Church Is Not About My Rights. It's About You. (1 Corinthians 9:1-27) Series

In last week's passage, Paul tried to convince the Corinthians that they needed to stop going to idol temples and eating idol meat there. The Corinthians-- at least some of them-- thought that doing this was okay. They viewed this question as an issue of knowledge, and as an issue of freedom. How was it an issue of knowledge?

(1) They knew that an idol is nothing. It's just a chunk of wood, or metal, or stone.

(2) They also knew that there is no God, except only One, the Father.

(3) They also knew what Paul had said about food, that what you eat makes no difference to God. They knew that you aren't any better off, whether you eat, or don't eat. Except, when Paul talked about that, he meant in connection with foods that had been "unclean" for Jews. Not idol meat.

They then took these three pieces of knowledge, swirled them together, and said, "We have the right-- the freedom-- to go to the temples of idols, and eat. We have the right to go to these birthday parties we are invited to, these business meetings, these family get togethers. It is our right.

And Paul last week tried to convince them that all of this was deceptive, and wrong. If, for you, there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, then that is incompatible with idolatry. And when you eye that temple, and find yourself wanting to enter, you have to remember that Christianity is not just about you. It's not about your rights, and your freedom. You are not the big deal. Everyone else is the big deal. And you dare not live in a way that causes your brother or sister to stumble-- the one for whom Jesus died.

So the question last week, was what is our starting point when we think about how we should live? Do we start with ourselves-- with our desires, with our rights, with our freedom? Do we start by thinking we are the big deal? Or do we start with God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and our family in Christ?

With this, we reach 1 Corinthians 9. When we read this chapter, we have to resist the temptation to think that Paul has moved on in his argument. English Bibles give this a new chapter number; they give you white space and a new heading. But Paul continues to try to break through the Corinthian mindset on all of this-- he's just going to do it from a different angle.

I'm going to start this morning by simply reading chapter 9, in its entirety. And then, I'll offer a reflection on it. What I'm aiming for this morning is to capture the big picture, and not get caught up in the details. I'm doing it this way, because it's one gigantic argument, and I want to capture the force of it, and then help explain how it ties in to chapter 8. And if I break this up into tiny little pieces, we are going to miss the force of this, and completely miss why Paul wrote all this between chapters 8 and 10. (And if you want more detailed explanations of certain things, the footnotes will help a little.)

Starting in verse 1:

(1) Am I not free?

Am I not an apostle?

Is it not Jesus our Lord I have seen?

My work, are you not in the Lord?

(2) If to others I am not an apostle

but surely to you I am.

For the seal/mark of my apostleship, you are, in the Lord.

(3) My defense to the ones examining me is this :

(4) Don't we have the right to eat and to drink?

(5) Don't we have the right, a sister-- a wife-- to take along?,

as also the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Peter?

(6) Or do only I and Barnabas not have the right not to work?

(7) Who serves as a soldier at his own expense, ever?

Who plants a vineyard,

and its fruit he doesn't eat?

Who shepherds a flock,

and from the milk of the flock, he doesn't drink?

Not in accordance with a human [perspective] these things I say.

Or does not also the law these things say?

(9) For in the law of Moses it is written:

"You shall not muzzle a threshing ox."

Not about the oxen, it is a concern to God,

or for our sake, undoubtedly does he speak?

For, for our sake it is written, because he ought,

in hope, the one plowing to plow,

and the one threshing, in hope of a share.

(11) If we, to you the spiritual things we have sown, is it too great a thing if from you material/fleshly things, we reap?