WWUTT 1542 Paul Defends His Rights (1 Corinthians 9:3-12)

Paul goes through 1 Corinthians chapter 9 defending his rights as an apostle and he does this to give an example to the

Corinthians on sacrificial love, on being considerate of one another when we understand the text.

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 9, picking up where we left off yesterday, but I'm going to start out here by reading verses 1 through 9 out of the

Legacy Standard Bible the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. Am I not free?

Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the

Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the

Lord. My defense 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 in 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 ought 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 we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ.

Now Paul uses the word authority here, or at least the way that it's translated in the Legacy Standard Bible and also in the

New American Standard, it's translated authority. Some translations use the word rights.

The ESV, for example, uses the word right or rights in replacement of the word authority.

So Paul is talking about the rights that he has as an apostle, that he may demonstrate to the

Corinthians he gave up those rights for their benefit. Now, not all the apostles do the same as he did, but he is setting forth for them an example so that they may serve one another, because not loving one another is a big issue that's going on here in the church in Corinth.

This is all kind of building to a certain crescendo, and we get to chapter 13 where Paul will say explicitly, this is what love is, and it's not what you're doing.

You must love one another. You must be patient and kind, and you're not doing that with each other.

So Paul is presenting himself as an example. I have a right to eat what I want to eat.

An idol is an empty thing, right? Going back to chapter 8. Just because food was sacrificed to an idol does not make it unclean.

I can eat it. I'm clear of conscience. I have not been defiled because I eat it. But there are some that do not have the strength and conscience to understand this, and when they see you eating food that has been sacrificed to an idol, and so they think it's okay, and then they eat, but then their conscience is defiled.

They believe that they've worshipped now at an altar to a false god, and that has put enmity between them and God.

And so it's better for me to not eat that thing at all, even though I know that I can eat it with a clear conscience.

But if it's going to cause my brother to stumble, it would be better for me to not eat meat at all.

And that was verse 13 of chapter 8. 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.

And it's this kind of attention to one another that Paul is trying to call the

Corinthians to. And he demonstrates the rights that he has as an apostle that he was willing to give up to win as many to Christ as he could.

We're going to get to that as we continue on here through chapter 9. So yesterday,

I looked primarily at verses 1 and 2, Paul asking rhetorically, am I not free? Am I not an apostle?

Have I not seen Jesus, our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? All of these things are rhetorical questions.

They're answered in the affirmative. Of course, he's free. Yes, he's an apostle. He's seen Jesus, the Lord, and the

Corinthians are his work in the Lord. If to others, I am not an apostle, at least

I am to you, he says, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the

Lord. My defense to those who examine me is this. So it's almost as if Paul is putting himself on trial.

He's doing this for their sake so that they may see the example that he's setting before them. He puts himself on trial and he asks these questions, okay?

Verse 4, do we not have authority to eat and drink? So another way of wording this, this is out of the

English Standard Version. Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Like we can eat and drink whatever we want.

Do we not have that right? Yes, we do. Of course we do. There is no food or drink that is unclean, that makes me unclean before God.

Now, of course, everything in moderation. You can take good healthy food and you can gorge yourself on it, and then you're guilty of greed, of gluttony.

And you have filled yourself up, fattened yourself up with this food. And though there's nothing about that food that is inherently unclean, it is the matter of your heart and the way that you partook in it that caused you to sin before God.

So as Paul will say later on in chapter 10, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

So even what we eat must be to God's glory. Even what we drink, to God's glory. There's nothing about food and drink that makes us unclean, but whatever we do not do in faith is sin.

As Paul says in Romans 14, really addressing the same things there in the 14th chapter of Romans.

So he says, do we not have authority or do we not have the right to eat and drink? Of course we can eat and drink whatever we want.

Previously in chapter eight, food will not commend us to God. We neither lack if we do not eat nor abound if we do eat.

So we have the authority to eat and drink whatever we want. Answer to the question. Verse five, 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? So it's interesting that he says of the wife that we take, you know, talking about the men who have been appointed to this mission of sharing the gospel for the sake of Christ, the wife that they have should be a believing wife.

If she's coming along on this mission's work, she must be a believer. So he says, we have authority.

We have the right to take along a believing wife. Do we not? Of course we do. Even as the rest of the apostles, all of the rest of the apostles, except for John and Paul were married.

Even Peter, of course, Peter was married because we read about him having a mother -in -law in Matthew eight verses 14 and 15,

Jesus entered Peter's house. He saw his mother -in -law lying sick with a fever.

He touched her hand and the fever left her and she rose and began to serve him. If Peter has a mother -in -law, then he's married to the woman who is the daughter of his mother -in -law.

Therefore, Peter is married. This is contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic church, which claims that Peter is the first Pope, but also that the

Pope must be unmarried. So the doctrine of their papacy falls flat on its face from the very first man that they claim to be the first Pope, Peter, because this guy was married.

Now how many of the apostles were married? It's generally understood. This is what I've heard.

