1 Corinthians 9:1-14. St Paul's Defence of his Apostolic Authority 1. _Am I not an apostle? am I not free?_ This chapter is devoted to a defence of the Apostolic authority of St Paul, but there is an under-current of thought connecting it with the last which may easily be missed. In ch. 8. St Paul h... [ Continue Reading ]
_for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord_ If any Church had less right than another to question his Apostolic authority, it was the Church of Corinth, which he had founded (ch. 1 Corinthians 4:15), and on which so many spiritual gifts had been poured forth (ch. 1Co 1:5; 1 Corinthians 1:7... [ Continue Reading ]
_Mine answer to them that do examine me is this_ The Judaizers of whom we hear in the Epistle to the Galatians and in Acts 15, are now heard of here also, and this Epistle seems to have stirred them up to a still stronger antagonism, for St Paul is obliged to travel over the same ground in his secon... [ Continue Reading ]
_Have we not power to eat and to drink?_ i.e. at the expense of the Church, cf. St Luke 10:7. This privilege, said St Paul's opponents, was confined to the original twelve Apostles of the Lord.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife_ The ordinary interpretation of this passage is (1) that St Paul here asserts his right, if he pleased, to take with him a wife who was a member of the Christian body, and to have her maintained at the expense of the community. The word _sister_, lik... [ Continue Reading ]
_Or I only and Barnabas_ St Paul and St Barnabas (1) resigned their claim to support on the part of the Church, (2) they were not of the number of the twelve, (3) they were left by the Apostles to undertake the sole charge of the missions to the heathen (Galatians 2:9). On these grounds a charge was... [ Continue Reading ]
_Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges?_ The charge is now refuted on five different grounds. The first argument is derived from the analogy of human conduct. Three instances are given, (1) the soldier, (2) the vine-dresser, (3) the shepherd, who all derive their subsistence from their lab... [ Continue Reading ]
_Say I these things as a man?_ i.e. from a purely human point of view. Cf. Romans 3:5 and Galatians 3:15. This _second_argument is drawn from the law of Moses, and its force would be admitted by the Judaizing section of St Paul's opponents.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Doth God take care for oxen?_ Luther and Estius are here fully of one mind against those who suppose the Apostle to mean that God does _not_care for oxen. "God cares for all," says the former, and the latter gives proofs of this care from Holy Writ, for example, Psalms 36:6; Psalms 147:9. But the p... [ Continue Reading ]
_he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope_ In this verse we may observe (1) that the word translated _treadeth out_in 1 Corinthians 9:9 is here rendered threshing, because the usual Eastern mode of threshing corn was by means of oxen. See Art "Agriculture" in Smith's _Dictionary of t... [ Continue Reading ]
_If we have sown unto you spiritual things_ St Paul's third argument is drawn from the principles of natural gratitude. If we have conferred on you such inestimable benefits, it is surely no very burdensome return to give us our maintenance. Not, says Estius, that the one is in any sense the price p... [ Continue Reading ]
_If others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather?_ Fourth argument. You have admitted the cogency of these arguments in the case of teachers who have less claim upon you than we have, to whom (ch. 1 Corinthians 4:15) you owe your Christian life itself. _Nevertheless we have not use... [ Continue Reading ]
_Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things_ Fifth argument. The Jewish priests are maintained by the sacrifices of the worshippers. See Leviticus 6:17; Numbers 5:8-10, and especially Numbers 18:8-20. So also Deuteronomy 10:9; Deuteronomy 18:1. This was an argument of which in dealing... [ Continue Reading ]
_Even so hath the Lord ordained_ In St Matthew 10:10, and St Luke 10:7.... [ Continue Reading ]
St Paul's use of his Christian liberty is restrained by the thought of the needs of others 15. _But I have used none of these things_ Having disposed of the objections against his claims to Apostleship, he proceeds to the instance he had been intending to give of his voluntary abandonment of his ri... [ Continue Reading ]
_necessity is laid upon me_ See Acts 9:6; Acts 22:21.... [ Continue Reading ]
_For if I do this thing willingly_ Whether St Paul did his work willingly or unwillingly, he could not escape his responsibility. He had been chosen (Acts 9:15; Acts 13:2; Romans 1:5; Romans 15:16; Galatians 1:15-16; 1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 1:2) to bear the good tidings to the Gentiles, and ho man... [ Continue Reading ]
_What is my reward then?_ Literally, WAGES (see last verse). Either (1) as in our version, the preaching the Gospel without charge, and the consciousness of having served God faithfully thus obtained; or (2) as some would interpret, suspending the construction until the end of 1 Corinthians 9:19, th... [ Continue Reading ]
_made myself servant_ Literally, ENSLAVED MYSELF. _the more_ Not necessarily _more than other people_, but as our version implies, _more than he would otherwise have gained_.... [ Continue Reading ]
_unto the Jews I became as a few_ As in Acts 16:3; Acts 18:18; Acts 21:26; Acts 23:6; Acts 26:4-6; Acts 26:22; Acts 26:27. Some of these passages, though they refer to events which occurred after these words were written, are none the less useful as illustrations of St Paul's principle of action.... [ Continue Reading ]
_to them that are without law, as without law_ Literally, TO THE LAWLESS, AS A LAWLESS MAN, i.e. to those who had received no external laws or statutes from God. St Paul's accommodation to the prejudices of Gentiles may be seen in Galatians 2:3; Galatians 2:12; Galatians 2:14. _being not without law... [ Continue Reading ]
_To the weak became I as weak_ i.e. by an affectionate condescension to their prejudices (ch. 1 Corinthians 8:13; cf. Romans 15:1; 2 Corinthians 11:29). _I am made_(literally, BECOME) _all things to all men_ Not in the sense of sacrifice of principle, but by the operation of a wide reaching sympathy... [ Continue Reading ]
Exhortation to Self-restraint 24. _Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize?_ Not that this is the case in the Christian course, but that each should manifest the same eagerness and sustained effort as if the prize could be given to one only. The Corinthians are... [ Continue Reading ]
_And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things_ The temperance of which the Apostle speaks was no light matter. For ten months had the candidates for a prize at these games to abstain from every kind of sensual indulgence, and to undergo the most severe training of the body.... [ Continue Reading ]
_not as uncertainly_ i.e. _with no definite object_, but "looking to some goal," as St Chrysostom observes, and that goal the salvation of himself and others. _so fight I_ The Christian career is not merely a race, but a conflict, and a conflict not only with others, but with oneself. St Paul had t... [ Continue Reading ]
_but I keep under my body_ Literally, I STRIKE UNDER THE EYE, I BEAT BLACK AND BLUE. So the ancient Latin version of Irenæus renders it _Corpus meum lividum facio_. The Vulgate, less forcibly, _castigo_. Tyndale, _tame_. The same word is used in St Luke 18:5 of the effect of the repeated complaints... [ Continue Reading ]