Today’s message is from 1 Corinthians 9:1-27, the entire chapter. The NIV translators gave this chapter the title The Rights of an Apostle, but it’s really about the apostle Paul’s desire to do nothing to hinder the gospel. He really wanted to win as many as possible to salvation and eternal life—to win as many as possible to Christ.

As we read the passage, remember, as always, that we are reading the word of God. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17) So let the word of God do just that, teach us, rebuke us and train us in righteousness so that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Also, as always, I encourage you to read and study the word of God every day so that you may be trained and equipped for every good work. (Next week, if not sooner, Tom will tell us to “not just be hearers of the word, but doers” —to put the word of God into practice. You can be thoroughly equipped, but if you don’t make use of God’s equipment, it’s pretty much worthless to you and to anybody else.)

¹Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? ²Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

³This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. ⁴Don’t we have the right to food and drink? ⁵Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? ⁶Or is it only I and Barnabas who must work for a living?

⁷Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk? ⁸Do I say this merely from a human point of view? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? ⁹For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? ¹⁰Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. ¹¹If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? ¹²If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?

But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. ¹³Don’t you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? ¹⁴In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

¹⁵But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me. I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of this boast. ¹⁶Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! ¹⁷If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. ¹⁸What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.

¹⁹Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. ²⁰To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ²¹To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. ²²To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

²⁴Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. ²⁵Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. ²⁶Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. ²⁷No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (1 Corinthians 9:1-27)

Last week Tom talked about chapter 8. The NIV translators gave chapter 8 the title Food Sacrificed to Idols. The question in chapter 8 is whether or not we should eat food sacrificed to idols.

This is a question which most of us don’t deal with these days and in this country—whether or not we should eat food sacrificed to idols. However, something similar might come up. (A friend of mine chose to attend a Hindu funeral service where they observed some Hindu worship rituals. I remember wondering if that would be wise.)

In the case of the food sacrificed to idols, Paul says that it’s just meat. The Corinthians were free to eat it if they so chose. The real question was whether or not to do so would be a stumbling block for another Christian. Your brother who is not convinced that he is free to eat meat sacrificed to an idol might be emboldened to eat the meat and then believe that he has sinned. Anything that is not done by faith is sin. Let me quote from Romans 14:19-23:

¹⁹Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. ²⁰Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. ²¹It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

²²So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. ²³But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin. (Romans 14:19-23)

The point is that we may be free in Christ to do something or not, to take some action or not, but we are not free—not free in Christ to do anything that may cause a brother to stumble. You are not free to destroy your brother, even though what you do may by itself be innocent. One of God’s two greatest commands is for us to love our neighbors as ourselves. [What’s the other one?] In lowliness of mind, in all humility, we must consider others to be greater and more important than ourselves. That’s what Jesus did when he came to earth as a man and died on the cross for our sin. “If anyone wants to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” We must follow Jesus. Today’s passage is a continuation of the theme that we must consider others to be more important than ourselves.

Today’s passage is also a continuation of the theme that we must not be self-centered, but rather, Christ centered. We will see this again and again in 1 Corinthians. We’ve seen this in chapter 3. In chapter 3 Paul is rebuking the Corinthians because there is quarreling and divisions among them. He says that they (the Corinthians) are God’s temple in which God’s Holy Spirit lives. If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him! God’s temple is the church and they are destroying it by their quarreling and divisions.

In chapter 10 Paul comes back to the question of food sacrificed to idols. He says, “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” (1 Cor. 10:24) In chapter 12 he talks about the church—how God designed the church so that no one is indispensable. All of us are dependent on each other. We are one body with Christ the head. God designed it so that we need each other just as we need Christ.

In today’s passage, Paul talks about his right as an apostle to the material support of the Corinthians and the fact that he was not asking for it or accepting it. But today’s passage is really a continuation of the command that we consider others to be more important than ourselves. How important it is to do this!

Apparently some were questioning Paul’s authority as an apostle. Paul says, “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle?” What is an apostle? Well, basically, an apostle is someone sent on a mission, a missionary. In that sense there are plenty of apostles around today. I believe that there is still a gift of apostleship. But Jesus designated certain people, the twelve disciples and some others, to speak and write the word of God. Paul was one of them.

So did Paul fax the Corinthians an official copy of his certificate of apostleship stamped with Jesus’s seal? No. He said that the Corinthian church was the seal of his apostleship. The very fact that they had believed when Paul had first preached the gospel to them was the seal of his apostleship! It was not with persuasive words that Paul convinced them that they were sinners and needed God’s salvation, but with a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit. And it was not even because they were persuaded that they needed salvation that they accepted salvation from Jesus, but because the Holy Spirit gave them power to believe. Paul may have healed the sick or cast out demons, but I know that people can see miraculous signs and still not trust Jesus. It is God’s gift and power that enables us to believe. The very existence of the Corinthian church, even with all of its problems, was the seal of Paul’s apostleship.

