CRITICAL NOTES
1 Corinthians 9:1.—Notice the reversed order of clauses in the better-attested reading. Free.—I.c. quâ man; he is always Christ’s “bondservant”; it is of his own choice that he submits to such limitations (1 Corinthians 9:19-22) upon his liberty as, e.g., in 1 Corinthians 8:13; or as this in question, that he should maintain himself by his manual labour, whereas he was also “free” to demand Church maintenance for himself if he had chosen. Apostle.—He had once been the Apostle (Sheliach, the Talmudic equivalent) of the Jewish authorities at Jerusalem to the synagogue in Damascus. [In this, etymological, sense and employment of the word Barnabas is called an apostle (Acts 14:14). So the same popular, freer use derived from the Jewish practice lingers in 2 Corinthians 8:23 (of Luke and the bearers of the “collection”), in Philippians 2:25 (of Epaphroditus). The sense of “among the apostles” as including Andronicus and Junias (Romans 16:7) is very disputable, especially if the latter name be a woman’s, “Junia.”] Now a greater High Priest had sent him forth as His messenger and representative. For this the two needful qualifications were, to have had his commission direct from Christ’s own lips [“I send thee” (Acts 26:17), putting him on an equality with those who heard Him say, “Go ye therefore,” etc. (Matthew 28:19-20)], and to be able, at first hand, and not merely by hearsay or report of others, to assert as a fact within his own knowledge that the Crucified Christ was risen again and was then really living [putting Paul on the footing of Peter and the rest, who could say, Acts 5:32; cf. Acts 1:22 (very explicit); cf. 1 John 1:1]. Important for us that the first link of the chain of historical evidence and testimony should be sound. [If indeed the uniqueness of the position of the apostles in their special selection, commission, and qualification for this testimony, out of the witnesses of 1 Corinthians 15:6, does not make them, not merely the first link, but the strong staple, holding the first link, and itself driven into the solid rock of the facts. The Apostolic company mediated between the Great Fact—the Living, Risen Christ—and the long succession of Christian teachers who must needs receive the truth on evidence of others (supported, indeed, by the subjective evidence of their experience of His working). My … in the Lord.—Observe how the second phrase guards, almost corrects, the first. [Cf. 1 Corinthians 16:23-24: Christ’s grace; my love.] No independent work; no success of his own. He has no wisdom, strength, success, except as his whole life is “in Christ”; and thus Christ wins the success and does the work through him. It is Christ’s working and power; it is only a question which of the members of the Body He shall employ for any particular part of the great task, and to which shall be “credited” the particular share of the great total result.
1 Corinthians 9:2. To others.—Q.d. in their opinion, and by their recognition, “I am not.” Notice “at least,” R.V. seal.—As by-and-by his “crown” (Philippians 4:1), and, then and now, his “joy” (ib.). “At Corinth, at all events, there can be no doubt of the original validity of my commission, or whether it be still running and valid.”
1 Corinthians 9:3. Answer.—Apologia, as, e.g., Acts 22:1; 2 Timothy 4:16. A forensic word, like “examine,” as, e.g., in Acts 4:9; Acts 24:8; Acts 28:18; (1 Corinthians 4:3-5).
1 Corinthians 9:4. Power.—In the sense of “right”; so in 1 Corinthians 9:12, “to eat and to drink,” q.d. at the expense of the Church.
1 Corinthians 9:5. Sister.—In the Christian sense, parallel to “brother” (1 Corinthians 5:11, etc.); “a wife” who is also a Christian “sister.” The brethren of the Lord.—Three long-discussed, influentially sustained, theories:
(1) Children of Mary and Joseph, born after Jesus (the IIelvidian theory);
(2) Children of Joseph by a former wife (the Epiphanian);
(3) Cousins of Christ, children of Mary the sister of the Virgin, assumed also to be the wife of Alphæus (Jerome’s theory). Probably the data are insufficient for a sure conclusion, agreement in which would otherwise long ago have been arrived at.
(1) is unquestionably the most natural impression to be gathered from the Gospel history and from the word “brethren.”
(2), and in a degree
(3), no doubt originated, or found a very strong motive for their propagation and acceptance, in a desire to save the “perpetual virginity” of Mary.
(1) accounts best for the prominence in the Church at Jerusalem of the James of Acts 15, and of Paul’s Epistles. Cephas.— Matthew 8:14. [Very precarious speculation has seen another touch of Peter’s domestic life in 1 Peter 5:13, and yet more precariously has made his wife the “elect lady” of 2 John, because of 1 Peter 5:13, which is only “the elected one (fem.) at Babylon.”]
