1 Corinthians 9:1

“Am I not free? am I not an apostle? have I not seen Jesus our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord?”

These accumulated questions betray the emotion which seizes the apostle as he approaches this delicate subject. Before showing why he has renounced his rights, he must prove that those rights exist, and, to this end, that he is truly an apostle. If, with the T. R., we begin with the question: Am I not an apostle? it can only signify: “Am I not free to use the rights which this office confers on me?” But this question would come rather abruptly after the preceding verse, and the two. last questions of the verse connect themselves much more directly with the idea of apostleship than with that of liberty. We must therefore begin with the latter, according to the Alex.: “ Am I not free? ” This question is also more naturally connected with the last idea of the previous chapter. We shall find the apostle closing (1 Corinthians 9:19-22) with the same idea of Christian liberty with which he had begun. This liberty of Paul's is liberty to eat sacrificed meats, and in general to free himself wholly, when he thinks good, from Jewish usages (1 Corinthians 9:19-20).

From his liberty as a Christian, Paul passes, in the second question, to his apostolic dignity and to the rights which he possesses as an apostle. The verb οὐκ εἰμί, am I not, is placed before the predicate in the two questions, because it is on the idea of being that the emphasis lies: “Am I not really? ” An apostle is one sent immediately by the Lord, who alone can confer such a mandate. But the call to the apostleship implies a personal meeting with Christ, and hence the third question: Have I not seen...? When, at Jerusalem, it was wished to elect an apostle to take the place of Judas, the two candidates were chosen among those who had companied with Jesus, “from the baptism of John to the ascension, to be witnesses of His resurrection” (Acts 1:22). If Paul had merely heard the good news, like all other believers, from the lips of the Twelve, whatever might have been his gifts, he could never have claimed the title of an apostle. And hence the term: I have seen, in this context, cannot refer either to any instance in which Paul might have seen Jesus at Jerusalem during His earthly ministry, or to a simple vision which the Lord might have granted him. This term can only designate the positive historical fact of the appearing of Jesus on the way to Damascus. It was never believed in the primitive Church that an accidental meeting with Jesus, or a vision, such as that of the dying Stephen, could give a right to the title of apostle; comp. 1 Corinthians 15:8 and Acts 22:14.

The Alex. reject the word Christ to retain only the word Jesus, and rightly; for we have to do here with the historical personage who appeared to Paul, with Him who said to him: “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” The title our Lord denotes this Jesus as Head of the Church, who alone is entitled to confer the apostleship; comp. Galatians 1:1 and Acts 1:26.

But the Lord's appearing to Paul was known mainly, if not exclusively, from his own account; to deny it his adversaries had only therefore to cast doubt on his sound sense or good faith. Hence the apostle adds a new proof of his apostleship, borrowed from the experience of the Corinthians themselves, the founding of their Church by him, Paul; this is the subject of the fourth question. The force of this argument is less in the fact itself of the founding of the Church than in the Lord's co-operation powerfully manifested in the course of this work. The words ἐν κυρίῳ, in the Lord, bear on the whole question, and not only on the words ἔργον μου, my work; they are the true point of support for the conclusion to be drawn. We know from the passage 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 the weak, unarmed, trembling condition in which the apostle felt himself when he founded this Church. So this work could be attributed only to Christ's power acting through his weakness and itself touching hearts. It is to this experience of Christ's co-operation in the work of His servant that Paul appeals in the two following verses, which are specially connected with this last question, and state the conclusion of it.