In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul strongly argued for his and Barnabas’s right to be supported in their gospel preaching. The apostle first appealed to what was being practiced by other churches. He was an apostle and the earlier apostles (including Peter) were supported in their labors. And not only were apostles of the Lord supported, but so were the Lord’s brethren (1 Corinthians 9:4). He then appealed to what is ordinarily done when one person works for the profit of another.
Paul was a free man. He had a right to be supported for his preaching work. No soldier serves at his own expense. Those who plant a vineyard eat its fruit; those who tend a flock drink the milk of the flock. Moses showed that animals also deserved to be recompensed for their labor by saying, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn” (Deuteronomy 25:4).
Paul showed that those who serve at the altar and who labor in the temple eat of the sacrifices. As a statement which should have removed the occasion of strife, he wrote, “Even so did the Lord ordain that they that preach the gospel should live of the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:14).
Then he astonishingly declared, “But I have used none of these things: and I write not these things that it may be so done in my case for it were good for me rather to die, than any man should make my glorying void” (1 Corinthians 9:15). One can hardly hold back from asking, “Why not?”
It was not the apostle’s general practice to receive support from the people among which he worked. He had not received support from the Corinthians when he worked with them. He apparently had not received support from Macedonian churches when he and his companions had preached there. Brethren in Philippi had sent “once and again” to him when he was in Thessalonica (Philippians 4:16). On his third journey he spent about three years working with the church in Ephesus without support from them. When he spoke his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, he lifted up his hands and said, “Ye yourselves know that these hands ministered unto my necessities and to them that were with me” (Acts 20:34). In Corinth he made tents with Priscilla and Aquilla (Acts 18:1-3). In Ephesus he taught daily in the school of Tyrannus (Acts 19:9). He did receive some aid along the way, including Lydia in Philippi who said, “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, ye come into my house and abide” (Acts 16:15). Luke’s account of Paul’s stay in Philippi does not reveal that the church provided support for him. However, they helped him twice in Thessalonica (Philippians 4:16), and they likely helped when he was in Corinth (2 Corinthians 11:9). They finally helped when he was a prisoner in Rome (Philippians 4:10-20).
Why would he not use his right to receive help from brethren as he labored in the gospel? He stated he did not want to make his glorying void in the Lord: “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of for necessity is laid upon me; for woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel…what then is my reward? That when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel without change so as not to use to the full my right in the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:15-18). Paul was obligated to preach the gospel; he could not change that. But he could do one thing that manifested great sacrifice on his part: he could preach the gospel without charge.
Some suppose Paul’s parents were wealthy, but even if they were he was in “want” in Thessalonica. It was likely the same case in Rome when the Philippian brethren sent money to help him. Also, the Philippians’s gift had been a blessing to him. He said, “But I have all things, and abound: I am filled, having received from Epaphroditus the things that came from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God” (Philippians 4:18).
Paul’s sacrifice was a testimony of his faith, and is of immense value to us. Given what he was before the light shown down on him on the road to Damascus, what could have made this man give up everything unless he was convinced beyond doubt that Jesus spoke to him?
Jim McDonald