Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? … Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? …
Do you
not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from
the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial
offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the
gospel should get their living by the gospel. But I have made no use of any of
these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I
would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting…
1 Corinthians 9:1-15
In the first ‘digression’, Paul returns to the
issue of personal rights and freedoms in a long passage about his own rights as
an apostle and Christian minister.
He argues for
his rights but, crucially, not because he wants to exercise them but to make it
clear that he waives them voluntarily. ‘Do we not have the right to eat and
drink?’ he argues before he goes on to say that people in service expect to be
supported by those they serve. ‘Who serves as a soldier at his own expense?’,
he asks, ‘Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a
flock without getting some of the milk?’ Finally, he explains that a principle
from the Torah still applies, ‘For it is written in the Law of Moses, ‘You
shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain’.
Likening
himself and the other apostles to oxen was not the most flattering metaphor,
although it is one that he uses again when writing to Timothy (see 1 Timothy 5:17-18),
but he goes on to be explicit: ‘Do you not know that those who are employed in
the temple service get their food from the temple…?’ Paul is clearly saying
that, in the same way that God ordained how the tabernacle and temples were
supported, so Christian ministry is to be supported. But Paul chose,
voluntarily, to forego that support from the Christians living in Corinth.
Are Christians free to spend their money how they
wish? Do they have the ‘right’ to live in well-appointed homes, drive expensive
cars, dress well, eat at restaurants, go to cinemas and theatres? Yes! But that
is not the point! As Paul wrote to the Christians in Galatia, ‘Do not use your
freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbour
as yourself."’ (Galatians 5:13-14.)
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Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright
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Handling
money and dealing with debt can be complicated and neither the author nor
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