Sunday Sermon: Paul Surrenders His Rights (1 Corinthians 9:1-14)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe.

Paul’s Rights as an Apostle Examined

So 1 Corinthians 9, 1 through 14. I'm going to go ahead and read through our text and then we'll say a short prayer. So this is the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth. This to those who examine me is this.

Do we not have authority to eat and drink? Do we not have authority to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or do only Barnabas and I not have authority to refrain from working?

Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not consume the fruit of it? Or who shepherds a flock and does not consume the milk of the flock? Am I speaking these things according to human judgment or does not the law also say these things?

For it is written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing. Is God merely concerned about oxen or is he speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written because the plowman ought to plow in hope and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops.

If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this authority over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this authority, but we endure all things so that it will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ.

Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar? So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider these things today, as we look at the first half of chapter 9 here, I pray that in the spirit of the Lord we're able to discern these things wisely. There's a certain practical application that readily applies here, I think from the plain language of the text.

But more broadly, what are we to glean from this? That we may live in a pleasing and upright way before the Lord in this present age. Convict our hearts according to your spirit. May we live according to your word.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. Now if we were to just take this by itself, let's say we haven't been in 1 Corinthians all this while. You don't know where we've come from. You don't know where we're going.

But we're just taking this passage for what it is. Chapter 9 verses 1 -14, what we've just read this morning, what would you assume that Paul is talking about here? What's the lesson? Yeah, pay the preacher.

There you go. That's a good one, Brother Bob. I love it. I appreciate it. Pay the preacher. He's worthy of his wages. A pastor deserves his salary. That's kind of what it looks like. It looks like that's exactly the topic that we're discussing here.

But more broadly, where we just came from in chapter 8, where Paul is going to go through the rest of chapter 9 and into chapter 10, what really are we talking about here? What is Paul laying out before the Corinthians?

Yes, sir. Yeah, exactly. Sure. But why? Why does he tell them that? Why do the Corinthians need to recognize that? Examples. Right. Yeah, that's the word I'm looking for. So example. He's presenting himself as an example to follow.

So he gives this here in chapter 9. Certainly a practical application that we can draw from this is exactly what Bob said. Pay the preacher. A worker is worthy of his wages. But Paul is not saying it for that purpose.

He's not saying it explicitly so that the Corinthians would understand, hey, whoever's pastoring over you, whoever is worthy of double honor, the way that he puts it with Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 5, he uses the same Old Testament passage there as well.

Whoever among you is worthy of being paid, he's not just simply saying this to the Corinthians so that they would pay him, but that they would recognize the example that Paul has given to them. And Paul has done these things and has chosen to live the way that he has lived so that he puts no hindrance before the gospel.

And what is it the Corinthians have been doing with one another? They've been hindering the gospel. They've been hindering the effects of the gospel. They're not unified. They're not together. They're separated and broken apart, even going after different teachers, some of them.

And so Paul is laying this out to them in this way so that they would see the example that he's provided and therefore they would follow it. They would be willing to sacrifice for the sake of each other so that the gospel will not be hindered and the effects of the gospel may be able to accomplish what needs to be accomplished in this particular church.

So as we come into this section, of course, this is the first half of chapter 9. We'll get to the next half this week. Let me lay out the section for you like this. We really have verses 1 through 14 here in two parts, and it divides evenly.

Verses 1 through 7, Paul gives the rights of an apostle examined. In verses 1 through 3, he talks about the freedom of an apostle. Verse 4, the freedom of food and drink. Verse 5, the freedom of having a spouse.

Verses 6 and 7, the freedom of taking financial support. And then in the next half of chapter 7, verses 8 through 14, he talks about the rights confirmed by scripture. So first of all, examining those rights, verses 1 through 7, and then goes to the scriptures to show how he's not just making up a list.

This comes straight from the word of God. So you have the command of the law, verses 8 through 9, and a consistent application, verses 10 through 12, and then the clear implication, verses 13 to 14. And I'll lay that out for you a little bit more as we go here.

But look at chapter 9, verse 1, where Paul asks these rhetorical questions to kind of get things started. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?

