The letter to Corinthians were written in the after-math of Paul having to leave. It is written to an excited, charismatic church with all sorts of ideas about church washing around it.  So the letter is an insight into the struggles of an early church and the wisdom of Paul the apostle. It is topped and tailed in the conventional letter-writing of the day, but the core of the letter are two sections, the first Paul addressing concerns that he has raised by news he has received from people who he trusted.

The second section is answers to a series of questions that had been specifically raised by the church for Paul to answer.

We have looked at the questions about marriage and we are in the section about meat offered to idols.  A pivotal verse in this and the next section is 11:1 “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ”

It is not that these answers were set in stone but that they represented the way that we lived by the What would Jesus do? WWJD principles. Follow me, says Paul, because I am following Jesus and the way I am following Jesus. That is the principle that should guide how you go about your relationships with friends and your sociability, the way you live in the culture you are in and the way you live as brothers and sisters and worship together. “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ”

Today our text is chapter 9 which seems to go off at a tangent to the main argument and then return to it in chapter 10. Hence why Graeme looked at the issue of meat and we now look at this chapter which is about rights and freedoms and how the passion for the gospel leads Paul to surrender his rights and freedoms.

 Next week we move on to consider fellowship meals and worship.

 So lets read what God has to say to us this morning.

Read 1 Cor. 9

The major problem Paul had was that the early church had lots of people wandering between churches and some were undermining his authority. He was not ‘a proper apostle’ He was not one of the chosen 12, he supported himself by working as a tent-maker, he didn’t have his wife supporting him and managing his needs. So, suggested the visitors, he is not to be relied on. This problem runs through many of the letters in the New Testament.  This makes sense of the machine gun like stream of questions, Paul is meeting the smear campaign head-on. Paul’s claim to apostleship was that Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and commissioned him to be an apostle to the gentiles. So he fulfilled the requirement to have met Jesus and the requirement to have been commissioned as the other apostles. They were the proof that his was rightly carrying out his commission. So are claiming he is not an apostle they should be, they know his obedience to his calling!

The passage is continuing from the meat question because it is about what we mean by freedom. Here Paul is saying that he has rights as an apostle but is free to choose to give up those rights for the gospel.

 In summary the argument is that Yes Paul in an apostle, he has the same rights as all the others  and upholds the principle of paid workers in the church. But for the gospel he gave up the rights and freedoms and worked as a tentmaker. In fact he would give up his freedom in many directions so that they could receive the good news! Paul is as passionate about the Good News of salvation as an athlete and a boxer 9 or a footballer!). The prize is everything!

 

.So in verse 3-6 he is tackling specific critics. It appears that rumours suggest that apostles elsewhere had supporting families, that they, as we would expect, remain Kosher in their eating and drinking and they set out not to be employed other than as apostles. This is mentioned in Acts 6:1-7 and led to the appointment of Stephen and others to run the church food bank.

 Verses 7-12 lays out the rights of an apostle to be financially supported in their ministry. And this is where God’s word addresses us today.

Today we are aware of other churches and their practises being very different from ours. Sometimes that leads us to a sense that we are not as good as them. Our leaders don’t dress up in grand uniforms, Our leaders aren’t trained in theological colleges, Our leaders aren’t approved by a national church. Our leaders aren’t paid as much as other churches! Yes, the church has a real problem with performance-related pay! Some churches pay with a system of hierarchy, others a flat rate for everyone, some have bonus and performance related cultures.  So we start to think that they are second-class leaders and that leads to being happy to treat God’s word as second-class and dispensable. It is ironic that Paul being apparently celibate was considered unusual, since the church from around 500AD seemed to think that all priests should be celibate. What we want is a full-time elder with the stamp of approval of every human institution. What we need is God’s choice, commissioned by God, and trained in godliness by a daily walk with the Lord. They may or may not have degrees, they may or may not have wives, in other places they may have to work part time to keep their families, but we believe that is not God’s plan for us today. In these verses Paul is saying that he has rights. He has the right to be treated and supported as any of the other apostles. Christian leaders have the right to benefit financially from the work they do.