1 Corinthians 9:6.—Barnabas was a rich landowner in Cyprus (Acts 4), and needed neither to work for his living nor to ask the Church to maintain him. If (with Bishop Lightfoot, Galatians 2:11) we make Paul’s rebuke of Barnabas’s vacillation occur during Acts 15:30-40, they may have started together with a “soreness” which made Barnabas (or both of them) tenderly irritable, and helped to the “quarrel” (so-called) about John Mark. This the earliest mention of Barnabas by Paul after the separation. [The spirit of even this passing mention may be paralleled by John Wesley’s persistent kindness of thought and speech to and about Whitefield, after their separation over the Calvinist controversy.]
1 Corinthians 9:7.—Matters little whether the master or the employé in the vineyard, the owner or only the hired shepherd, be intended. Probably the former. As to the soldier, note the R.V.
1 Corinthians 9:8. As a man—Found in Romans 3:5 (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:19); 1 Corinthians 3:3; 1 Corinthians 9:8; 1 Corinthians 15:32 (Galatians 1:11, plur.), 1 Corinthians 3:15; “after man,” as a pattern or norm, but with varying shades of meaning. Here: “According to the sense of what is right, customary amongst men.” Not only does the common judgment of mankind bear him out in his contention, but God has delivered His mind also.
1 Corinthians 9:9.—“Deuteronomy 25:4, quoted also in 1 Timothy 5:8, is very conspicuous for its unexpected, sudden, and momentary reference to cattle amid matter quite different” (Beet). [But the whole chapter looks like a succession of legislative dicta, “entered up” in the statute-book with no order or connection beyond that of their succession of actual enactment as the occasion arose.] An instance carrying a far-reaching principle in regard to the interpretation of the Old Testament. If some enactments seem vague, impracticable, trivial, or even minutely vexatious, “unworthy of the attention of such a Book and of God,” we may say:
1. A trivial case may carry a great principle.
2. Some simple precepts have large analogical meanings when transferred to spiritual things.
3. The çy près principle applies here, as in all legislation which is affected by changing circumstances.
4. Only fair to the Bible to bring in common sense, to explain or apply, as in ordinary life. True order of thought, in this and all similar instances, is not up from the temporary, “trivial” case to the higher spiritual analogy, but down from this to the lower and Jesser. In this small enactment we are touching a widely applicable principle of the Divine order, in a very lowly, temporary embodiment. N. B.—This “law of Moses” is also what “God saith.”
1 Corinthians 9:10. Our sakes’ altogether.—Not denying the early, lower intention of God, who does, in this passage, “take care for oxen.” Similar to “I have loved Jacob, and hated Esau”; or rather to “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice”; where evidently the negation is not absolute, but comparative, in its force. Our.—Hardly to be narrowed to mean only Christian ministers. Note the change of reading, and of consequent rendering. “Partaker of his hope” meant, “Enjoying the reward he hoped for as he laboured.” This also a general principle, not specialised until 1 Corinthians 9:11; 1 Corinthians 9:14, but a point of Divine “political economy,” which should be embodied in (say) the relations between capital and labour.
1 Corinthians 9:12.—Cf. 2 Corinthians 11:12.
1 Corinthians 9:13.—Stanley sees in this resumed argumentation, and in the reiteration in 1 Corinthians 9:14 of what had been said in 1 Corinthians 9:11, the probable sign of a resumption of the letter after some pause. [As perhaps a change of amanuensis, or a new morning’s work. Cf. 2 Corinthians 10:1. He presses also “I wrote,” in 1 Corinthians 9:15.] Leviticus 6:16; Leviticus 6:26; Numbers 18:8-19. See in connection with 1 Corinthians 8:1.
1 Corinthians 9:14. The Lord Christ hath ordained.— Matthew 10:9 sq., Luke 10:7 are quoted [not necessarily from written Gospels] as in 1 Corinthians 7:10.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.— 1 Corinthians 9:1-14
The Support of a Stipendiary Ministry.
I. What the minister has a right (1 Corinthians 9:4-6) to expect from his people.—Maintenance (1 Corinthians 9:14). This right rests upon:
(1) The natural fitness and “right” of the case (1 Corinthians 9:7; 1 Corinthians 9:11-12);
(2) The Old Testament legislation (1 Corinthians 9:8-10), definitely endorsed and adopted in
(3) The words of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:14).
