1 Corinthians 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul defends his standing as an apostle and argues that he and his coworkers have the right to be supported by the churches, using examples from soldiering, farming, herding, the Law of Moses, and temple service, and citing the Lord's own instruction. He then says he has not used that right, choosing instead to preach free of charge. He describes adapting his own habits to Jews, to those under the law, to those without the law, and to the weak, in order to win some of them. He closes with images from athletics: running to win, training with discipline, and keeping his body under control so that after preaching to others he is not himself disqualified.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • The writer asks whether he is not an apostle.
   • The writer asks whether he is not free.
   • The writer asks whether he has not seen Jesus Christ our Lord.
   • The writer asks whether the recipients are not his work in the Lord.
2. 9:2
   • If the writer is not an apostle to others, he is nevertheless an apostle to the recipients.
   • The recipients are the seal of the writer's apostleship in the Lord.
3. 9:3
   • The writer states that what follows is his defense to those who examine him.
4. 9:4
   • The writer asks whether he and his companions do not have the right to eat and to drink.
5. 9:5
   • The writer asks whether he and his companions do not have the right to take along a wife who is a fellow believer.
   • The other apostles take along such wives.
   • The brothers of the Lord take along such wives.
   • Cephas takes along such a wife.
6. 9:6
   • The writer asks whether he and Barnabas alone lack the right to refrain from working for a living.
7. 9:7
   • The writer asks who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense.
   • The writer asks who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit.
   • The writer asks who tends a flock and does not consume the milk of the flock.
8. 9:8
   • The writer asks whether he says these things merely on human authority.
   • The writer asks whether the law does not say the same things.
9. 9:9
   • It is written in the law of Moses: do not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.
   • The writer asks whether God is concerned about oxen.
10. 9:10
    • The writer asks whether God says it entirely for our sakes.
    • This was written for our sakes.
    • The one who plows ought to plow in hope.
    • The one who threshes in hope ought to share in what he hopes for.
11. 9:11
    • The writer and his companions sowed spiritual things among the recipients.
    • The writer asks whether it is a great thing if he and his companions reap material things from the recipients.
12. 9:12
    • If others share in this right over the recipients, the writer asks whether he and his companions do not have it more.
    • The writer and his companions did not make use of this right.
    • The writer and his companions endure all things.
    • They endure all things so as not to hinder the gospel of Christ.
13. 9:13
    • Those who work at holy things eat from the temple.
    • Those who attend at the altar share in what is offered on the altar.
14. 9:14
    • The Lord commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.
15. 9:15
    • The writer has used none of these rights.
    • The writer did not write these things so that it should be done that way for him.
    • The writer says it would be better for him to die than for anyone to make his boast empty.
16. 9:16
    • If the writer preaches the gospel, he has nothing to boast of.
    • Necessity is laid upon the writer.
    • Woe is to the writer if he does not preach the gospel.
17. 9:17
    • If the writer does this willingly, he has a reward.
    • If the writer does it unwillingly, a stewardship has been entrusted to him.
18. 9:18
    • The writer asks what his reward is.
    • His reward is that in preaching he may offer the gospel of Christ free of charge.
    • His reward is that he may not make full use of his right in the gospel.
19. 9:19
    • The writer is free from all men.
    • The writer made himself a slave to all.
    • He did so in order to gain the more people.
20. 9:20
    • To the Jews the writer became as a Jew.
    • He did so in order to gain Jews.
    • To those under the law he became as one under the law.
    • He did so in order to gain those under the law.
21. 9:21
    • To those without the law the writer became as one without the law.
    • The writer is not without law toward God.
    • The writer is under the law of Christ.
    • He did so in order to gain those without the law.
22. 9:22
    • To the weak the writer became weak.
    • He did so in order to gain the weak.
    • The writer has become all things to all men.
    • He did so in order that by all means he might save some.
23. 9:23
    • The writer does all this for the sake of the gospel.
    • He does it so that he may become a partaker of the gospel together with them.
24. 9:24
    • All those who run in a race run.
    • Only one receives the prize.
    • The writer tells the recipients to run so as to obtain the prize.
25. 9:25
    • Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things.
    • Competitors do it to receive a perishable crown.
    • We do it to receive an imperishable crown.
26. 9:26
    • The writer runs not without a clear goal.
    • The writer boxes not as one striking the air.
27. 9:27
    • The writer strikes his body hard.
    • The writer brings his body into slavery.
    • He does this lest, after preaching to others, he himself should be disqualified.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

9:1

"Apostle" means one sent out as an authorized representative, with the sender's backing. Having seen the risen Jesus in person was treated as a basic qualification for the title, which is why Paul raises it first: he was not one of the original twelve, and his standing could be questioned.

9:2

A seal was a stamped impression in wax or clay used to authenticate a document or mark ownership. Calling the Corinthians the seal of his apostleship means they are the mark that certifies the claim: they exist as a church because he did the work.

