1 Cô-rinh-tô 9

The rights of an apostle

¹Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not what my work in the Lord has produced? ²Others may not count me as an apostle, but to you I certainly am one. For you yourselves, in the Lord, are the seal that proves my apostleship.

³This is my defense to those who put me on trial:^{a 4}Surely we have the right to be given food and drink? ⁵Surely we have the right to take a believing wife with us on our travels, as the other apostles do, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? ⁶Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to stop working for a living? ⁷Who ever serves in an army and pays his own costs? Who plants a vineyard and eats none of its grapes? Who tends a flock and gets none of its milk? ⁸Am I saying this only on human authority? Does the law not say the same thing? ⁹For in the law of Moses it is written, “Do not muzzle an ox that is threshing grain.” Is it oxen that God is concerned about here? ¹⁰Or is he not surely speaking for our sake? Yes, this was written with us in mind: the one who plows ought to do so in hope, and the one who threshes ought to work expecting a share of the harvest.^{b 11}We sowed among you the things of the Spirit. Is it so much to ask, then, that we reap from you the things the body needs? ¹²If others share in this right to your support, do we not have a greater claim to it? Yet we never claimed this right. We put up with every hardship so as not to block the path of the gospel of Christ in any way. ¹³Do you not know that those who carry out the temple’s sacred work get their food from the temple, and those who wait on the altar receive a portion of what is offered on it? ¹⁴In just this way the Lord directed that those who announce the gospel should live from the gospel.

¹⁵But I have not made use of any of these rights. I have not written this to have it done for me. I would rather die than that. No one will take away my reason to be proud!^{c 16}Preaching the gospel gives me no reason to be proud, for I am under compulsion. It will go hard with me if I do not preach the gospel! ¹⁷If I did this by my own choice, I would have a reward. But if it is not my choice, I have simply been entrusted with a household manager’s task.^{d 18}What, then, is my reward? It is this: when I preach the gospel, I offer it at no cost to anyone, and so I do not use to the full the right I have in the gospel.

All things to all people

¹⁹No one has any claim on me, yet I have become everyone’s slave, so as to win over a greater number. ²⁰And so to the Jews I became as a Jew, to win Jews over. For the sake of those under the law I became as one under the law, though I am not myself under the law, to win over those under the law.^{e 21}To those without the law I became as one without the law, to win over those without the law. Yet I am not without God’s law; I live within the law of Christ. ²²With the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. To all people I have become all things, so that one way or another I may save some.^{f 23}Everything I do is for the gospel’s sake, so that I may have my share in it together with them.

Running to win the prize

²⁴Do you not know that every runner in the stadium races, yet only one is given the prize? Run like that one, so as to win it. ²⁵Every competitor holds back from many things in training. They accept this to win a wreath that soon withers; we, to win one that never decays. ²⁶That is how I run: not like a runner unsure of the finish. That is how I box: not like a fighter swinging at empty air. ²⁷Rather, I punish my body with blows and treat it as my servant, so that after preaching to others I will not myself be found disqualified.^g