II. What the people have a claim to expect from the minister.—
(1) That he have all needful credentials (1 Corinthians 9:1-2);
(2) That he do his work; he actually “preaches the Gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:14).
III. What Christ has a right to expect from His servant.—That in claiming, or enforcing, or using his “right” he shall not “hinder” his Master’s Gospel.
I. The central verse of this section is 1 Corinthians 9:14. All turns around this.
1. To some ears the “rights of the ministry” has an ugly sound. The minister is often expected to be above such considerations, and to let nothing be heard from himself but how he feels the call of his “duties” press upon him. So he does, if he be a minister worthy the name. He comes into the ministry with a “woe” in his ears, as the penalty of any alternative course. He preaches to his people—rich and poor—that Rights mean Duties. The poor need to have this preached to them as certainly as the rich. But Duties also mean Rights. If the “call” of Christ and His Church be such as to indicate that he must make the ministry the one business of his life, then he must be maintained whilst he is fulfilling his “calling.”
2. Paul is discussing the case of the Apostolate. It was no doubt a unique order of men, charged with a function for the Church of their own time, and for the Church of all time, which cannot be repeated by any other set of men, and never needs to be repeated. Once for all they have set Christian dogma upon the firm basis of History. (See Critical Notes.) But the analogy holds good, in this particular matter, between the case of these unique and extraordinary servants of Christ and of the Churches and the ordinary ministry. The inspired and authoritative declaration of 1 Corinthians 9:14—whether paraphrased from, e.g., Matthew 10:9, or a divinely guaranteed report of an unwritten word of Christ (similar to the case of Acts 20:35)—generalises the application of the principle.
3. The “ordinance” of Christ foresaw, took account of, provided against, a separated ministry. The Body of Christ has simply, and from the necessity of the case,—a necessity recurring in connection with every growing, enlarging, organisation whatsoever,—followed the analogy—“the law”—of all organised structures in Nature. As complexity increases, as the demands of the organisation multiply and are differentiated, so the organs which meet the demands are multiplied, and become specialised in their function and faculty. The specialisation of work and of officials in the Body began in Acts 4, when the apostles ceased to attempt to do everything in the Church, and “Deacons” (so-called) were told off to a special portion of what had been included in their work. A simple Church, independent of organised fellowship, of small numbers, of simple requirement, may reproduce the early simplicity of pastoral and official organisation. But as it grows, and, above all, if a system of grouped, affiliated, connexionalised, organised Churches comes to form a new Church, it becomes a matter of expedient division of labour to set apart a pastorate, who will need, and should give, a whole and undivided attention to the teaching and “ruling” needed by the enlarged work and community.
4. “A paid ministry” is a theory and a practice which may reasonably be criticised and objected to; but a “sustained, supported ministry” is a necessity of the case. The man must “live” of the Gospel; not “starve” or “struggle” upon it. His “flock” should do their utmost to see that the shepherd is not the worst fed of them all; they should set him free from need and care. And 1 Corinthians 9:5 enlarges the range of this principle of necessary, suitable support. “Life” is not merely food, clothes, house, bed, books, cut down to a minimum of possibility. A “living” is not merely what will keep the man himself out of want. The apostle, or his ministerial successor, is a man, for all he has been called into, thrust into, office. In all ordinary conditions full, all-round manhood means marriage, a “wife,” a home, perhaps children. Celibacy like Paul’s, should always be the exceptional thing, and never compulsory. It has cut off the ministry from the manhood of the Church, in regard to the sympathy which comes from, and only by, experience. It has morally been a snare to the ministry itself, and often a curse to the community. The “fork” of rigid ecclesiastical legislation cannot “expel Nature” from the man, merely because his work becomes specialised, and he himself is separated in order to do it the more effectively. The “recurrence” and the revolt of outraged Nature have often been disastrous, and full of disgrace, to the Christian, and the ministerial, name. The man, though made a minister by the expediency and the necessity of circumstances, has the “right to lead about a wife”; to have his own home, with its solace and its support. And the “living” covers the needful, suitable provision for this also. His “right” is “authority.” His Lord authorises him to requisition his support from his people. This “right” is manifestly in accord with:
(1) The fitness of things, and the analogy of ordinary human affairs. Whether he be master or servant, the vine-dresser may reasonably expect that his vineyard shall at least sustain him whilst he cultivates it; the shepherd, be he sheep-master or shepherd-man, may hardly be expected to render all his service gratuitously, or to be content that all the produce and advantage shall go to others, who have done nothing, whilst he goes unsupplied. [Cf. the (perhaps) Virgilian protest:—
“Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves,
Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis oves,
Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes,
Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.
