start allowing me to do these things.15:for it would be better for me to die than that. No one shall make my boast an empty one! ¹⁶ For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast about, for I am under compulsion; for woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. ¹⁷ For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have been entrusted with a commission nonetheless. ¹⁸ What, then, is my reward? That, when I preach the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. He sees his reward as being able to preach the gospel for free, not using his right to charge for preaching.

Paul says that he could have charged money for preaching the gospel to the Corinthians. He gave examples of soldiers getting pid, farmers getting to eat some of their vineyard fruit, and shepherds drinking some milk from the flock. He cited the Law: 9:9 You shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing”, saying that applied to people and not just oxen. He cited the priests who ate some of the offerings of the people. ¹⁴ So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.”

Is Paul defending the paid local preacher system that most churches use today (not house churches)? I guess you could say that he was based on vs 14, but I don’t think he was! Remember, the church met in house churches. The leadership in the house churches was elders and deacons. They had teachers and maybe prophets, but there were no full time paid local preachers in house churches. Then you had apostles and evngelists. The evangelists would travel church to church, town to town, working with congregations on a short term basis or preaching the gospel to establish churches (“evangelists” comes from the word which meant “to announce the good tidings of the gospel”). These traveling evangelists were given food and a place to stay, but they did not become full time local paid preachers. That was started when churches left the house churches and built buidings in the 4th century with paid priests. It evolved into what. we have now with full time paid preachers in what could be called the “church business”. So I don’t think Paul was suggesting full time paid preachers. I think he was talking about those apostles and evangelists who traveled church to church, town to town, and therefore could not do self supporting jobs. They were worthy of support. 9: ¹¹ If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? ¹² If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. 

But Paul felt strongly about not taking any money or support from the congregation that he was working with. He made tents and supported himself in Corinth. He did receive some money/supplies from the church at Philippi while working in Corinth to allow him more time to preach the gospel. Philippians 4:¹⁵ You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone; ¹⁶ for even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once for my needs.He told the Ephesian elders: Acts 20: ³³ I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothes. ³⁴ You yourselves know that these hands served my own needs and the men who were with me. ³⁵ In everything I showed you that by working hard in this way you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” So to Paul this was a matter of deep conviction.

Is it a sin to have full time paid preachers? First of all, I suppose you could argue that that is a “right” someone or some church could use based on this chapter. It is not a Biblical system, but maybe some can justify it. But is it a wise use of the Lord’s money? Most churches haves several talented, knowledgable men who could preach and teach the word without paying a preacher. But most churches feel that they need a full time preacher who is a talented speaker to compete with other churches. We, like Israel (1 Samuel 8) want to have a “king to be like the other nations”! Then we hire full time youth ministers, educational directors, secretaries, etc.

Paul then tells why he chooses not to use his rights to eat meat, to be paid, etc. He did so for the sake of his influence among the lost, so they would not accuse him of preaching for money. 9:¹⁹ For though I am free from all people, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may gain more. ²⁰ To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might gain Jews; to those who are under the Law, I became as one under the Law, though not being under the Law myself, so that I might gain those who are under the Law; ²¹ to those who are without the Law, I became as one without the Law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might gain those who are without the Law. ²² To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak; I have become all things to all people, so that I may by all means save some. ²³ I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

One verse is interesting. 9:20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might gain Jews; to those who are under the Law, I became as one under the Law, though not being under the Law myself, so that I might gain those who are under the Law.” But we know that Paul kept the Law strictly even after he became a Christian. In Acts 24 Paul challenged them to bring forth evidence that he was breaking the Law of Moses. Acts 21:²⁰ And when they heard about them, they began glorifying God; and they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law; ²¹ and they have been told about you, that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to abandon Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to ^[e]walk according to the customs. ²² So what is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. ²³ Therefore, do as we tell you: we have four men who have a vow upon themselves; ²⁴ take them along and purify yourself together with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads; and then everyone will know that there is nothing to what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also conform, keeping the Law. ²⁵ But regarding the Gentiles who have believed, we sent a letter, having decided that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood and what is ^[k]strangled, and from sexual immorality.” ²⁶ Then Paul took along the men, and the next day, after purifying himself together with them, he went into the temple giving notice of the completion of the days of purification, until the sacrifice was offered for each one of them.” Notice vs 24: but that you yourself also conform, keeping the Law.” He kept the Jewish vow to show that he had not been telling Jewish converts to quit keeping the Law after they became Christians. But this also was to show that he also was “keeping the Law”, which he was. But in 9:20 he says that “he was not under the Law”. Is that a contradiction? I actually did my thesis on this. Paul is not saying the he was no longer under any obligation to keep the Law after he became a Christian. All the Jewis Christians were under obligation to keep the Lw after becoming Christians all the way up to the end of the age in 70 AD. The Law was “perpetual”, i.e. age lasting. But Paul was no longer under the Law as a means of justification. Now he was under the new covennt law of grace and faith for justification.

But the main thought has to be 9:²² To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak; I have become all things to all people, so that I may by all means save some.” Back to the weak brother who believes it is a sin to eat meat offered to idols. If that brother sees Paul eating that meat and then eats also while having doubts and violating his conscience, then Paul has caused him to sin. If that be the case, then Paul says he would become like the weak brother and not eat meats ever in order to save that weak brother’s soul.

This requires self discipline, i.e. to not eat that meat even though you really want to eat it! So Paul closes with some comments on self discipline. 9:²⁴ Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. ²⁵ Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. So they do it to obtain a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. ²⁶ Therefore I run in such a way as not to run aimlessly; I box in such a way, as to avoid hitting air; ²⁷ but I strictly discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”