DAY 240

“IT IS MY RIGHT!”

Psalm 120, 121 & 122 and 1 Corinthians 9

There are some nice short Psalms today, each with memorable lines: “pray for the peace of the Jerusalem”…”I was glad when they said to me, let us go up to the house of the Lord”…”I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come, my help comes from the Lord.”

As you read the New Testament you may be exhaling a bit and wondering what on earth Paul is going on and on about. Consider this phrase: “It is my right!” That slogan is one often shouted in our day and age and in Corinth it was becoming their guiding principle. Chapter 9 of this letter directly responds to that attitude.

To see this we have to remember chapter 8 and then realize he is still talking about food! In chapter 8 we read about the apostle’s view, but today he presses the point further. He begins “Am I not free?” If being a Christian gives you the freedom to “eat whatever you want,” then Paul exceedingly meets this criteria.

He goes “on and on” through the first half of verse 12 to make that point and more. Then in the second half of verse 12 he says, “Nevertheless we have not made use of this right.” Paul has rights as a teacher to eat what he likes, and in fact to have it provided for him. He chooses not to exercise his rights in order that there will be no obstacle to the presentation of the Gospel. He gives up his right in large part because the seriousness with which he takes his responsibility. In fact, he goes on to say that he allows himself to become enslaved in verse 19, all for the Gospel.

It seems like a rather long chapter to make his point, but we do not know how much people were using this claim of “it is my right” in a manner that was really hurting the local group of believers. I commented a few days ago how Paul, after he works out his theology, always then asks how best to apply it. In today’s reading he goes to great lengths to make his point about “responsibility over rights.” Imagine if we paused for a moment and voluntarily limited our freedoms, our rights, in order that God be proclaimed!