His ego versiculos feci; tulit alter honores.”]
The minister can indeed never urge the claim of the Owner of the Vineyard (Isaiah 5:2); “the Great Shepherd of the sheep” (Hebrews 13:20), “Whose own the sheep are” (John 10:12), has a claim which no under-shepherd can advance; but, though the “wages” theory is no satisfactory or suitable one for the money-relations between minister and people, the workman might ever claim his “wages,” the under-shepherd his “pay,” his “keep.” Paul and his fellow-or successor-ministers are soldiers on campaign. The war is urgent; there is no respite in the campaign. Discipline and duty, under ordinary circumstances, both forbid that the soldier should need to go foraging for his rations, or should need to combine with his soldering some other means of support. He must not be “entangled with the affairs of this life” (2 Timothy 2:4). The side-occupations, the by-employments, to which he might have to resort, might easily impair his own spirituality, and so his efficiency; indeed, in them he might easily be tempted to do some business with the Enemy. The Enemy will be his provider readily enough, if only he can so divert him from his campaigning and soldierly duty. He looks to his Captain for his support, and his Captain bids him draw upon the Church. They must “honour” the Captain’s draft, and find the soldier’s “salt-money.” And are they not, moreover, themselves in debt to the minister? They owe to him their “spiritual things,” “their own selves also” (Philemon 1:19). It is not repayment, it is only due acknowledgment of their indebtedness, that they should give him such “carnal things” as his need requires. Indeed, it is “sowing” and “reaping.” Will they begrudge, or deny, him a handful, and that of the less valuable produce, of the harvest in their lives, springing, too, from his sowing? Religion means to many, new habits, a new character, God’s blessing, which are very directly and obviously productive, even in their business career (Matthew 6:33; 1 Timothy 4:8). Many a man thus indirectly owes wealth and position—“carnal things”—to the minister whose labours first sowed the seed of eternal life in his heart. “How much owest thou unto thy Lord?” “How much owest thou to thy Paul, thy minister?” If any man should see to it that the ministry is supported, it is that man who owes to the faithful, sympathetic pastor and friend his conversion; his Sabbaths of blesssing, which mean new inspiration for his best life, and multiplying, propagating, reproductive, spiritual help for the work of the weekdays; the spiritual influences in his home; the conversion of his children. Corinth at least should have felt the obligation to see to it that Paul wanted for no “carnal things.” All this is embodied in
(2) The Old Testament legislation. (See Critical Notes.) He will take the Jews on their own familiar ground. They did “hear the Law” (Galatians 4:21). Then to the Law they shall go. [No need to disparage such a style of argument, because the Rabbis to an absurd extent so “targumed” Old Testament passages. Their “targum” often employs a perfectly legitimate method, and lays bare a true, Divine, and abiding significance in the temporary or “trivial” enactment or story. The question is in any case one of evidence, and is not to be dismissed with a sweeping, preliminary dictum condemning all. Does Paul’s “targum” approve itself to the spiritual judgment of the profoundest—not always, or of necessity, technically the most “learned”—students of the Word of God? An interpretation of an Old Testament passage occurring, employed, in the New Testament, is adopted, sanctioned, guided, by the Inspiring Spirit.] The great principle in the mind of the Lawgiver is found in Deuteronomy 25:4, in a miniature, temporary, special, concrete form. De minimis curat hœc lex, and for greater matters also. The oxen are not deemed unworthy of His “care,” indeed; but they are part of man’s world, and God is caring for man, is caring for apostles; for workmen of every order and degree, but with not least solicitude for the “workmen” in the Church (1 Corinthians 9:1). The temporary colour washes out of this, as out of so many more, Mosaic ordinances, and leaves us with perhaps a little, but a real, piece of a stuff made for everlasting wear. Your Apostolic, ministerial “ox” plods his way, and hauls along, his heavy drag week after week, year in, year out. Do not muzzle his mouth, or grudge him his mouthful! Such enactments are part of the whole Revelation of God’s mind and will.
(3) “The Lord” knew His Father’s mind in this, as in all else, and has put upon the old principle His own universal, generalised shape—the Teacher and Legislator as He is, for a Race and for all Time—and has put it on the Statute-book of His kingdom, “that they who preach … shall live,” etc. His word is final. Beyond it no Church can go, nor behind, nor beside it. The minister’s “right” is formally enacted by the King Himself.
