1 Corinthians 9:20 Commentary and Bible Study

These days this verse is almost wilfully misunderstood. ‘Being all things to all men’ (verse 22) is such a misunderstood expression. What does Paul mean – ‘unto the Jews I became as a Jew’? What he does not mean is that he conforms his lifestyle to that of most Jews in his day. He does not do that. We read throughout the Gospels about the hypocrisy of the scribes, the Pharisees, and the chief priests. We read about their extreme sinfulness, and their moral laxity. Would the apostle Paul live like that? Would he too become a hypocrite in order that he could reach hypocrites, a sinner in order that he could reach sinners? Of course not. Does it mean that he adopts Jewish rites and ceremonies, and that he urges fellow Christians to accept Jewish circumcision, and the Jewish food laws, and the Mosaic sacrifices? Of course not. He says the opposite, and so strongly. If you get entangled up with that kind of thing again, he says to the Galatians, then you forfeit Christ and you lose everything. You go back to bondage. People think today that Paul means that he becomes altogether like those he seeks to win for Christ. They don't read the passage properly, and they say, ‘If the world is all rock music and revealing dress and immodest attire, or if the world is all cursing and swearing, we must do the same in order to commend ourselves. That is absolutely against what the apostle and the whole of the New Testament constantly urges. He makes the same point about Gentiles. ‘To them that are without law’ – who don’t understand the Ten Commandments, and the law of Moses – I behave as someone ‘without law.’ Does he mean he is lawless in Gentile company? Clearly not.So what does he mean? He means this: ‘When I am preaching to Jews, I take full advantage of their knowledge of Scripture, and I commend myself to their understanding by proving Christ out of the law and the prophets. They respect their Scriptures: the law and the prophets. (‘From the law’ is shorthand for the whole of the Old Testament in Paul's usage.) If I can show them the Messiah is there, that they speak of Christ, that they describe his work, then the Jews will listen to me. That is what he means. ‘Unto the Jews I became as a Jew’; I used Jewish reasoning, that I might gain the Jews, gain them that are under the law. But then (verse 21) to Gentiles that approach was not much good. They do not respect the books of Moses; they do not know them. We would have to set up a training course in the Old Testament Scriptures before we could preach the gospel to Gentiles from the law. Yes, but I can go to the law that is in their consciences, and I can counter idolatry, and show the absurdity of it; I can show them the one true and living God, and describe Christ and his salvation. So he is really describing here the different methods of approach he uses to Jews and to Gentiles. For example, in Acts 28:22 Paul is at the end of his ministry, and he is in Rome and the Jewish leaders come to him: ‘We desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest: for as concerning this sect’ – Christians – ‘we know that every where it is spoken against.’ What does Paul do? ‘When they had appointed him a day, there came many to him’ – these are Jewish people – ‘into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.’ He takes the same approach in Acts 17:1-3. But then when addressing Gentiles, for example at Mars Hill, he directs his preaching straight at idolatry, and he reasons courteously and shows them the absurdity of it, and then he preaches Christ to them, and explains Calvary, but it does not go via the Old Testament Scriptures; he goes directly to the conscience of the Gentile unbeliever. He does exactly the same in Romans 2:14: ‘For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.’ They have the law within themselves, and the same moral standards that are found in the Ten Commandments are written by God on their hearts. This is not a licence to conform our behaviour, our music, our speech our address to the lowest standards of the world. That is how the Charismatics take it. They completely misinterpret the text. They take the punchline, and they do not read the details. If they read the whole verses, they would see the error of their interpretation.