The Paul taught that those who faithfully preach God's Word deserve to be supported by those who benefit from the preaching. We'll hear his rationale today on Truth for Life and find out why Paul didn't claim this right when he was preaching in Corinth.
Alistair Begg is continuing our study in 1 Corinthians. The principle that he has underscored is in the ninth verse of chapter 8, where he says, Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom, which is a real freedom unfettered by man's interference, make sure that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. Now, when you come into chapter 9, it may appear that on first glance he's actually changing the subject.
After all, he begins to address the issue of apostleship almost straight away. But I think the opening phrase is the key to allowing us to understand that chapter 9 follows directly from chapter 8, and that the principle is being worked out in his life and his ministry. He is free to restrict his freedom for the sake of the gospel.
That's the principle. He has a freedom to restrict his freedom. He has told the readers that love will restrict liberty for the sake of others. And he's driven that home fairly forcibly, and it's almost as if he anticipates the question arising, well, would you please tell us how that principle works out in your ministry, Paul?
What does that mean for you in practical terms? And then in a whole series of rhetorical questions, he provides the answer to that unspoken question. In verse 3, it becomes very clear that there were those who were calling into question his authority and his authenticity, expressly his claim to be an apostle. The word that is used at the end of verse 3, those who sit in judgment on me, anachronosin, is the word that would come from the law courts of his day. It would be exactly the process of cross-examination. And so using the word also from the law courts of his day, he says that I will produce my defense, my apologia, to those who are involved in the cross-examination.
I believe that when he says this is my defense, he is referring to what he has just said. And he has been affirming his authenticity and his authority, first of all, in relationship to his relationship with Jesus Christ, which allows him to affirm his freedom. He says, am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus the Lord? Now, when he said that, first of all, it would bring to his own mind the fact of the life-transforming experience which he had encountered when he met Christ on the Damascus road. He knew that he had been set free, as he writes to the Roman Christians, from sin, and he had become a slave to righteousness.
Paul understood Christian freedom, and his very freedom in Christ was illustrative of his relationship with Christ. And this he has in common with all the believers to whom he writes, and all down through the ages. But his relationship with Christ was different insofar as the function that Christ had given him was something that he shared only with a few.
Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? You see, his authority and his authenticity as an apostle was not the result of human ingenuity, but was the result of divine initiative. He recognized that he was one of a unique, unrepeatable group who shared three things in common. They had had a sight of the risen Christ, they had had a divine commission from that Christ, and they were inspired by the Spirit of God. And it was those three things that marked them out for apostleship.
That is why the words that they wrote are inscripturated for us, and that is why we must obey Paul's words just as much as we obey Jesus' words. And so while the jealous and the hostile were challenging his authenticity, Paul here in chapter 9 appeals to two things, essentially. He appeals, number one, to his sight of Christ.
Have I not seen the Lord? He had received a divine commission. And then he appeals interestingly to the seal of his apostleship expressed in the lives of those to whom he writes. He says in verse 2, even though I may not be an apostle to others, and in other words, people may not regard me as an apostle, he says, surely I'm an apostle to you. Surely of all people you understand because I came into Corinth and I preached the gospel in Corinth and you folks through my life and my ministry came to faith in Jesus Christ.
You knew that I was sent here. And then he says, you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. No one else had had a relationship with the Corinthian church in the way in which Paul had done. They were the living proof of the effectiveness of his work in the Lord.
Just in the same way as a large package would be stamped with a seal and that would declare where it had come from. So he says in a real sense, the church in Corinth is marked with my seal. And though other people may call in question my relationship with you, he says, you know that I am authentically the servant of Christ. Now what he does then is from addressing his relationships as a form of defense, he then turns to speak to his rights in verse 4. And he essentially affirms three rights.
See if you can see them with me, see if you agree with what I'm saying. Right number one that he has is the right of maintenance. The right of maintenance. Don't we have the right to food and drink? Now clearly what he is not saying is, can we not drink juice and have food?
What's the point in saying that? The answer to that is everybody's got the right to that. What he is referring to here, I think as the context unfolds, is the right of being maintained by the church. He says, we've got to eat just like everybody else. Don't we have the right to receive food and drink, the maintenance that is required for living?
That's right number one. Right number two is that that maintenance might attach to his wife. He says, don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas? Now he's not affirming here the fact that he has a right to have a wife.
That's not the assertion. The apostles were in no doubt, the world of that time would never have queried the question as to whether apostles had the right to have a wife. Indeed he says, illustrating it, he says that the other apostles have wives. He says Cephas, the head of the whole operation in many ways, he takes his wife and the Lord's brothers, they take their wives. Now I think this has great implications incidentally for traveling ministers and evangelists and it is something that people at conferences in different places probably need to give a little more thought to than they've done in the past. If a person is in a position to have their wife travel with them and their children are of a stage that that can be done, the people who invite ought to cover the costs of the guy's wife. That's my conviction. And some of the tragic circumstances that have emerged from traveling folks would probably have been countered very effectively if the people who were inviting the individual had been prepared to get to grips with this right to the maintenance of the wife as well as the husband.