II. But the Church has its claim in the matter also.—If a man—though he be a “minister”—work, he has a right to eat. If a man will not work—minister or any man—neither shall he eat. And the man whom the Church is asked to sustain should be unchallengeably a “minister,” who—
1. Can produce his credentials.—Paul could. Point by point he could match the “letters of ordination” produced by Cephas or “the brethren of the Lord,” or by any other teacher whatsoever. Once more (as shown in Critical Notes) it is to be remembered how exceptional were the case and the credentials of an “apostle” [in the strict, narrow sense of the title]. But as in the natural so in the spiritual world, no work of God is isolated. Every fact has its relations, generally its analogies, to many adjacent facts. Evolutionary science has that much of right, in its teaching that a deep, close-drawn unity of idea runs through all the works of God. Earliest and latest, simplest and most complex, lowliest and highest, are all bound together into One Work of God. The Miracle has its relations to the Ordinary; it is not a mere isolated marvel. The Apostolic office was the exceptional, the extraordinary; but it was traced upon lines which are also the foundation lines of the draft of the Ministerial Office. So far as the diversity of facts allows, the analogy holds good between both the apostolate and the ministry. The credentials of both are analogous. The minister of Christ who holds a valid commission, and who may claim support from the Church, has (a) “seen the Lord,” and he so preaches with “the demonstration of the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:4) that he can appeal to a people who are his work “in the Lord.” (On this last point, see the Critical Notes.) He must himself have come into real, personal relations with Christ, and in the indwelling strength and wisdom of Christ he must have been successful in bringing some others into real, personal relations with Christ too. The two things hang together very closely. No man who has really received his commission from Christ, and has by a holy watchfulness kept himself from all which would sever the living, life-giving, strength-imparting connection with Christ implied in being “in Him,” will ever be long together without his accrediting, manifest “work.” On the other hand, no man will ever accomplish such “work” who has not first “seen the Lord.” He must “know Christ”—and that in the widest sense, and to the fullest content of the idea of “knowing” Him—at first hand; hearsay will not do. He will be a theoriser, a speculator, a critic, but not a witness. Like Thomas, like Paul, he must have stood in the presence of the Risen, Glorified Christ, and seen, as by a flash of holy intuition (or rather by the demonstration of the Great Preacher of Christ, the Holy Ghost) One before Whom intellect and heart have bowed down in trustful, reverent, loving adoration, recognising, “My Lord and my God!” And he must often have renewed the holy vision; must often “stand in the Presence” of his Lord, like an ancient prophet [e.g. Jonah 1:3; or like a very angel, Luke 1:19]. And his people will know it. (And they will know it if he has not!) He will speak with a power which their heart and conscience will recognise and will respond to. In his bearing, his words, perhaps his very face, they will see as they gather before him what will make them say, “He has seen Christ Jesus the Lord!” He will be unhappy, and a failure, if his ministry lack this qualification. This will give it a perpetual freshness; every other source of suggestion, every other class of topic, will soon be exhausted, and will soon cease to satisfy hungry souls in his flock. The mere graces of diction, the mental furnishing of mere literary or educational acquirements, will in the long-run do no “work,” certainly none such as is “in the Lord.” A real Church recognises such a man as a true “minister.” His credentials are “read and known of all” (2 Corinthians 3:2). They will sustain such a man, especially will they who are “his work.” (b) No tie so tender, no gratitude so deep, as that between the convert and the man who led him to Christ, between the sheep who is in himself a token of the seeking, patient, watchful, helpful love and work of a real Shepherd. Unhappy the man who year after year can show no “work”!
2. He should be a man who does his work, that for which he was “called” by his Master. (For an examination of the phrase “preach the Gospel,” see Homiletic Suggestion on 1 Corinthians 9:14.) The idler has no “right.” The Church has a claim against the man that he shall show cause for his “wages,” if his idleness bring down the question so low as to become one of work and pay. The work of the true minister of Christ is many-sided, of many types; hardly any line of study but may be made contributory to the cause of the Gospel. Some are set for the defence of the Gospel. The ministerial scholar, or editor, or botanist, or historical student, or tutor, or antiquary, may, if he will, consecrate his work and make it subservient to the cause of Christ’s Gospel. “If he will,”—but he must. It must converge, of his set purpose, upon Christ. It is a grave question, to be decided as the several cases arise, how far subsidiary occupations of time and strength should be allowed or pursued by the man who, to the necessary basis of natural qualifications for the preacher and pastor, has also the two essential marks above analysed
(1. and 2.). In the widest sense he should “wait on his ministering.” The Church has that claim.
