1 Corinthians 9:12 Commentary and Bible Study

‘If others be partakers of this power over you?’ That means that the Corinthians already understood this principle; they already were supporting workers. Paul had founded the church six years previously, and in the meantime the Corinthians had supported ministers and evangelists. Do we not have stronger grounds for expecting support from you, we who founded the church, we who have done so much for you, he asks.But there was a problem: Paul had found that if he took support from converts, from the young church, wherever he went; if it was paid for his ministry when pioneering churches in Gentile territory, among idolaters, it led to the people being deeply suspicious that here was a preacher who was in it for gain. There was no television in those days; there were no movies; there was no mass communication. You depended upon people who spoke to you in those days. And all entertainers, and all people of that category went round from village to village speaking for money, telling fables, telling stories, tickling ears, entertaining the people, and the problem was that if a preacher turned up, and it was known he was supported by the people who followed him: that might discredit him in the eyes of the suspicious Gentile community. So the apostle Paul had very early determined he would take not a penny. He would go straight to some tent-maker in the city, and he would find gainful employment. That was his great principle. So he says here, we have the right as apostles, but we have not used that right; we work. He was trained as an intellectual, and one who would read and understand the sacred Scriptures. But he was subordinately trained – as all people were in Jewish society in those days – in an ordinary trade, as a tentmaker. As a result, he says, we ‘suffer all things’: indignity, privation, need, the rigours of manual labour, ‘lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ.’ We see his motive. It is to reach people, no matter what it costs. If it costs him this, that he has to give up being supported and being provided, he will give it up in order to reach people. He knew that the Judaisers followed him around and would try to get at the converts and say, ‘You shouldn’t be doing it this way. You should be following the law of Moses, and doing it this way. Don’t listen to that Paul of Tarsus; he is just making money from you.’ Actually, the irony was that the Judaisers preached for money. But nevertheless, they would accuse the apostle Paul of this in their hypocrisy; and he didn’t want that to happen. So he worked twice as hard, and took twice as much pressure, in order to preserve the gospel.