Grace Church Wednesday Nights - 1 Corinthians Pt 17

Pastor Robb Yandian 

Denying our rights

Previous chapter talked about not causing others to stumble.  It was not about not offending someone because you will always offend someone.  

The Christian life is not about our rights.  

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1 Corinthians 9:1-18 (ESV)
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1. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?

Chapter 8 talks about the rights, yes you have them but so then Paul does also.  He was their spiritual father. 

2. If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

He can claim higher rights than they could, he was an apostle.  

3. This is my defense to those who would examine me.

4. Do we not have the right to eat and drink?

5. Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

6. Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?

He goes from me to we.  He is talking about the other apostles, Peter and Barnabas.  Paul has the same rights as these apostles.  People were saying that they were not apostles, they were out on their own and have to work just like the married apostles.  Big picture, all of us apostles have rights also.

7. Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?

Soldiers do not have to work as well as serve, it is given as part of service,  Farmers can eat what they plant, tend flocks drink milk.  Ministry is work.

8. Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same?

9. For it is written in the Law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain." Is it for oxen that God is concerned?

10. Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop.

Now Paul quotes the Old Testament. The law still has authority today.  Paul's concern is to benefit people here, not the animals.  Paul is saying that God cares for us more than animals.  The oxen were allowed to eat based on the work they were doing.  Paul is saying this is their job, they have a right to earn a living by their preaching.

11. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?

Ministry is spiritual work but it is right to get material things from it.

12. If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

Paul is saying that others get this ministry support because they have family but Paul is not.  This is not right, and Paul is not pushing it.  In other words, He is giving up his right to be paid and could push it.  So you guys need to give up your rights (from chapter 8).  Both cases involve a stumbling block (obstacle). 

13. Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings?

14. In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

Repeating his case, now using the Temple servants as an example.  In fact (v. 14) Jesus commanded that those who proclaim the Gospel should get their living from their ministry. 

15. But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. 

For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.

So what were they thinking,  he is trying to get money from us??  He is addressing this here.  He does not want their money.

16. For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!

He wants them to understand that this is not about money. It was about proclaiming the Gospel.  It was what he existed for, this preaching of the Gospel. Serve God and God will bring the money to you.  Do not do it for the money however.

17. For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship.

18. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

If he chose this of his own will he has his reward.  This is what God has put in to him to do.  

This chapter shows that as a minister had rights. But these rights would be put down so that he would be able to preach the Gospel with out any hindrance to those who were watching him.