III. Abstract right may be carried to a very mischievous length of practical exposition and enforcement.—The Gospel is not made for the apostle, but the apostle for the Gospel. If the claims of these should seem to clash or compete, the claim and need of the Gospel must stand first. Nothing, not even the abstract “right” of a Paul, must be allowed to “hinder the Gospel of Christ.” The very “right” is only given, indeed, for the sake of the furtherance of the Gospel; it is for the advantage of the Gospel, under all ordinary circumstances, that the ministry should be maintained by the Churches. But in Paul’s case, as he believed, circumstance made it for the advantage of the Gospel, or at least for the obviating of disadvantage and detriment, that his right, the very “ordinance” of his Lord should be waived and should stand aside. To him “to live” was “Christ,”—that dear Name gathered up to itself all Paul’s activities, all his devotion; every motive received its impulse and its direction from that Christ. Of his own eager self-devotion, therefore, he readily chose to set his right aside. His heart and reason, the heart and reason of the true minister, would say that the Lord had the claim upon him that he should. Such a man will, e.g., uphold, or waive, his pastoral prerogatives in a meeting; he will defend himself, or let judgment go against him in silence, when he is misjudged or misrepresented; he will resist, or yield to, the opposition of “unreasonable and wicked men”; as, from one case to another, the interests of the Gospel of Christ may seem to require. In any case of doubtful character the balance will perhaps always be more readily given against himself. It is his debt to his Master that it should be. The Gospel of the Master deserves that consideration!
SEPARATE HOMILIES
1 Corinthians 9:10. Hope cheering Labour.—[The verse may be made the occasion of a sermon on the Rewards of Labour and the Returns of Capital.]
1. Diversity of contributors to the ultimate harvest.—Some “plough,” do the preliminary, rough, necessary toil, in manufacturing processes, in all engineering and mechanical trades, in commerce and trade; the “ploughmen” may stand for the unskilled labourers. Some “thresh,” and bring to finished readiness for the consumers’ use all the product of a succession of workers and of the chemistry of nature [i.e. of God in His laboratory within the soil, where the seed is buried and dies, to live again]. The “threshers” may stand for the capitalist, or any (supposed) higher-grade contributors to the final result. Many must co-operate; each beginning upon the basis of the work of another order of workers; and at some point in the chain of production, the blessing and work of God coming in indispensably; if the hungry world is to have its “bread.”
2. There is interdependence of producers.—The ploughman’s work is a necessary preliminary to that of the thresher. The thresher completes the otherwise unfruitful work of the ploughman. Each man is needed. The much-abused “middleman” has arisen out of a need; his work, however selfishly or extortionately or tyrannically it has been used, is in itself only an instance of division of labour, necessitated by the complexity of modern life and business. The man who is not wanted, who does not justify his own place and support, will not long be supported. But the ploughman must not grudge the reward of the thresher, nor must the thresher forget what he owes to the ploughman. And must not forget to give it to him, either.
3. No man should labour, whether ploughman or thresher, without a fair reward for his labour, or without hope of being partaker of the fruits of his toil. The right apportionment of the profits, the fruits, of labour is a growingly difficult problem, [and one on which Christian men may honestly differ as to guiding principles and results; not to be discussed in a neutral Commentary like this]. Labour may be as thoroughly selfish and tyrannical in the matter, as it charges Capital with being. Some of the complexity, the perplexity, of the problem is removed whenever on either side an honest, earnest, sympathetic, painstaking endeavour is made to appreciate the view and the demand of the other. Each side also would need to cease to insist upon absolute, mechanical, doctrinaire, “right.” [In this noblesse oblige; whether it be the noblesse of “superior” station, or of better education and wider views of the complex problem; or of greater ability, financial or other, to go back from the full limit of “rights”; above all, if it be the noblesse of the Christian profession and character. Noblesse should lead the way in concession to prejudice, in patience with ignorance. The Christian spirit should be foremost in softening the rigour of the mere mechanical “political economics,” with their formulation of self-interest working against self-interest.] Logic, “wages,” are not the last words of discussions in times of strained relations and class-conflict. The heart is often illogical, and traverses all theories and formulas; but it rules. The heart understands, if the thresher gets close to the ploughman, and the ploughman tries to understand the thresher. Labour without hope of properly proportioned “partaking,” is the labour of slaves. Such labour, without hope to cheer weariness, to incite to effort, to reward diligence and real work, begets the slavish temper—sullen, rebellious, dangerous. There should be no rigidly mechanical adherence to “rights” on either side; so much time, to a half-minute; so much labour, to a single hand’s-turn; so much wages, to a half-farthing. Brotherliness should “rub down” the hard lines of such a plan of the relations between man and man. [The “lord” in the Saviour’s story who said, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own?” is nevertheless a master who gave to some a whole day’s “penny” for one hour’s labour.] To say, “There is no friendship and no religion in business,” is not to utter Gospel, Christian, economics. Let capital leave the door of hope open for the labourer; let not the labourer grudge or make impossible the hope of the employer. All the political economies must adjust themselves according to this fixed, divinely sanctioned principle. [Wherever God is the Employer, He will see to it that His ploughman or thresher does realise the “hope” in which he laboured.]
