1 Corinthians 9

You may remember that we were talking about whether a follower of Christ could eat food that had somehow come from idol worship. But as we found out in the last chapter, we are really talking about Christian love. Obeying the Lord is not just about having the right answer. It is about pursuing the right answer in accord with what is best for people that we love and for the church as a whole.

This is the point that the apostle needs to press upon the Corinthian church, and he is willing to use himself as an example of someone who abandons his rights for the greater purpose of the love of God. He has the right to eat or drink what he wants to, but he apparently restricts his behavior because of his love for Christ and the church. More significantly perhaps, Paul has the right to have a believing wife, and to have a family that would be supported by the believers among whom he ministers. He has the right to be free from concerns about worldly cares about outside employment.

He is a soldier for the Lord. He is a worker in the Lord’s vineyard. He is a shepherd of the Lord’s flock. Does that all sounds too high and mighty? Paul is willing to go one step lower. He is an ox for God, treading the grain. Does he not have a right to eat? Even an ox should not be muzzled when it treads the grain, according to Moses. Yet Paul is willingly putting a muzzle over his mouth. How so? He is not seeking support from the Corinthian church. Why? It is his right to have that support, yet he willingly restricts his freedom in Christ for the sake of love, his love for Christ and the church. In order to prevent being effectively muzzled concerning the message of the cross, he is willingly being muzzled in terms of the financial support of the Corinthian church.

The principle of caring for the physical needs of the Lord’s workers is well-supported through Old Testament Scriptures. The right answer in Israel was to support the priests and the Levites. That is still the right answer for the New Testament church. But the love of the cross has created a new and exciting dynamic of willingly putting aside rights for the blessing of others. Why can’t the church in Corinth approach the food question in that way?

Isn’t it a fact that Jesus displayed this great ethic, this Christian imperative, in the atonement? Was he inherently obligated as a matter of divine law to do what He did? Will we force the Law-giver to be judged under the Law? Yet the Law-giver came as a matter of willing love. Before the foundation of the world He agreed to the glory of the Covenant of Grace, and to His special part in that covenant. The eternally righteous Son of God became our sin offering. This is love. This is the way for us in every lesser issue of struggle within that covenant community saved by the love of Christ.

Paul is living out this cross-love in front of the Corinthian church. He is presenting the gospel free of charge so that his enemies will be less credible in their critique of him. This is willing lowliness for the glory of a very high kingdom. Is that principle clear? If so, it will help us in solving all kinds of issues. It will help with the disagreement over food sacrificed to idols, but it will also be a guiding beacon for Christian life and ministry in general. Make yourself a servant to all, as much as you rightly can within the context of your calling and your existing obligations. Make yourself a servant to all, that you might win more people to the Lord. He loved you this way. He calls you to love others as an imitator of Him.

Fit into the life that God has given you with a minimum of extraneous disruption and distraction to others, so that the love of Christ becomes the overwhelming message of your existence. In Paul’s context that meant living as a Jew among Jews, though he had the right and freedom to throw off any Old Testament ceremonial yoke. It also meant living as a Gentile among Gentiles in order to avoid distracting Gentiles with Jewish rules. Is someone weak because they think that some meat is guilty by association? Fine. Be weak with them, and don’t eat the meat. Don’t do it because you agree that the meat is somehow evil. All good food is a gift of God to be enjoyed with thanksgiving. Do it for the sake of the gospel, so that weak people might eat much better food in the kingdom of heaven.

This is not always easy. The flesh wants to return to “my rights.” Where would we be if the Lord of glory had insisted on His rights on that day so long ago? No, he had a prize before Him of love and glory, and He ran the race before Him. He saw the wreath of imperishable victory, and He stayed the course, and won the prize for us. Let us give up on some freedoms because of the glory of cross-love. Let us be willing to live it out, so that words of the Savior may not be considered disqualified by hearers solely because they proceeded from the mouth of someone who simply did not love people enough to give up his own rights.