1 Corinthians 9
Paul Surrenders His Rights
Different people serve God for different reasons. We know that there are definitely some motives that people have for serving God that are unacceptable. Jesus made it clear that striving for position and popularity are unacceptable motives for ministry. Greed is also an unacceptable motive for …
Dealing with Christian liberty
Paul continues to deal with the subject of Christian liberty as he uses the illustration of an athlete. The Corinthians would have been very familiar with the Greek Olympic games as well as their Isthmian games. He says that one of the most important rules in a race is that all participants run …
Being a Servant To All Men
The sole reward that Paul desired was to be able to preach “the gospel of Christ without charge.†Someone might ask the question, with all the freedom in the world open to him, why did the apostle Paul restrict himself so severely? The answer is “that I might gain the more.” (v. 19) In other words, …
The Rights Of a Person Who Labors
People in the Corinthian Church were questioning Paul’s authority and rights as an apostle, so he gave his credentials (vv. 1-10). Paul saw and talked with the resurrected Christ who called him to be an apostle (Acts 9:3-18). Changed lives within the Corinthian Church were the evidence that …