So that's how he starts this section, asking these questions for them to consider. Now think about where we've just come from. Chapter 8, we went through pretty quickly last week. But like I said, chapters 8, 9, and 10 all go together.

It's kind of tough to just do chapter 8 by itself without keeping chapters 9 and 10 in view. But Paul is talking about food sacrificed to idols. And some, by their knowledge, they know that an idol is nothing.

So what difference does it make? If I go eat food that had been sacrificed to an idol, whether I'm buying it in the market or I even go into one of these pagan temples to get it, what difference does it make?

Yeah, there are some of those who still think that an idol is something, and so they eat the food that had been sacrificed to an idol, and then their conscience is defiled. Paul says, if that's what my eating food sacrificed to an idol is going to result in, then it's better for me to not even eat the meat at all, so I don't cause my brother to stumble.

Look at verse 13, the way he ended that chapter, therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, ever, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. Now we read that, and on a certain academic level, we're just like, okay, I get the meeting, I've read chapter 8, but that's an extreme take, is it not?

I mean, man, if what I eat is going to cause my brother to sin, it's just better for me to not eat at all. Wow, really? Not eat that meat so that it will not cause your brother to stumble. Do we really have to go that far?

But remember, Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to sacrifice on behalf of one another, to consider others' needs ahead of their own, which the Corinthians are not doing. So, Paul shows what length he's willing to go to for the sake of a brother in the Lord.

Are the Corinthians willing to go to those lengths? Now pretend that the chapter division isn't there. So really what you have in chapter 8 is you have Paul addressing the matter of food sacrifice to idols, which he comes back to in chapter 10.

So we have this thing in chapter 9, which kind of sits right in the middle of it. And we've seen Paul do that as we've gone through 1 Corinthians. It's a constant pattern in the way that he writes this letter.

Remember back to chapter 7, where he's talking about marriage and singleness. So we had considered some matters of marriage and singleness through verse 16. So chapter 7, verses 1 through 16. Then you have kind of this thing right in the middle where he gives a couple of examples, and that goes from verses 17 to 24.

Then he comes back to the issue of marriage and singleness, verses 25 to the end of the chapter. Remember seeing that? We're going to see coming up later on with the matter of spiritual gifts. That's where we really get into some controversial stuff.

So spiritual gifts talked about in chapter 12, and then he has the more excellent way, the way of love, in chapter 13. And then he comes back to spiritual gifts in chapter 14. See this pattern that he goes through in 1 Corinthians?

So he's doing this here as well, addressing the matter of food sacrifice to idols in chapter 8. Then he's going to talk about those very things that he's been willing to give up for the sake of the gospel in chapter 9, and then coming back to the matter of food sacrifice to idols in chapter 10.

That wonderful little sandwich in there. And so as he starts off this section showing what he's been willing to give up, again, pretend those chapters aren't even there. They're good markers for us, but you see the flow of thought as he goes from verse 13, if food causes my brother to stumble, I'll never eat meat again, to asking these questions.

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? Why does he ask those questions immediately after what he just said in verse 13? Why does he jump into those questions?

To cause them to really look at the way he lives his life, right? Examine me. Look at me. Look at the way that I live. Look at what I am willing to give up, though I am an apostle of Christ, which is a higher status than any of these Christians have in the church in Corinth, right?

And yet Paul, having rights to certain things, was willing to give them up for the sake of the gospel. And remember also, I had pointed this out to you when we were in chapter 8 last week, but remember where all this is going.

The summarizing statement in chapter 11, verse 1, be imitators of me as I also am of Christ, right? Right? So again, in chapter 9, he asks these questions, am I not free? Am I not free to eat meat that had been sacrificed to an idol?

Am I really defiling myself if I eat meat that had been sacrificed to an idol? No, as we saw previously in chapter 8, we know that an idol is an empty thing. You know, even though Paul said, if you look back up for a moment at chapter 8, verse 5,.

Even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him.

And one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. However, not all men have this knowledge, but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrifice to an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled.

