Bible Studies

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Paul didn’t preach so that he would receive a personal reward. He preached because he was compelled to preach. He was obligated to preach, called to preach. He could do no other. It was his duty to invest his Master’s talent, his Master’s possessions, to increase his Master’s holdings. Though he would be rewarded for his efforts, he was not motivated by his own reward, but by the obligation of his stewardship of the gospel. He put aside his former concerns and took the concerns of his Master to be his own. He put aside his own priorities and took up God’s priorities.

Paul's model of paying for his own ministry expenses was not the model for ordinary ministry, but that ministers should be paid a fair wage, even a double wage (1 Timothy 5:17) so that they can exercise and model greater personal generosity in their pastoral calling. "What then is my reward?" asked Paul (1 Corinthians 9:18). He was not talking about his eternal reward, but about his wages and his job satisfaction, his salary as a minister and the satisfaction he received from doing his job well. Then he answered his question: "That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:8).

In order to get the maximum return on his investment of the gospel in the hearts of the Corinthian believers, he understood that his presentation of the gospel needed to be unencumbered, that he must be able to present it free of charge, without cost, and without strings. He was not selling the gospel, nor was he providing gospel services for hire. He knew that maximum gospel growth would best occur if there were no obstacles to its presentation. So, even though he had a right to receive wages for his gospel work, he declined to "make full use of (that) right" (1 Corinthians 9:18). Why? In order to maximize God's return.

Was it his own free will not to get paid for his work with them? No, he would argue that even an ox was fed from the threshing grain (1 Corinthians 9:9), and by implication that the needs of pastors should also be provided for. He argued that pastors should be paid. Nonetheless, he accepted no wages from the Corinthians as a matter of God's will. So, he willingly -- even gladly -- accepted the honor to work for the Lord without pay. And because he worked without pay, he was free from them, free from the strings that come with wages, free to preach the fullness of the gospel in their midst. God's will liberated Paul! "For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them" (1 Corinthians 9:19). Though he was free from them, free from the politics and pressures of a settled pastorate, he submitted himself to them.

Which "them" did he mean, exactly? Some of them? All of them? The rulers of the local church? He submitted himself to "them" that included Christ in their midst. He was a servant of Christ, not a servant to their personal desires. He was free, not to give them what they wanted, but to give them what Christ wanted them to have. That is the gospel freedom that is absent from too many pulpits. This is the freedom in Christ that wins souls. The presentation of the gospel must be freed from the encumbrances of the inane and petty dung that has captured church pulpits.

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