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The Rights of an Apostle
1I am free. I am an apostle. I have seen the Lord Jesus and have led you to have faith in him. 2Others may think that I am not an apostle, but you are proof that I am an apostle to you.
3When people question me, I tell them 4that Barnabas and I have the right to our food and drink. 5We each have the right to marry one of the Lord's followers and to take her along with us, just as the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Peter do. 6Are we the only ones who have to support ourselves by working at another job? 7Do soldiers pay their own salaries? Don't people who raise grapes eat some of what they grow? Don't shepherds get milk from their own goats?
8-9 I am not saying this on my own authority. The Law of Moses tells us not to muzzle an ox when it is grinding grain. But was God concerned only about an ox? 10No, he wasn't! He was talking about us. This was written in the Scriptures so that all who plow and all who grind the grain will look forward to sharing in the harvest.
11 When we told the message to you, it was like planting spiritual seed. So we have the right to accept material things as our harvest from you. 12If others have the right to do this, we have an even greater right. But we haven't used this right of ours. We are willing to put up with anything to keep from causing trouble for the message about Christ.
13 Don't you know that people who work in the temple make their living from what is brought to the temple? Don't you know that a person who serves at the altar is given part of what is offered? 14 In the same way, the Lord wants everyone who preaches the good news to make a living from preaching this message.
15But I have never used these privileges of mine, and I am not writing this because I want to start now. I would rather die than have someone rob me of the right to take pride in this. 16I don't have any reason to brag about preaching the good news. Preaching is something God told me to do, and if I don't do it, I am doomed. 17If I preach because I want to, I will be paid. But even if I don't want to, it is still something God has sent me to do. 18What pay am I given? It is the chance to preach the good news free of charge and not to use the privileges that are mine because I am a preacher.
Reflect
Before writing this letter, Paul had spent at least a year and a half among the Corinthians, founding the church there. For part of that time, he paid his way by making tents – hard, tedious work for a man who had once been a prominent lawyer. He likely endured threats; he was certainly subject to legal harassment. At some point, and it must have been at the encouragement of the new Corinthian Christians, he “devoted himself exclusively to preaching.” (See Acts 18.)
Now that he was far away, those who found his teaching inconvenient dismissed him as one who had only been preaching for the material benefits – as if receiving food and shelter was too great an extravagance to extend to a man who had given up home, family and even personal safety for the cause of Christ. (So different than those preachers who proclaim their need and right to be richer than any of their congregants!)
A wise friend and counselor observed to me once that, in his experience, a sudden, significant shift in an individual’s theological perspective is usually prompted by change in that person’s moral behavior. Perhaps that’s what was happening here. Like many of us, the Corinthians just wanted to do whatever they wanted to do, without challenge.
Later (verse 18), Paul does articulate the reward he seeks for his labors: “That, when I preach the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge.”
Wow! That’s a true kingdom value!
Respond
Lord and Saviour, you have poured out the riches of the good news of your grace through Jesus on me. Thank you, thank you! Teach me to value that gospel more than wealth, status, comfort or even safety, and to submit myself eagerly to its refining power. In your name alone. Amen.
Greg Paul
Greg Paul is a pastor and member, as well as the founder, of the Sanctuary community in Toronto. Sanctuary, a community in which people who are wealthy and people who are poor live, work and share their experiences and resources on a daily basis, makes a priority of welcoming and caring for some of the most hurting and excluded people in Canada’s largest city, including people struggling with addiction, mental illness, prostitution, and homelessness. Greg is the author of the recently released Resurrecting Religion and several other award-winning books: Simply Open; Close Enough to Hear God Breathe; The Twenty-Piece Shuffle; and God In The Alley. He is the father of four children, and married to Maggie, who has three children of her own.