Now we know an idol is an empty thing. There's nothing to an idol. The illustration I gave you last week, it's an empty suit. But here's the thing to keep in mind, and Paul will come back to this later.

An idol is nothing, but idolatry is still a thing. There's nothing to an idol, but guess what? Our flesh is still pretty weak. Pastor Tom's going to talk about this this morning also as he's going through Romans 1.

And he makes a quote from John Calvin about the heart being an idol factory. It's like in our sinfulness, we're constantly trying to attach our worship to something tangible. You know what I mean? Not looking for Him who is unseen.

In Hebrews 11, Moses is commended because he gave up the fleeting pleasures of sin in Egypt and entrusted himself to Him who is unseen. But we in our fleshly tendency, we have that desire to want to attach our worship to something tangible.

So we're always looking for something. And yeah, true, we may not have little Buddha statues in our house. At least I hope you don't. Or you didn't go down to Five and Below and grab one of those little Ganesh statues and have it in your home.

I hope you don't have those things. So we may be more civilized to think of ourselves as, you know, we don't have those little silver or wooden idols in our home. We don't bow down to these things. But yet, the human heart, the tendency of people is still to find something to worship.

Worshiping success. Worshiping acceptance by our peers. Acknowledgement from others. Worshiping politics. Whoever the next president is going to be or person in political office that's going to save us from our circumstance or, you know, whatever our occasion or something might be.

We need help with the government's going to deliver us. Musicians and athletes. Great examples. Yes. Yep. Movies. What's that? Yeah. Who are we trying to put on a pedestal? People. Themselves. That we end up worshiping or placing our heart's affections on.

Putting in the place of God. So, idolatry. That's a real thing. And Paul is cautioning here the Corinthians toward, yeah, you think that you have freedom to go into a pagan temple. And it's not really a thing because there's not really a God in there.

But there is a heart inside of you that has an inclination toward idolatry if we're not careful. And Paul will even illustrate this further when we get to the end of chapter 9 where he says in verse 27, I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

So keep all of those things in mind as we're going through this. Be imitators of me because I am of Christ. And also, Paul disciplines himself. So the Corinthians need to keep that in mind for themselves as well.

That's kind of the bookend of this question that he's asking here at the start of chapter 9, verse 1. Am I not free? I could eat meat sacrificed to idols, but I also discipline myself so that I will not be disqualified.

Am I not an apostle? That's obviously a position of authority. Paul had laid it out in chapter 1, verse 1 that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? That was a qualification for an apostle.

You had to have seen the risen Lord. He's going to get to that in greater detail coming up in chapter 15. And then he asked this question. Are you not my work in the Lord? Now, he said this in 1 Corinthians.

He really lays it out even more clearly a case for this in 2 Corinthians. But the fact that Corinthians are Christians, you know, they've heard the gospel proclaimed by Paul, and they have come to faith in Jesus Christ.

The fact that this has happened authenticates. It is one of the authenticating signs of Paul's apostleship. You've come to faith in Jesus Christ because of the gospel that I preached. And it's as if Paul is saying to them, if I'm fake, then you're fake.

If I'm not really an apostle of Jesus Christ, then you're not followers of Jesus Christ. You don't really know him because you've heard a false gospel. So are you not my work in the Lord? Examine these things.

Now, earlier in 1 Corinthians, he said, I'm not going to be examined by anyone. I'm certainly not going to be examined by you. But he puts himself in front of them in this way so that they would see in him an example that they're supposed to follow.

That's why he's asking these questions like this here at the start of this chapter. If to others I am not an apostle, verse 2, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

You demonstrate the fruitfulness of this gospel that has been proclaimed to you. Authenticating my place as an apostle. And again, Paul is laying this out to them so that they see, they recognize his authority as an apostle.

All the rights that he has as an apostle. So that as they see that about Paul, so that he's then able to say, now follow my example. You recognize the authority I have. What I'm even allowed to do as an apostle.

What have I been willing to give up? What have I done to even discipline myself? So follow this example. In verse 3, my defense to those who examine me is this. And here we have this other set of questions in verse 4.

