Am I not free?  Am I not an apostle?  Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?  Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?  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.

1 Corinthians 9:1-2

Paul has been exhorting Christians to be willing to give up what they have the freedom to do for the sake of not being a stumbling block to their brethren who were spiritually weaker in knowledge and maturity (8:1-13).  He now offers himself as an example of sacrificing one’s rights for the spiritual benefit of others.

In the passage cited above, Paul starts by asking a series of rhetorical questions.  In doing so, he acknowledges his own freedom, thus pointing out that he was not under any obligation to any man save Christ (cf. John 8:31-32, 36).  He also mentions his apostolic credentials of being an eyewitness to the resurrected Lord (cf. 15:8; Acts 9:1ff; 1:15-26), likely because his claim of being a true apostle was being challenged by his enemies in Corinth (cf. 9:3; 2 Cor. 10-13).  In defending his apostleship, he also cites as evidence how he had converted the Corinthian saints (Acts 18:1-11), calling them “the seal” (sphragis, legal attestation of indisputable proof) that Christ really had made him an apostle.

He continues,  “This is my defense to those who would examine me” (9:3).  While Paul undoubtedly had those who questioned his apostleship in mind as the ones “who would examine” him, his subsequent dialogue would show that they or perhaps others in the Corinthian church also apparently opposed financially supporting him in his work of preaching the gospel.  This is clear because of the rhetorical questions he now asks:  “Do we not have the right to eat and drink?  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?” (9:4-5)  The Lord wanted Paul to spread the gospel throughout the Roman Empire (Acts 9:15a; cf. Rom. 1:5; Gal. 1:16).  At least some of the twelve apostles, as well as Jesus’ biological brothers such as James and Jude who had converted to Christianity after his resurrection (Acts 1:14; cf. Mk. 6:3), were also involved in missionary work and had taken their Christian wives with them in their travels.  They would thus require funds in order for their living necessities (“the right to eat and drink”) to be met as they traveled abroad preaching the gospel to the world (Mk. 16:15).

Apparently, some at Corinth had no problem financially supporting the missionary work of these saints but insisted that Paul and Barnabas support themselves through secular work (9:6).  To show the unfairness and foolishness of this unloving and selfish attitude, he points out that soldiers, vineyard laborers, and shepherds all work for payment and a share of the profits of their labor (9:7), so why should that fact of life not apply to preachers?  Perhaps anticipating the rebuttal that these secular examples are not relevant to the spiritual work in which he and Barnabas were involved, the apostle then rhetorically points out that he does not “say these things on human authority,” but that Scripture says the same, citing the passage from Moses’ law which says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain” (9:8-9a; cf. Deut. 25:4; 1 Tim. 5:17-18).  Asking, “Is it for oxen that God is concerned?  Does he not certainly speak for our sake?” (9:9b-10a), Paul rhetorically answers his own question by noting that the passage does indeed apply to the financial support of preachers of the gospel, comparing their work of sowing the seed of the gospel to the physical agricultural work of plowmen and threshers who likewise “hope of sharing in the crop” (9:10b).  He concludes his defense:  “If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?  If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?” (9:11-12a)

Yet he said all of that to make the following point:  “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” (9:12b).  He wanted Christians to understand the need to sacrifice self for the spiritual benefit of others.  We’ll study more about this next week, Lord willing.

— Jon