1 Corinthians 9
9
Paul Gives Up Certain of His Rights
1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? 2 If I am not an apostle to others, yet at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. 3 My defence to those who examine me is this: 4 Do we not have a right to eat and drink? 5 Do we not have a right to take along a sister as wife, as also the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? 6 Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to stop ourselves from working? 7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Who shepherds a flock and does not consume from the milk of the flock?
8 I am not speaking these things from a human point of view.* Or does not the Law also say these things? 9 For in the Law of Moses it is written: “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out grain.”* Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Or is He certainly speaking because of us? Indeed it was written for our sake, for the one who plows ought to plow in hope, and the one who treads out grain, in hope of partaking of it. 11 If we have sown spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you. 12 If others partake of this right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we patiently endure all things, that we may not put any obstruction to the gospel of Christ.
13 Do you not know that those performing the sacred duties eat the things from the temple, and those attending as servants to the altar partake with the altar? 14 So also, the Lord prescribed to those who proclaim the gospel to live from the gospel.
15 But I have not used any of these rights.* And I have not written these things so that it might be thus in my case. For it would be better for me rather to die than that anyone should make my boasting empty. 16 For if I preach the gospel, there is no reason for boasting for me, for necessity is laid upon me. For woe is to me if I do not preach the gospel. 17 For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, I have been entrusted with a stewardship. 18 What then is my reward? That while preaching the gospel, I may make the gospel without expense, so as not to fully use my right in the gospel.
Paul’s Enslavement for Ministry’s Purpose
19 For though I am free from all persons, I have enslaved myself to all, that I may win more. 20 And I have become like a Jew to the Jews, that I may win the Jews. To the ones under the Law, as under the Law (though not being myself as under the Law), that I may win the ones under the Law. 21 To the ones without the Law, as without the Law (though not being without the law of God, but subject to the law of Christ), that I may win the ones without the Law. 22 I became weak to the weak, that I may win the weak. I have become all these things to all persons, that I may certainly* save some. 23 And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it.
Paul’s Bodily Discipline
24 Do you not know that the ones running in a stadium all run, but one receives the prize? Run in this way, that you may obtain the prize. 25 And everyone competing for a prize exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. 26 Therefore, I run in this manner, not as aimlessly. I box in this manner, not as beating the air. 27 And I rigorously discipline my body and treat it as a slave, lest somehow after preaching to others, I myself should be unapproved.*
Notes
8 Greek according to man
9 Quoted from Deut. 25:4
15 Greek things
22 Or entirely
27 Or disqualified
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Copyright © 2026 Michael Adeyemi Adegbola. This Scripture text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