Verses 4, 5, 6, and 7. I mean, he's asking different questions about different things. With regard to food and drink. With regard to having a spouse. With regard to financial support. So in verse 4, do we not have authority to eat and drink?

Now where Paul in chapter 8 had been talking about eating and drinking food that had been sacrificed to idols, right? That's not actually what he has in mind here. Though we've just come from talking about food in pagan temples or pagan marketplaces.

When he says, do we not have the authority to eat and drink? He's really talking here about you should be feeding us. That's really kind of more what he's saying. Like I have the authority to be able to say, well here I am.

I'm here to preach the gospel of Christ. You should support ministers in this work. So the responsibility is upon you to make sure that we're fed and full of drink. Verse 5, do we not have authority to take along a believing wife?

Even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas. Now we ask this question because there were apostles that were married. Cephas in particular. Remember we read in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke about how Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law.

Cephas being Peter. So since Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law, he's got to have a wife. He's married. So he takes along his wife. We don't know if he had kids as well. The gospels don't tell us that.

Who knows? There could be people walking this earth today who are actual bloodline descendants of the apostle Peter. We don't know. But whether he had children, we know he had a wife. And when he went to preach in different places, he had family that he needed to support.

So when these preachers come to you and they have family, do they not have the authority to do so? And then you need to be able to support them even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord.

That's talking about the half-brothers of Jesus like James and Jude and others. So even they had spouses. And if they come along with family, then you have the obligation to support them. Right? And then verses 6 and 7,.

Or do only Barnabas and I not have authority to refrain from working? Because remember, Paul was bivocational. He had another job on the side to be able to support himself. What was his job? He was a tent maker.

Barnabas would work along with him. We also read about how Aquila and Priscilla would make tents with him even while he was there in Corinth. So he had another job. And he says to the Thessalonians, We did this.

We did our own labor and worked with our own hands so that we could put an example in front of you. We wouldn't be a burden to any of you. But you would have an example of working with your own hands and minding your own business.

I love that aspect of, you know, telling that to the Thessalonians. Do your own job, mind your own business. Just as we taught you. So Paul had a job to support himself and explains why. So he says, Do only Barnabas and I not have authority to refrain from working?

Sorry, this is a new sentence now. Verse 7. Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not consume the fruit of it? Or who shepherds a flock and does not consume the milk of the flock?

Now, these are examples that Paul is giving. Talking about how each one of these occupations, they expect to be able to be paid for their work. So that he could also demonstrate, hey, an apostle should be paid for his labor as well.

Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Even 2 ,000 years ago, soldiers didn't serve at their own expense. We pay our soldiers today, they paid their soldiers back then. Soldier wasn't necessarily a volunteer job.

Who plants a vineyard and does not consume the fruit of it? A person plants a vineyard, probably produces an abundant crop, so that he can sell some of that crop and make a living for himself, but he also enjoys a portion of that crop.

Or who shepherds a flock and does not consume some of the milk of the flock? Now, Paul is using real world examples here. We might call them secular examples, because they're not tied up in religious service in any way.

But he's just drawing this back into something that they would naturally be able to see. You see people doing their work and they earn for their work. Nobody just kind of does a job out there and expects to get nothing from it.

So a person who has committed themselves to the work of ministry should be paid for that work. In verse 8 he says, Am I speaking these things according to human judgment? Now, human judgment is what we just read in verse 7.

So, yeah, perceive, just observe what you can see in the world around you. These different jobs, these people work these different things to be able to earn a certain wage. Human judgment. Does not the law also say these things?

He says at the end of verse 8 or the second part of verse 8. So he says in verse 9, For it is written in the law of Moses, You shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing. Is God merely concerned about oxen?

Is he merely concerned about oxen? When God says that don't muzzle the ox, but let him have some of the grain that falls to the threshing floor. This very verse, which is out of Deuteronomy, Paul applies twice to a worker being worthy of his wages.

He does it here in 1 Corinthians 9, and the other place he does it is in 1 Timothy 5, where he tells Timothy, Those who labor in preaching and teaching are worthy of double honor. So they not only receive acknowledgement and recognition for the preaching and teaching of the word of God that they do, but the double honor is they also get paid for that work.