Okay, I'm, I don't have a source to cite you, but I just know that through my various studies and readings, wherever I got this from, but my understanding has been that all of the apostles except Paul and John were married.

Clement of Alexandria mentions Peter being married, of course, because that's in Matthew chapter eight.

He also talks about Philip being married. So there's nothing in scripture that explicitly says which disciples or which apostles were married, but we know that some of them were.

Even by this question that Paul asks here, he says, do we not have authority to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the

Lord? So the half brothers of Jesus, like James and Jude, two of the brothers who are mentioned in both contributing to the writing of the

New Testament. The book of James comes from the half brother of Jesus. Jude introduces his letter by saying that he's the brother of James.

So also a half brother of Jesus, two of the brothers of Christ, half brothers, of course, because they were born of Mary and Joseph.

Jesus was not conceived of Joseph. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, but born of Mary. So they have the same mother in common.

Therefore, James and Jude are half brothers of Jesus. There's a couple of other brothers that are mentioned as well in Matthew chapter 13 and Jesus sisters.

Let me read that section. So Matthew 13 is mostly known for the parables that Jesus shares there.

In verse 53, he says, when he has finished these parables, he went away from there and coming to his hometown that would have been

Nazareth. He taught them in their synagogue so that they were astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?

Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary and are not his brothers,

James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? Judas was likely Jude.

So you have James and Judas verse 56 and are not all his sisters with us?

Where then did this man get all these things? The way that's worded in verse 56 seems to imply that the sisters were married to others there in Nazareth.

So there were others that would have been like brothers in law of Jesus because they were married to Jesus, half sisters verse 56 again and are not all his sisters with us.

So they're part of the families that were there that made up the town of Nazareth.

So you had half brothers of Jesus, James and Jude, who were married, and even his sisters mentioned as married.

That's not really relevant to what Paul is saying here in first Corinthians nine, not Jesus sisters anyway, but knowing that his own half brothers had wives and Cephas.

Paul specifically singles out Cephas, who is Peter. So again, 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, again, Paul is not married, as I had argued from chapter seven, reading to you from a teaching that Denny Burke gave.

It's possible, in fact, likely that Paul had previously been married. But at this particular time, he's a widower.

So his wife has died. We don't know why or how none of that background is given to us. And we even have to assume that Paul is a widower.

You know, there's nothing in the text that explicitly says that, although we have pretty good evidence that he was.

So he doesn't have a wife as he's traveling around doing what it is that he's doing.

But he has the right to take a wife. He mentions the apostles because it's known that those apostles were married and the brothers of the

Lord. Does Paul also have a right to take a believing wife? Yeah, he could as well. But he gives up that right.

He does not settle himself with a bride as he has the right to do and even take her along with him as he goes and does this missionary work.

But he frees himself from these things for, as he argued back in chapter seven, it's better that way.

If you're not married to commit yourself only to the work of the Lord, you don't have to think about the things that you must tend to concerning the care of your family, your spouse and your children.

You can devote yourself fully to the Lord's calling. And so that's what Paul is doing. He has the right to take a wife, but he doesn't do it for the benefit of the church of being able to advance the gospel and preach to the

Gentiles. So he has a right to take a believing wife. He just doesn't. I bring that up because, once again, the things that Paul says here, he has authority to do, he has the right to do, but he chooses not to.

It doesn't mean, therefore, that all the other apostles have to give that up as well, lest any of the

Corinthians look at Paul and then look at Peter and go, hey, Peter, Paul gave up having a wife. I think you should too.

Or Paul is a more upstanding man. He's holier than Peter is because Paul is not married and yet and yet Peter is married.

You know, lest any of the Corinthians were to say something like that, Paul is saying they have the right.

They have the authority to take along a believing wife and they do so. And he goes on in verse six, or do only

Barnabas and I not have the authority to refrain from working? Now, that's being sarcastic because we know that Paul and Barnabas were tentmakers by trade.

And when Paul was there in Corinth, he made tents and he provided for himself so that the

Corinthians would not have to share their money with them. But he does say, if we sowed spiritual things in you, this is verse 11.

Is it too much if we reap material things from you? So Paul could have by the authority, by the rights he had as an apostle, he could have expected the

Corinthians to provide for his way of life, to fully financially support him.

And they may have, there may have been other apostles who came to them that they did support any of the other apostles, the half brothers of Jesus, perhaps

Peter himself, Apollos being another one. Anybody who comes to Corinth preaching the

Corinthians may have provided for them. Paul did not put that burden on them. He and Barnabas worked and provided for themselves so that they would not have to support

Paul. It was his right and his authority to do so, but he didn't do it. Nor are any of the other apostles sinning if they did do it.

If they expected the Corinthians to be able to provide for and care for them, because in fact, the law is on their side for the minister to be tended to, as Paul's going to get here in verse nine, let me, let me get there organically here as we continue through these verses.

So again, Paul says, Barnabas and I, we could have had the authority to not work and we do have the authority to not work and expect you to provide for us.