1 Corinthians 9:12. Note three important things as assumed here.
I. Men may hinder the Gospel.—The end of human history is, no doubt, a victory for God and for Goodness, for Christ and His Gospel, and, along with this, a vindication of all the perplexing facts connected with God’s method in leading on the course of history to the goal. Yet one aspect of the ever-present problem of Evil is that the rate and extent of the progress of the Gospel is made dependent upon man’s faithfulness and activity. There have seemed ages of the Church when the Church did nothing to extend, and hardly seemed to keep, the ground previously won for Christianity. No soul will ever be lost, simply and only because a Church or an individual Christian was inconsistent, a stumbling-block, or in apathetic worldliness did not do its duty to that soul. Yet are there none lost who might have been saved if the Church or the Christian had been faithful? What a power, to be able to narrow, or to divert from those dying for it, the river of the water of life—to make the wheels of Christ’s chariot drive heavily, plunged in the sand or the bog of a Church’s indolence or unspirituality or unbelief! [The unbelief of the healthy people in Nazareth prevented Jesus doing all He desired for the need of the sick in Nazareth. How one man, Achan, and he no chief or prince, but only a common man, could hold all Israel in check, and really slay the six-and-thirty Israelites who lay dead in the valley before Ai! Perhaps, on the other hand, 2 Peter 3:12 may mean “hastening the day of God.”] [Illustrate thus: Holland is a country for the most part lying below the level of the sea; it would naturally be covered by the waters. But with long years of patient, watchful industry the inhabitants have built and kept up, around their coasts and along their canals, huge dykes, and these, with a system of gates and locks, keep out the waters. All this is the salvation of Holland. But unbelief can build its walls and barriers around itself, and around a Church, and shut out the tide of blessing which God desires to send upon the “thirsty ground.”]
II. Even good men may be in danger of hindering the Gospel.—If, e.g., Paul had insisted too stubbornly on his right to be maintained by the Church, or lawfully to enjoy the company of a wife and the comforts of domestic happiness at the cost of the Church.
III. To hinder the Gospel is so great an evil that to avoid it, or even the danger of it, is worth any sacrifice, except of principle; to help forward the Gospel is worth any cost. Everything which will arouse conflict and bad feeling, everything which may, even incidentally and unjustifiably, cause offence, everything which is found to “give place” to the ever-watchful Adversary, and so to put the brake on to the wheels of progress, the Christian man will forego, “lest he hinder,” etc. He will give up his liberty in the matter of amusements, or recreation, lest though remotely he check the work of the Gospel in even one soul; above all, lest he should cripple his own usefulness, or dull the edge of his own spirituality, and so “hinder,” etc. If the work of God seems to lag, to drag, to be hindered, then Churches and individuals should begin anxiously, and with unsparing fidelity, to inquire the cause. [See the inquiry when Achan’s sin blocked the way of Israel’s conquest. No use for Joshua to be humbled on the ground in prayer: “Get up! Search out the sin!” (Joshua 7:10). The saying of the disciples at the supper-table: “Is it I? Is it I?” was better than their earlier saying, “Who is it?”]
1 Corinthians 9:12. The Gospel hindered.
I. The progress of the Gospel in the world seems, and surely is, slower than the purpose of God, the desire of Christ, the aim of the Spirit’s work, would lead us to expect.—Faithful hearts yearn for greater, wider, more rapid and sweeping conquests than are actually won. They cannot acquiesce in the actual condition of the matter; they cannot adjust their hope, or activity, to the actual rate of progress. They have a heart, an instinct, within them, which rebels against any such acquiescence and adjustment. They ask, “Why is it? What doth hinder?” The man who is content that the Church—or his own particular, sectional or local Church—should do no more than work on the programme, “As last year,—only more so!” has lost one of the first, simplest tokens of being “in Christ,” and therefore of being in the communion of sympathy with his Lord.
