1 Corinthians 9:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Corinthians 9:1

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Chapter 9 deals with a number of vital subjects, but overriding them all is a view of the sincerity and the motivation of the apostle. He tells us about this so that we too can have the same motivation and sincerity.It seems that there was a concern about his apostleship: ‘We have heard some suggesting that you are not an apostle.’ Another issue was this, ‘There is some concern that you do not take any support. You never did from us. You worked as a tent maker.’ That was the apostle’s custom as he explains in this chapter. That seemed to detract from his status as one of the Lord’s apostles. Another question arose from this: ‘If the apostle Paul, who is our example in so many respects, did not accept support from the people he was serving, does that mean other workers should not accept support? So now he answers another group of questions, but he doesn’t spend long before he moves to the subject of the proclamation of the gospel. ‘Am I not an apostle?’ Have I not been commissioned to this special ministry? Of course, the apostle Paul was the last of the apostles. There were no more after him. But some of the Corinthians, who been wonderfully saved through his preaching had come to the point where they doubted that the apostle Paul could be an apostle. Why was that? We can only speculate, but it is so obvious really. He was clear in his correction – the resurrection, for example – and no doubt some people resented that. ‘What is his authority?’, they began to say. ‘How can we be sure that he is an apostle?’ He corrected their conduct too: their great pride in their Greek heritage, and their Greek oratory and philosophy. He corrects them for their party spirit, and for a great sin in their midst which had brought the church into disrepute and even scandal. People do not like being corrected. ‘Am I not free?’ Some say this means, ‘Am I not free from the law, from the ceremonial law?’ as though it applies to the previous chapter. But this is a new point, and these words are better applied to what follows: he is free to lead about a wife as the other apostles, and he is free to take support from the churches. He confirms that this is what he means in verse 19 of the chapter. He was also free to follow an itinerant ministry. He continues with the confirmatory signs of his apostleship. ‘Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?’ Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus. And then later he was taken up, mysteriously and amazingly, into heaven, where he saw the Lord again and he was taught amazing things. Some of these things which he was privileged to see in paradise, he would teach in his inspired epistles, but some of them he was not permitted ever to repeat on earth; they were unutterable things, beyond our power to really understand. Then he adds, ‘Are not ye my work in the Lord?’ That may not seem so much a proof of apostleship. After all, should not all ministers, have that blessing and instrumentality that people are converted to the Lord? Thousands or possibly millions of people in the history of the Christian church can say this, so to have established a church is certainly not in itself a proof of apostleship. But he goes on to explain what he means in the next verse.

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Questions

What is an apostle? The word ‘apostle’ means one who is sent, and the word is used in the New Testament in two senses. It is used of people who held a special office in the early church, such as the apostle Paul, such as the twelve apostles. It is used to describe a special office, special task, special qualifications for that office. It is also used in a lesser and more general sense to speak of anyone who is a kind of missionary. It is used, for example of Barnabas and he is called an apostle in the sense that he was a pioneering evangelist or missionary in his calling. But that is the lesser sense, and there is a great distinction between this and the special sense. The Twelve and Paul were apostles appointed by Christ in the early church, who were not to be succeeded. They did not appoint successors; there were no other apostles after them. When they died, apostles were withdrawn from the church, because nobody other than the twelve and Paul met the qualifications. They were given to teach inspired material, and in many cases to write inspired material to make up the New Testament canon of Scripture, and they were inspired also to authenticate others who wrote Scripture, so that the New Testament in accordance with the promise of Christ came into being, and was authenticated by the apostles in the early church. New Testament prophets together with the apostles formed the foundation, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20), so the apostles were the foundation stage of the church. Now we have the Scriptures; they are our yardstick; they are our authority, and the Lord does not any more give revelation, authoritative revelation, to anyone or add to Scripture. Otherwise we would be reverting to the foundation stage all over again.

What were the qualifications of the apostles? We read in Acts that when Judas had to be replaced, one of the qualifications of an apostle was that he had been with the Lord throughout his earthly ministry, and had witnessed all his teaching and miracles. Of course there are no people today who could say that. The apostle Paul was an exception. He was one born out of due time, an untimely birth, he says. He was born out of the period of the twelve apostles, but he was given an appearance of Christ and revelation of all the things that Christ had made known to the others. He was of course appointed by the risen Lord, and that is the second qualification of an apostle. On the road to Damascus Paul was commission directly by Christ, just as the other apostles had been. The risen Christ does not personally and directly commission apostles today, so apostles were only for the foundation stage of the church. The third qualifying feature of apostles was that they worked signs and wonders in the name of Christ. Paul does not refer to signs and wonders here, but he does in 2 Corinthians.

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1 Corinthians 9:1 Commentary and Bible Study