9:3

The King James "answer" translates a word used for a formal defense speech, the kind a man makes when charged. "Examine" is the word for a judicial hearing, the cross questioning of a witness before a verdict. Paul is picturing himself on trial before his own converts.

9:4

Where the King James says "power" in this chapter (verses 4, 5, 6, 12 and 18) the underlying word means a right or entitlement, not strength or force. The question is whether Paul and his coworkers are entitled to be fed and housed at the churches' expense.

9:5

"A sister, a wife" means a wife who is herself a believer; "sister" was the ordinary word Christians used of one another. To "lead about" is to take along on travels, supported by the churches, which is the point at issue. Cephas is the Aramaic name of the apostle Peter; it means rock, the same thing the Greek name Peter means. Who exactly "the brethren of the Lord" were has been argued for centuries: full brothers, sons of Joseph by an earlier marriage, or other close kinsmen.

9:6

Barnabas was Paul's partner on his first missionary journey. "Forbear working" means to stop working for a living. Paul supported himself with a trade, manual labor that a traveling teacher was not normally expected to do.

9:7

A soldier in the Roman world was fed, equipped and paid out of public funds, so the idea of a man financing his own campaign was absurd. All three examples are ordinary facts of working life that nobody would argue with: the person doing the work eats from the work.

9:9

The quotation is from Deuteronomy 25:4. In the King James, "corn" means grain of any kind, wheat or barley, not maize. Grain was threshed by driving oxen back and forth over the cut stalks spread on a hard floor, so their hooves knocked the kernels loose; a muzzle would keep the animal from snatching mouthfuls as it worked.

9:10

Threshing is beating or trampling grain to knock the seeds off the stalks. It was hot, dusty work, and the worker expected a share of what he threshed.

9:11

"Carnal" in the King James means material or bodily, as opposed to spiritual. It carries no sexual sense here. The material things in view are food, money and lodging.

9:12

Traveling teachers and philosophers in a Greek city normally charged fees or lived off a wealthy patron, which put them under obligation to their backers and left them open to the charge of selling their message. Refusing all support was unusual enough that it needed explaining, which is what the rest of the chapter does.

9:13

Under the Law of Moses, priests and Levites lived on a fixed share of the animals, grain and produce brought to the altar; that share was their income. The same arrangement was standard in Greek and Roman temples, so both Jewish and Gentile readers in Corinth would recognize the practice without needing it explained.

9:14

The instruction referred to is generally understood as Jesus' words when he sent his followers out: that a worker deserves his food, or his wages.

9:15

"Glorying" in the King James means boasting: the thing a man points to with pride. It does not mean glory in the sense of splendor, or praise given to God.

9:16

"Woe is unto me" is not an expression of sadness. "Woe" is the formal cry of doom that prophets pronounced over a person or a city, and here Paul pronounces it on himself as what would follow if he stopped preaching.

9:17

"Dispensation" in the King James is the word for a household manager's job: a steward, often a slave, put in charge of his master's property and accounts, who does the work because he was assigned it rather than because he offered. The modern sense of dispensation, an exemption or a special permission, is not in view.

9:18

In 1611, "abuse" could mean to use something up or use it to the full, not only to mistreat it. Paul is saying he does not draw on the right to be paid, rather than that he is careful not to misuse it.

9:19

The word behind "servant" is the ordinary word for slave. The sentence is a deliberate paradox: a man who belongs to no one makes himself the property of everyone.

9:20

Living "as a Jew" meant keeping the customs that marked out Jewish life: food laws, sabbath, purity practices, the festivals. Many ancient manuscripts also include a parenthesis here, "though I myself am not under the law," which is why some modern translations carry a clause the King James does not.

9:21

"Without law" translates a word meaning simply not having the Law of Moses, which is how Jews commonly described Gentiles. It does not mean lawless in the sense of criminal, which is why Paul immediately adds the parenthesis about being under the law of Christ.

9:22

"The weak" has a specific sense in this letter: believers whose consciences were troubled about eating meat that had been offered to idols, the argument of chapters 8 and 10. It does not mean people who are physically frail or slow witted.

9:24

Corinth hosted the Isthmian games, one of the four great athletic festivals of the Greek world, every two years, so the readers had watched these races themselves. In Greek athletics only first place counted; there were no prizes for second or third.

9:25

"Striveth for the mastery" means competes in the games. Competitors were required to train under strict rules for months beforehand, including a controlled diet, which is what "temperate in all things" describes. The prize was a "crown," a wreath of leaves placed on the winner's head; at the Isthmian games it was wild celery, and later pine. "Corruptible" means perishable: the wreath withered within days.

9:26

Boxers at the Greek games fought with leather straps wound around their hands. "Beateth the air" means shadow boxing, or throwing punches that hit nothing: motion and effort that never connects with anything.

9:27

"I keep under my body" translates a boxing term that literally means to strike someone under the eye, to give a black eye, so the fight image from verse 26 is still running. "Castaway" translates a word meaning failed on testing, used of metal that fails assay and of an athlete the judges rule ineligible. It does not mean shipwrecked or thrown away as rubbish.