II. Replies which are not answers.—1 “It is of no use to fret or be anxious. God is sovereign; things are going as He wills, and as fast as He just now wills they should.” The spirit of the reply of a Baptist pastor to the offer of Carey for India. Not often heard now; yet, if not explicitly taught, it is implicitly embodied in the practice of the Church. There is, always has been, a sovereignty in the measure and time of the outpouring of the Spirit. The Church has actually progressed spasmodically, by Revivals after times of inertia or unfaithfulness; and these have not always seemed given in response to a specially pleading Church. They have sometimes come upon a sleeping Church. Yet, whilst the Church says to God, “Awake, awake,” He says in reply to the Church, “Awake, awake.” (See Dr. Maclaren, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 19 sqq., Isaiah 62:1; Isaiah 62:6-7.) God is covenanted to hear, and to give, and to bless the world and the work of the Church, whenever the conditions are fulfilled by It. At all events, sovereignty or no sovereignty, He is in fact waiting, eager, forward, to give the success which seems hindered. We may count upon Him.
2. The seeming failures cannot mean that the Gospel has found a soil, a race, a heart, for which it has no message, or to whose needs it has no adaptation. That were to charge Him Who has made both heart and Gospel with something less than the perfection of Divine wisdom. History and age-long experiment give no support to such a supposition. On the contrary, the Gospel has conquered, saved, satisfied, sample cases in every land, century, race, temperament, social grade, mental cast, young, old, ignorant, learned, etc.
3. Nor that it has found a race or a heart which does not need it. No other religion as yet has so satisfied and possessed its votaries as that some—sample cases again—have not found a longing for something else, and better, which the Christian faith has supplied. If not before, in the very presentation of this supply the heart learns to know its need.
4. “But the superstitions are so inveterate, the habits of a life-time so hopelessly deep-rooted, the depravity and degradation of heart and conscience and life are such in the the adults, that we must let them go—leaving them to God—and depend upon the young, the coming generation.” But Paul’s Gospel won its triumphs amongst adults, and from inveterate, degraded, deeply depraved heathenism. His Gospel solved the same problems which we face to-day at home or in foreign lands. The Gospel is meant, not only for those who need it, but for those also who need it most.
5. “The Gospel is only to be preached for a testimony to all nations; the actual inbringing of the nations on any wide scale must come with the Thousand Years.” [A large question. Matthew 24:14 is appealed to. To many this reply seems like invoking something to supply a lacking effectiveness in the Gospel; like calling upon Christ to come and do what the Spirit and Word of God have failed in accomplishing.]
6. “We want more money, more organisations, a new Society, or Committee, for this or that.” All good; all needed, perhaps. But the Gospel won its first triumphs, and has often triumphed since, with few or none of these helps. Evidently, historically, these are not all, or the essentials. [One-man power, consecrated, is better than all Committees and organisations, though most productive when working under control and with organisation. Money must be made no substitute for the Spirit of God.]
II. [As above, “Men may hinder the Gospel.”] Generally, want of the power of the Holy Ghost is underneath all slow progress. He does what is done, much or little. He would do more, if the conditions on which He co-operates with His Church were better fulfilled by it. [As with Christ at Nazareth, above.] A spiritually low condition of His Church, showing itself in little prayer for the progress of the Gospel, in lack of the spirit of consecration, and issuing in the withholding for self of money, time, family, or anything else needed to the progress and extension of the work, is the great hindrance; it “grieves the Spirit.” Little appreciation of the Gospel at home; therefore little zeal for its propagation, no real faith in, or concern about, its saving power and success; are sometimes “hindrances.” Of secondary importance, but yet real causes, may be, defective representations of the Gospel in the preaching, or in the life of individuals and Churches; it may be overlaid with ritual, or hidden beneath intellectual speculation; it may be made too much a question of philanthropic benefit rather than of redemptive purpose; may now and then be proclaimed in a shape too specially that of a Church or nation. [E.g. must not expect some English modes of working and effort to suit equally well France, or India, or China; only an encumbrance to progress to attempt to transplant methods or some peculiar ecclesiastical constitution into another type of nation and life.]—Suggested in part by remarks in “Homilist,” v., vi.
HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS
1 Corinthians 9:8-10. The Law of God is—
I. Reasonable.
II. Humane.
III. Comprehensive.
IV. Just.—[J. L.]
Or thus:—
1 Corinthians 9:8-10. Principles of Equity.
I. Commend themselves to reason.
II. Are enforced by the Law of God.
III. Are of universal application.
IV. Contribute by their operation to the best interests of all.—[J. L.]