 Verse 13-14 puts the same concept of right in the context of temple worship. If we skip verse 12, we have the rational for a fully paid ministry team. Verse 14 states it unequivocally

In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

          While we wonder whether we can finance a second full-time worker, we should not question whether they should be paid an appropriate income. That is the principle whether they work in the local church or in para-church organisations or as missionaries.

But Paul goes on to say that he gave up that right for the sake of the gospel. This is about getting our eyes fixed on Jesus. His example is very helpful to us. He lived and worked as a carpenter for 30 years, for three years he lived as a rabbi, supported by a team of ladies who made sure his needs were met but he had no home, no money of his own, no pension, no security because he was on his way to the cross. His probate was a coat and a rather good quality seamless garment. His sandals were not apparently worth mentioning! The Roman Catholic Church has embodied that in its structure so that the priests have no money, their home is provided and they are cared for in the priest houses all the days of their lives.

 

Other denominations generally work a mixed system where there are stipends, manses or vicarages and pensions but also means to provide for old age. We do not have the financial depth to do more than pay sufficient for the person to rent accommodation and finance their own pension. In the next few years we will be obliged by law to provide a pension plan.

 Paul in verses 15-18 puts aside his rights, because the gospel is more important. So in Corinth he worked as a tent-maker. In Acts 18 we have the detail.

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. ² There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, ³ and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. ⁴ Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

⁵ When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. ⁶ But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”

⁷ Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. ⁸ Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and were baptized.

⁹ One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. ¹⁰ For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” ¹¹ So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

So, what did Paul gain from his work in Corinth?

His first answer is in verse 18

What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.

If we are serious about the gospel and we believe that we are saved by grace alone, then we are eager that this gospel is offered freely to those around us. We do not charge for our services, we do not have a collection plate passed round. We do call on God’s people in the company to give sacrificially for the work, but never beg for money. Grace is too important for that. The church for centuries has been obsessed with raising money to build grand buildings to the glory of God rather than heal the sick, care for the poor and the marginalised. There are several grand modern church buildings for sale in the Chilterns. I don’t know why they were built but they are rather grand. Sadly they have lost their church. Some managed both and many monasteries and churches did live out grace.  Today that is why the row about Food Banks has been good. It emphasises that the church is about sharing wealth not hoarding it.

 But we must move on with Paul. In verse 19-23 he expands this idea of what he values. He will be a strict Jew for the Jews, to gentiles he will dismiss circumcision and obedience to the law as wrong,

²² To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³ I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

This is the test of your value system. What matters most, the gospel or your wealth and happiness? Are you more content to have Jesus than an iPad? More interested in prayer than TV soaps or football matches? Given the choice do you stay at home or seek the encouragement of other Christians? Are you more concerned that the poor spend their money wisely than whether they have sufficient for their needs? Is your home a showcase or a place of hospitality? You see your values system is visible in the way you live. For Paul the gospel was everything. It’s blessings were more valued than the rights of apostleship.

 In the last verses that goal is described in terms of the Isthmian games, Medals are today’s equivalent of crowns, but the Commonwealth games will showcase a huge number of athletes striving for a medal which is for this life only, The gospel is a medal for eternity. Then Paul moves on to the boxing ring and plays on the boxer in training who punches the air or a punch-ball or bag. No Paul sees himself, working on his spiritual fitness by being a slave for the gospel.

 So the challenge this morning is to ask the question How much do you value the gospel? Is it so valuable that you would give up your rights so that others might hear and respond to the good news? And what about your spiritual fitness, are you striving to be loving and peaceful and joyful in the Lord? How much spiritual trainijng did you do last week? What are you going to do next week?  Spiritual fitness is not about gym sessions it is about spending time reading your Bible and praying about what it says, it is about meeting up with other Christians to encourage one another, it is about telling the good news the best you can and learning from the mistakes and becoming a better evangelist.

we have been reminded that messengers from God are entitled to be supported by the church and we should be enthusiastic givers so that the paid-workers can fulfil their mission. And those of us who are unpaid are no different in that our reward is the blessings of the gospel. For Paul in Corinth it was enough to see the church grow in numbers, even though they clearly are causing him grief! Church growth is about people coming to Jesus for salvation, it is about the born again being trained in godliness and going on to build up the glory of Jesus in the community in which God has placed it.

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