That's their job. That's their occupation. They've devoted themselves to full time service unto the Lord. And so support those men and pay them for the work that they do. And he goes back to this verse in Deuteronomy to cement that point, even there with Timothy.

So it says in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing. He gets to eat some of the grain that falls to the grain floor. So is God merely concerned about oxen? Verse 10, or is he speaking altogether for our sake?

And because the Corinthians are kind of thick, Paul says, yes, for our sake, it was written because the plowman ought to plow in hope and the thresher to thresh in hope of being able to share the crops.

Turn with me over to Galatians 6. Keep your finger here. I'm going to put my marker there. Let's go over to Galatians 6. I'm turning to the right a little ways. Galatians 6, starting in verse 1. Brothers, even if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.

Each of you looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted. See an obligation there to serve one another in the body of Christ, calling out those who are in sin, but also keeping watch on yourself so that you too will not be tempted.

You won't fall into temptation either. Verse 2, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Now, Paul had said this previously in Galatians. I'm going to test your Bible knowledge a little bit.

Paul said previously to the Galatians, what was fulfilling the law of Christ? Do you remember? What does it mean to fulfill the law of Christ? Blank is the fulfilling of the law. Anybody remember? Love, there you go.

You got it. Love is the fulfilling of the law. So how do they fulfill the law of Christ? By loving one another. Yeah, serving one another, looking out for each other, just as Paul is telling the Corinthians to do.

You see this theme come up with the churches quite frequently. Romans 13 says the same thing. Love one another for love is the fulfilling of the law. So bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Verse 3, for if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. That looks familiar, doesn't it? We saw Paul say the same thing about knowledge at the beginning of chapter 8 in 1 Corinthians.

If someone thinks he is something, he doesn't yet know what he ought to know. So Paul says the same thing to the Galatians in humility. Verse 4, but each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone and not in regard to another.

For each one will bear his own load. In other words, each person has to give an account of himself before God. That's in Romans 14. And Jesus saying in Revelation chapter 2, I am he who searches mind and heart and I will judge each person according to their works.

And so we bear our own load. Nobody else is going to be judged for the stuff that you did and you're not going to be able to take credit for someone else's work. So everyone must give an account of himself before God.

Verse 6, let's continue on here. And the one who is instructed in the word, this is the reason why I came to Galatians 6, so you'd see this. The one who is instructed in the word is to share in all good things with the one who instructs him.

We're going to stop there. We won't go on to the rest of the instructions there, but let me read that one more time. Galatians 6, 6. The one who is instructed in the word is to share all good things with the one who instructs him.

What is Paul saying there? Say again. Support your teachers. Yeah, support your teachers. In what way? Like what way could that be an encouragement to you and to your teachers?

Yeah, sharing the blessings. Okay, sharing the blessings. Like how do you mean blessings? Well, a blessing that you receive, you share that with your…. No doubt they've had a minister to the Lord through that.

Yeah, amen.

It's a reciprocal thing. Right, spiritual blessings, Bob is saying. So yeah, we share a spiritual blessing that you have. So it could be in this way. It could be that you were truly blessed by something Pastor Tom preached this morning.

And so you go up to him and you say, Man, you showed me something in the word of God today I didn't recognize before. Sure convicted my heart, and I appreciate that. It's helping me to walk better with the Lord, growing me in my sanctification.

Sharing a spiritual blessing with a teacher. Or you might hear a story of somebody who came to faith because of something that was said in a sermon or in a Sunday school class, or they were witnessed to by somebody in this church.

They've heard the story of someone who's come to faith in Christ. They've turned from their sin to Jesus Christ. And now let's all celebrate that together, right? Let me share that with those teachers who labor in the preaching and the teaching.

That we all get to share together in the wonderful blessings of God, not just in the material things like we're talking about in 1 Corinthians 9, but we're also sharing in spiritual blessings. At the elders meeting that we just had this past Tuesday evening, we took a portion of the time together as elders to share those stories that we've heard.