Paul is defending himself against any claims that he doesn’t have God’s authority. And again he is not going to use any seals or certificates to prove his claim. (And just as an aside here, the Greek word for defense is apology. But it means defense not apology in the way we think of it now. Some of you may have heard the term “Christian apologetics”. When we use that term, we are not talking about apologizing for our faith as in the current meaning of the word apology. Instead we are talking about giving arguments for the truth of what we believe.)

So (to go on), what Paul is going to do here is to argue that he has the right, the right given by Jesus, to be supported materially by those to whom he is ministering. And then to argue that the fact that he is not using that right demonstrates that he is a genuine apostle of Jesus Christ. Do you think that proves that he is a genuine apostle? To me it didn’t sound like it. But let’s go on.

First of all, Paul points out that the other apostles are receiving support, and for those who take along wives when they travel, that their wives are being supported, also. But Paul and Barnabas are supporting themselves.

But Paul didn’t use this right. What’s the point? Paul did not want anything to hinder the gospel! Spreading the gospel among the Gentiles was what Jesus gave Paul to do. (And, by the way, what has Jesus given you to do? What do you do to make sure that nothing hinders what Jesus gave you to do? Paul says in chapter 10:33-11:1, “I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.” How are we following the example of Christ?)

Paul again says that he didn’t use any of his rights—that he’d rather die than have anyone deprive him of the boast that he didn’t use his right to being supported. But Paul wasn’t preaching the gospel free of charge because of pride—so that he could boast about it. He says, “Woe to me if I don’t preach the gospel.”

These days we have people preach that claim to preach the gospel, but their message is pretty much, “Send us some money and God will bless you.” There were probably some like that in those days, too, not necessarily preaching the gospel of health and wealth, but something that would get people to give them money or maybe just a free meal. (There’s an early church document called the Didache, the teaching—the teaching of the 12 apostles. In it is written the following instruction: “If someone claims to be a prophet and hangs around more than two days, kick him out. He’s a false prophet.) I imagine that there were plenty of false teachers whose main purpose was to feed themselves in the days when Paul was spreading the gospel. Paul did not want anyone to think that his motive for preaching the gospel was to get fed.

Paul says, “Woe to me if I don’t preach the gospel.” In 2 Corinthians 5:14 he says, “For Christ's love compels us...” Paul’s motive for preaching the gospel was love—the love of Christ. He prayed in Ephesians for them to be rooted and established in love and to have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that they might be filled up with all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:16-19)

Paul’s entire purpose for living was to win as many as possible for Christ. For the Jews, he observed Jewish customs so that it would not be an issue with them. In Acts, when Paul returned to Jerusalem after being among the Gentiles, he was advised to join in a purification rite with four others and have his head shaved. He did it so as not to offend the Jews. For the Gentiles—well, there’s no example—but we know he ate with them, something Jews would not think of doing (and something, I might add, that he rebuked Peter for not doing). I imagine if the Gentiles fed him pork, he would have eaten it.

To the weak, Paul says that he became weak. I’m not sure what he meant by that, but when someone comes to you with a problem, you can either act like we have it all together or you can admit that you struggle with similar kinds of problems and temptations and failures and that it is plain that it is not your own strength that keeps you, but God’s power.

Again, Paul’s purpose was to save some—as many as possible. He says that he did it to share in the blessings of the gospel. The blessings that we have now when we do God’s work are the blessings of knowing that we are doing his will and are pleasing to him—and in heaven, Jesus will say, “Well done good and faithful servant. Come share in your master’s happiness.” We also are promised rewards in heaven. DO you look forward to being in heaven with Jesus? Paul did. In Philippians he said that it was far better to be with Jesus, but that he would remain in the body for the sake of the Philippians.

Paul is telling us that he is not just going through the motions. He is focused on what Jesus called him to do. There’s a spiritual battle that we have to fight. You can do what you want to do or like to do or maybe what is easy to do, but if it’s not what Jesus has for you to do, you are just beating the air and running aimlessly. Paul disciplined himself to do the work that Jesus had set before him. The gospel spread outside the Jewish world largely because of Paul’s obedience. And from verse 27, just preaching the gospel (or any other Christian activity) doesn’t get you the prize. Paul says that he beat his body into submission in order to not be disqualified from that prize. And he says, “Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ. The example of Christ is to love.