1 Corinthians 9:17

“For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, it is a dispensation which is committed unto me.”

The γάρ, for, signifies that the second part of 1 Corinthians 9:16 really proves the affirmation enunciated in the first, to wit, that Paul has no cause of glorying in the act of preaching, if he does so by constraint.

The first of the two propositions contains a simple supposition, stated in passing to form a contrast with the second, which alone expresses the real fact. As Heinrici well says: “If I preach the gospel willingly which is not the case

I have a reward.” The second proposition signifies, on the contrary: “But if I do so by constraint as is really the case it is a dispensation committed...” In the first proposition the apostle could have used the optative πράσσοιμι ἄν : If I should do so of good-will...He has preferred the indicative πράσσω, if I do so, probably because he knows that this case, denied so far as he is concerned, is in fact realized in the case of others: “If, like those who freely became preachers (the Twelve, 1 Corinthians 9:5), I preach of my own good-will.” The words μισθὸν ἔχω signify: “I have right in this case to a recompense.” This term recompense, μισθός, is correlative to καύχημα, cause of glorying. The second denotes Paul's action, whereby he can give to his work a character of freedom; the other, the advantage which should accrue to him from it. We shall see in 1 Corinthians 9:18 what this advantage is.

The two terms ἑκών and ἄκων (willing and unwilling) do not refer, as some have thought, to the subjective disposition with which the apostle usually filled this ministry: “If I preach with ardour...or if I preach against my will.” Thus understood, the two propositions of the verse would not fall into the context where the subject is preaching gratuitously. Paul is speaking of the manner in which he was charged with the apostleship. As the term ἑκών alludes to an apostleship freely accepted, the term ἄκων refers to the constraint which characterized the origin of his, the ἀνάγκη of 1 Corinthians 9:16.

The last words, οἰκονομίαν πεπίστευμαι, literally: it is a stewardship with which I am charged, signify: I must by all means fulfil it. The construction is the same as Romans 3:2. These words contrast the situation of a slave with that of the freeman. Among the ancients, stewards belonged to the class of slaves (Luke 12:42-43). Now a slave, after completing his task, has no recompense to expect; he would simply have been punished had he not done it. The sense is therefore: “I do slave's work, nothing more.” Such was the position made for Paul by the mode of his calling to the apostleship; and it would remain what it is, servile, if he were content to preach the gospel like the other apostles. But this is precisely the position which he will not have, and to which he would prefer death itself. He would feel himself related to his Lord, not as a slave, but as a freeman, a friend; and hence it is that because this element of free-will had been lacking in the origin of his apostleship, he introduces it afterwards; how? This is what is explained in 1 Corinthians 9:18.