Of those who have come to faith, one in particular just came up to me last week and said she's convicted in heart, recognizing that she needs a Savior and that Christ is that Savior. I won't tell you who this is.

She'll be baptized in a few weeks here because we've been talking with her and really, really excited about this person who has come to faith. And so we share that together as elders. Guess what? Guess what happened this week?

And we rejoice together. And as a church, we're going to rejoice when we see somebody baptized up here. We rejoice, we celebrate together that somebody has come to faith in Christ and we share in these spiritual blessings.

And so we're sharing with one another, not just in these material things, with these teachers who labor in the preaching and teaching, not just sharing material things as Paul talks about in chapter 9, but there's even a sharing of spiritual things.

One who is instructed in the Word is to share all good things with the one who instructs him. And we even want to be more diligent as a church to inform you about some of those stories and those testimonies.

We usually do that on Sunday night, I think a little more so than we do on Sunday morning. But nonetheless, we want you to know about the work this church does and the people that are reached with the gospel of Christ through the preaching and teaching that is done here.

I'm grateful to hear the different stories and different testimonies of people. Some members of this church, I don't know if you realize, some members of this church drive an hour to come to service with us.

Why? Why do they drive so far? To hear the gospel. And very sadly, it's not being preached where they're driving from. Now that's not to say the gospel isn't there at all, but those preachers and teachers in those areas, they're just not devoted to actually teaching the Word of God so that the people of God understand the Word of God and then be able to grow in the sanctification of God.

So it's encouraging and it is kind of heartbreaking in one sense as well because I wish the gospel, I wish a devotion to God's Word, to the exposing of the scriptures, I wish there was more commitment to that in a lot more of these churches that we see so many of in East Texas, amen?

But so many of those churches not actually preaching the Word of Christ as those ministers have been entrusted to do. So we want to be able to share in these things with each other, even the spiritual blessings that we're so blessed to receive here as part of First Baptist Church.

Yes, brother? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Even follow the example of the way that we love each other among us ministers. And Paul had laid that example out in chapter 1 as well. Let's go back to chapter 9, but any other questions or comments about that?

Any other things to add? Yes, sir?

Yeah, thank you, absolutely.

Right, I know, yeah, that we get the blessing to be able to do that here. It's such a great thing. So Bob is pointing out the fact that we've got the expository workshop that's coming up this week. Us teachers are getting together.

We're going through all the material together on Wednesday. We spend all day doing that. So just the teacher side of it. We're leading the pastors in 2 Corinthians, the pastors who are coming in for the workshop on Thursday and Friday.

And so we get together on Wednesday and we go through each one of these, what's called a pericope. It looks like it's spelled pericope, but it's pronounced pericope. If you have a certain section of text or of scripture, the technical name for that section of text is a pericope.

So when, like for example, Pastor Tom is preaching today from Romans 1, 18 to 24, that's his pericope of text. So we as teachers, we get together and we go through all of these pericopes and how we're going to be leading and guiding the pastors according to the structure that's in the text, finding the theme and the aim and things like that.

Even some of those things that I talk about with you when we go through these sections together in our Sunday school lessons. And then on Thursday and Friday, those pastors that are going to be part of this workshop.

By the way, we've got 88 pastors coming in. That's full. We have no more room. 88 is the cap. Because there are small groups of eight, and then there's one leader in that group. So we have 11 groups. So we have 88 that are coming in, plus the teachers in each one of those groups, that's 99, plus our volunteers.

We have to feed about 110 people this week. And we've got so many volunteers that are helping us out with that. So pray for that work, that it goes well this week. And it's, again, like Bob mentioned, one of the wonderful things we get to do.

In a little church in Lindale, Texas, there are pastors that want to come here and they want to learn how to exposit the scriptures. And like I said, those pastors have even been doing some work prior to this workshop, because we give every one of those pastors an assignment.

They have two pericopes from 2 Corinthians that they're supposed to have prepared into lessons. And then when we meet together in our small groups, they're going to lay out their work. Here's the work that I did on this particular section, and receive critique from their fellow pastors.