I think it has some application there. Third right is the right to get one's livelihood from the ministry without having to work on the side. That's in verse 6. There's a touch of gentle sarcasm here in verse 6. Incidentally, the word right, exousia, comes in all three verses, 4, 5, and 6. It's translated power, I think, in the King James Version.
Is it only Barnabas and I who must work for a living? Now we'll come back to this in a moment or two, but those are the rights, okay? The right of maintenance, the right that that maintenance should attach to his wife, and the right to earn his living from the gospel without having to do another job on the side. Now what then is his rationale for this? Upon what does he base these rights?
Let's go through them one at a time and fairly briefly. First of all, he says, it is in keeping with the common practice in other areas of life. The reason he says that I should be able to be supported in this way is because that's what happens everywhere else. He speaks of the soldier, the vinedresser, and the one tending the flock. Soldier, farmer, shepherd. And he says, think it out. The soldier doesn't supply his own uniform, and he doesn't fight for free.
He's got in mind a mercenary soldier, obviously. The fruit farmer doesn't go to market and buy his own apples. It is obvious to anybody that he would eat the stuff that he grows.
The shepherd will probably have the bulk of his breakfast from the good things he's produced. Nobody would quibble with that. So he says, my basis for establishing this right is because it is in keeping with a common practice in other areas of life. Therefore, since it is so natural and so just that it happens that way in those areas, who would be so unjust as to deny it to the minister of the gospel? Second basis for his rationale is that he says it is in keeping with biblical precept. Do I say this from a merely human point of view? He says, am I just giving you sort of human wisdom as the basis for my argument?
No, he says, I'm not. Let me quote, he says from the law of Moses, quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 25, do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain. And then he does his own little exposition of the passage, making it clear that he understands it not in allegorical terms, but in clear terms, he asks the question, surely this concern is not about oxen, but about us. The NIV helps us by putting it in a rhetorical way. Is it about oxen that God is concerned?
He says, no, surely this he says for us, doesn't he? He says, because after all, when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. They're not just doing this for the good of their health. They're not just doing this for fun. They're doing it and as they do it and sweat bursts from their forehead, they've at least got something to look forward to at the end of the week. There will be a paycheck.
There will be some reward for their activity. So his rationale, number one, it's in keeping with the framework of common practice in other areas of life. It is also in keeping with biblical precept. Thirdly, it's in keeping with a sense of intrinsic justice.
It's just right, he says. If we have sown spiritual seed among you, verse 11, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? They have been the beneficiaries of his spiritual blessings and now they have the opportunity to become the bestowers of material benefits. Now this is where it gets really tough for us, isn't it? Because as soon as we read this in the context of our day, we get all kinds of bells go off and they probably should because we have heard these kinds of things used to manipulate people into giving funds to all kinds of places at all kinds of times and they constantly play on this string, you know. Haven't we done amazing things in your life?
I mean, don't you remember when you listened to me on the television and this happened to you? Therefore, for just $150 if you will send it to me, I will give you this book which is worth 27 cents when I mass produce them and I will build something with the other $149 plus. And so in reaction, many of us are sour to this notion and we would rather that everybody who was involved in pastoral ministry could do what Paul says he does at the end of chapter 9. And I for one would be very happy to do so, namely to earn my income from another source and never receive a dime from the Lord's people. It's just that I don't have the ability to do that, nor have you been asked to do it, but I would be glad to do it and I would do it for the very same reason that Paul affirms. So that nobody could say, you use that as a manipulative means of lining your own nest because it is always the potential charge. But we cannot gain say the principle.
Let me quote to you another commentator. The Lord's servants are to be supported well. There should not be a double standard applying to preachers, missionaries, and other Christian ministers, a standard that is considerably lower than that set for those laboring in the system of man.
We should pay them as generously as is feasible and leave the stewardship of that money to them, just as we expect the stewardship of our own money to be left to us. Verse 12 addresses the fact that others who doubtless had a far less claim to support were the beneficiaries of it. Verse 12, if others have this right of support from you, as they clearly did. In other words, people were poaching off the Corinthians and they were picking up cash.
He says, if other people receive money from you, don't you think we should receive money from you? Now, I want to save myself a major tangential run here, but I think that I could, without doing despite to the Scriptures, articulate a fairly clear case here in relationship to parachurch organizations. I've lost track of how many times people phone me up and ask about this organization, that organization, and where they should send their money and everything else, and some guy comes on the television or hits them up with some new scheme or dream, and suddenly vast resources, manifest resources are released from the church.
