NOTES for Co1 9:1-14

As if defending himself before accusers unknown to us, Paul says of himself that he too, like the other apostles, has every right to receive all kinds of support, including material support, from the churches in which his ministry takes place (vv. 4-11). The accusations may have been connected with the fact that Paul, while not formally belonging to the number of the apostles, meaning the circle of the twelve closest disciples of Jesus and Matthias, who entered that circle by lot, nevertheless considered his ministry apostolic and considered himself deserving of the same treatment from Christians as the other apostles. He emphasizes that apostleship is not formal membership in a particular historically formed circle of people, but a ministry to which God appoints a person through Jesus Christ. If the Corinthian Christians became not merely witnesses of Paul's ministry but its fruit, then they, at least, have no reason to doubt the apostleship of the one who helped them open the road into the Kingdom (vv. 1-3).

At first glance it may appear that Paul is defending certain rights of his own that others are challenging. But he immediately states that neither he nor his companions have ever used these rights, so that they would not be accused of making excessive demands and so that the ministry entrusted to them by God would not suffer from such accusations (v. 12). The matter, as can be seen, lies elsewhere. In the Corinthian church, and perhaps not only there, there were people who considered apostolic ministry too "high" and "spiritual" a matter for those who carried it out to expect such a "low" thing as material support from those who benefited from its fruits.

For Paul, however, it is obvious that no spiritual life, however intense, and no ministry, however exalted, removes the need to eat and drink. Material support for those who carry out apostolic ministry is therefore no less spiritual a task than the ministry itself (vv. 13-14). And the point is not only that such support is often the only way for ministers to devote themselves entirely to ministry without being distracted by earning their daily bread. The point above all is that material support for ministers from those who benefit from the fruits of their ministry is a response without which relations with the ministers become purely ideal, and therefore very insubstantial. Then normal spiritual life, with its real relationships and real responsibility for one another, gives way to a peculiar kind of "spiritual" parasitism that has nothing to do either with the Kingdom or with genuine spirituality.