But we didn't do that. We gave up that right. We provided for ourselves so we wouldn't be a burden upon you and that you would have an example to follow verse seven, 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.

Like a farmer doesn't just farm for somebody else's benefit. A shepherd doesn't just shepherd the flock for somebody else's benefit is for their benefit as well.

They make their living off of that, but then they also receive something from that. Same with the soldier. He serves to protect, but he gets paid for that job.

Verse eight. Am I speaking of these things according to human judgment or does not the law also say these things?

So Paul's not bringing this up just to make some kind of philosophical argument. He's also pointing to the law of God that says these same 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.

So the person who ministers so spiritual things, he has the right to receive some kind of material benefit, some kind of material blessing.

Paul brings this up in first Timothy as well, using the same kind of argumentation he argues from the law in first Timothy five 17.

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

For the scripture says you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the laborer deserves his wages.

So if you have elders among you who devote themselves fully unto the ministry, unto studying the word of God and teaching the people of God, sanctifying the church through the preaching of the scriptures, as Jesus said in John 17 17, sanctify them in your truth.

Your word is truth. He prayed unto the father. So a person who devotes themselves to that kind of ministry deserves to be financially supported.

Paul says he deserved to be financially supported. The other apostles, anybody who is an elder among you, those who minister to you.

God is not just speaking about oxen when he makes this law, you shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing.

But it's for our sake. It is written because the plowman ought to plow in hope and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops.

The one who preaches the word sows, the one who evangelizes, who sees people come to Christ reaps.

So the sower and the reaper receive the same reward. And likewise, they receive even some material benefit that the church may care for them and provide for them in this ministry work that they are doing.

So they don't have to think about having to get some kind of a job to support myself while I'm also devoting myself to the preaching and teaching of the word.

Paul says, if we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much to is it too much if we reap material things from you?

If others share this authority over you, authority again, synonymous with right.

If others share this right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ again, just because Paul says in verse 12, we gave up this right doesn't mean that he expects all the other apostles or half brothers of Jesus or anybody else doesn't mean that he expects them to give up this right.

He had a reason for doing so. It was part of the ministry that he was doing. We don't have rights just so we can give them up.

In some cases, it's good to exercise those rights. Paul exercised his rights as a Roman citizen.

For what reason? For the benefit of sharing the gospel of seeing the gospel spread throughout the

Roman Empire. Now, I bring this up and I and I conclude with this particular point because passages like this, some people are using right now to say that the freedoms that we enjoy in whatever context in which you live, whether you're

Canadian or American or you live in the Philippines or Australia or in Europe somewhere,

Great Britain, wherever you listen to this program from, you have certain rights as a citizen of the nation that you are a part of.

And there are Christians out there right now that are saying you must give up those rights, those freedoms you enjoy and wear a mask.

You must give up your rights and get vaccinated. And that's a total misuse of this passage because there's nothing that says you have to give up your rights.

Paul has given up his for a particular reason as the argument that he's making there. And as he's asking these rhetorical questions about these rights, he's therefore also defending those who who utilize them.

The person who eats and drinks does not condemn himself. The person who receives financial support for the ministry work that he does does not condemn himself.

The apostle that that ministers with a believing wife who is traveling with a family does not disqualify himself.

So he's not just asking these questions to bolster himself. He is asking these questions that gives a defense for those who exercise these rights, but also provides an example to the

Corinthians as one who has given up his rights for their particular benefit. This is not therefore laying down a law or a command to Christians that you have to give up your rights.

And that's how you love one another. For in some cases, holding on to our rights is how we love one another.

Paul held on to his rights as a Roman citizen to advance the gospel out of love for those who needed to hear the gospel.

So don't let anyone bully you into thinking that you need to give up your rights to your own body and get vaccinated with some sort of experimental vaccine because that's loving your neighbor.

No, it is not loving your neighbor to misuse and twist the word of God. So don't listen to the propaganda or the narrative that exists in the culture right there right now about why you need to get vaccinated or why you need to wear a mask.

These are liberty of conscience issues. If you want to wear a mask, wear a mask. If you want to get vaccinated, get vaccinated.

I'm opposed to both, but I have reasons for that. You may be in your conscience convinced that you need to do both.

That's between you and the Lord. But let us not divide one another over these things and let us not twist the scriptures to bind the conscience of other people, forcing them to do things that God does not command that we do.

Let's finish with prayer. Heavenly Father, we, uh, we thank you for the mind that you have given to us.

And if we are in Christ and we have a renewed mind, we are not going after the things of this world.

We're not being deceived by the schemes of Satan, but we have been set free from the bondage of sin and death to worship

Christ and honor you with our bodies. So may we do so in such a way that is pleasing unto

God. And according to the scriptures that we read, if we lack wisdom in any of these things, as it says in James 1 5, may we ask of God who gives generously to all without reproach, but we are considerate of one another and helping to build one another up according to the word of Christ, that we all may be presented mature before Christ on that great day of the