Many times for endeavors which come today and are gone tomorrow. And yet the work of the faithful, hardworking pastor in ministry, often in situations that are not as blessed as ours, in places far more daunting, with resources of a far smaller nature. Many times those men are impoverished, while others receive the hard-earned income of men, because it is far more attractive to give to that big exciting thing than it is to give to old Pastor Joe. But the work of the kingdom is the work of the church, and the principle remains. If others have a right to receive, don't I? says Paul.
If you're going to send your money halfway around America, doesn't the local church have a place? I say, well, we understand this. We couldn't have done what we've done. I understand that. I'm not trying to be an unkind person. I'm just trying to preach the Bible. Just apply it as it comes.
Okay? Now we're going to come back to verse 12 and finishing, but go now to verse 13. Don't you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple? And those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar. Now the answer to that on the part of the people would be, yeah, we know that. People bring things into the temple and they get to eat some of it. Sometimes there's leftover stuff they take at home and they have it for their food. And some pastors are sustained directly by that physical contribution.
Not a bad deal really when you come to think of it. And so the Corinthians needed to look no further than the Jewish temple to discover the self-same principle in daily operation. The fifth one, it is in keeping with the Lord's directives. Verse 14, in the same way the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. Now what Paul has in mind here, we cannot be certain of. For there is certainly no categorical statement made by Jesus in this way, but the principle is made perfectly plain.
Matthew chapter 10, Jesus is sending out the 12. And in verse 8, he says, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons, freely you've freely give, do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts, take no bag for the journey or extra tunic or sandals or a staff for the worker is worth his keep. In other words, you'll get the money. You sow spiritually, you reap materially.
People will look after you. The Lord won't let you go stuck. The life of faith. Now, having laid down this rationale, I want you to notice what he says concerning it all. And this we conclude with, because verse 12b and verse 15 are absolutely key. In the second half of verse 12, having established the basis of his rights, he says, but we didn't use this right.
We didn't use it. Verse 15, I haven't used any of these rights. It's a tremendously powerful position to be in.
It's a devil if you're going to speak like this because you're trying to get your salary increased, you see? But if you don't have any ulterior motive, you can speak with great impunity about it. You can just lay it all out there as he does, because he knows that he's not looking for anything from them, but he wants them to understand that they can't weasel out of it. They've got a responsibility on the basis of the five things that he's laid down. He says, but we, including Barnabas, we had the freedom to restrict our freedom. And we did so, he says, for three reasons. Number one, so as not to dig up the entrance road of the gospel.
That comes from the Greek here. We put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. The word that is used there for hinder is the word that would be used for digging up your road so as to prevent the advance of an enemy and to restrict mobility. He says, we felt that if we had been the recipients of what we have a right to, we would have dug up the road for the entrance of the gospel. And in the minds of many people, they would have been able to say, aha, we understand it.
You're in it for the cash. He said, so although we had the right, we refused to exercise the right because of that reason. Also, we refused the right so that you wouldn't think we were coming by the back door for making material gain. And that's verse 15, the second sentence. And I am not, he says writing this, in the hope that you will do such things for me.
Let's be clear, he says. And thirdly, they had chosen not to exercise their right so that they would not fall into the trap of anybody thinking that they paid them to preach. You do not pay your pastor to preach. You can't pay me enough to preach, and you can't pay me too little to stop me from preaching. I don't preach for money. The remuneration that I receive and we receive is out of the benefit and kindness of your heart to make it possible for me to study my Bible while others work in another context, so that I will stand up here properly prepared and not like some gibbering nincompoop. But it's not a piecemeal, per-sermon operation. These things are so important, because so many ministries have been destroyed in areas of finance, and our ministry could be destroyed by that. Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls.
You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Here at Truth for Life, we care deeply about the local church and those who are called to serve and to lead those churches. In fact, our mission statement reflects that commitment. We want to teach the Bible every day with clarity and relevance, trusting that God will work through his word to convert unbelievers into committed followers of Christ and to help believers grow in their faith. Our prayer is that pastors will be encouraged to teach only the Bible, and that local churches will be strengthened as a result. Alistair just reminded us that our resources should always go first to the local church, so I want to encourage you, if you're not already supporting your local church with the gifts God has given you, today is the day for you to begin. And if you are already making the local church your top priority, you might consider supporting gospel work by giving to Truth for Life. With every donation, you're helping to deliver sound biblical teaching to a global audience. And when you give today, we'll say thank you by offering you a copy of the book Gospel People, A Call for Evangelical Integrity.
You can donate online at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for listening today. Tomorrow we'll find out why the ultimate exercise of freedom for the Apostle Paul was the freedom to restrict his freedom. And if that sounds strange, join us tomorrow as Alistair unpacks it. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
