1 Corinthians 9:22 Commentary and Bible Study

‘To the weak became I as weak that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men’, that is, I bear in mind their understanding and their reasoning, and their use of language, and I carefully tailor my approach to what will be helpful and effective to them. I do not conform to their lifestyle or their ways. Who are the weak? This is a puzzle because the apostle Paul has not long since referred to the weak and he has referred to converted people who nevertheless have a weak conscience, an over-scrupulous conscience. He referred to Christian people, converted people, who thought they must still be something in the idol, so they were very offended at others who would eat meats consecrated to idols. Is he referring to them again: Christians, with, as yet, unformed complete views of the Christian life? That seems unlikely, because now he is talking about winning souls; he is talking about unconverted people. So when he now uses the word ‘weak’, it would seem he is referring to a different class of weak person, not the converted person who hasn't learned very much yet, but the unconverted weak. Who would they be? The Greek word translated ‘weak’ here is literally feeble: the feeble. It could be the sick but that would not be all that relevant here. It could refer to the slaves, to the uneducated class of those days, meaning them no disrespect, because all men and women are the same basically, and the same spread of intellectual ability goes through all the classes, no matter what people may think. But could it be slaves who had no access to any kind of education? Could it be children, or include children? Well it could be any or all of these things: the feeble, the little ones, the uneducated, the disadvantaged. ‘When I'm preaching to them’, and there were many of them saved in those days. Some churches were composed of a majority of slaves in the churches of the Roman Empire. ‘To the weak became I as weak,’