1 Corinthians 9:16 Commentary and Bible Study

Paul lives for the preaching of the gospel, and it brings him great joy. He will not allow anyone to take that joy from him, and especially the joy of doing it free of charge. This makes it doubly clear that all his reward comes from the Lord and not from men. He tells us here his attitude to his own preaching ministry. ‘Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of’ – I cannot make any claims, for reward, let us say. He never saw himself as working for the Lord in order to get something back in return. God would reward him with what was appropriate, but he had such a sense of debt to the Lord, that he could not think in terms of having achieved anything that he could lay claim to. ‘For necessity is laid upon me. Yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.’ Necessity is laid upon me. That is a very difficult Greek word in the original to translate. We could render it in this way: ‘For an ache is laid upon me, a pain is laid upon me.’ Our translators have chosen ‘necessity’, implying pressure. Yes, there was a pressure that is so great it was almost painful. In modern terms you may say something like: my arm was being twisted to do something, which suggests I have been put under painful pressure to do it. That is exactly the idea behind the Greek term translated ‘necessity’. ‘Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for [a great and painful burden] has been laid upon me.’ I cannot do anything else. What is this painful burden? He hints at it as we go on. But first he says, ‘Woe is unto me.’ That is just an expression of grief in the original, sometimes translated in the Bible by the word ‘alas’; ‘Alas for me’ – in old fashioned language – ‘if I preach not the gospel.’ What woe? What will be Paul's punishment? What will be the consequences if he does not preach the gospel? What will be the consequences for us, if we never witness to Christ? If we take it in connection with what follows, the woe is that we shall miss out on the joy and happiness of being part of reaping in the kingdom of God: the reaping of souls. We will never taste it; we will never know it. This is the greatest and the final motivation for Christian work and service: the joy which attends the reaping of souls.