All for the Sake of the Gospel
Do you like detective stories? Working our way through this Sunday’s passage will be a lot like a detective story! Like an iceberg, Paul is writing about his ministry in details we can read but struggle to understand because he’s writing to an original audience that sees (knows) what we don’t see: the part of the iceberg that’s underwater, i.e., the underlying details the Corinthians knew which we’re left to speculate about. So, our approach this Sunday will be a lot like doing a bit of detective work as we seek to do our best to discover reasonable explanations of what those underlying details may be. One clue we can claim with a good deal of confidence is this: Paul believes he has the right as a minister of the gospel to be compensated for his work of ministry, and he makes the case in defense of this right. Yet when it’s all said and done, Paul plainly declares his refusal to make use of this right to make his “living by the gospel” (verse 14), and he explains why when he writes in verse 23 “I do it all for the sake of the gospel.” Detective work is challenging and I can’t promise definitive answers as to why Paul was compelled to defend his right to be compensated and why he subsequently refused this right, but we will consider some reasonable possible answers to those “why” questions relying on what we do know from both 1st and 2nd Corinthians. But regardless of where our investigation leads us on these questions, here’s what matters most. We will learn the principle that Paul taught by his life which is applicable to all of us. Paul lived his life by seeing every moment of it through the lens of the gospel and subordinated every concern and every right to the gospel. As he writes in verse 12, “we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ,” and anything means anything! If the exercise of a right or a preference or a choice or anything he was free to do would hinder a person from coming to Christ, Paul set all of these things aside and refused to exercise any of them, all for the sake of the gospel. So, are you ready to begin the investigation?!
We invite you to come join us this Sunday morning for our in-person worship service at Leptondale Bible Church in Newburgh, starting at 10:55 AM. For those unable to attend, our service can be viewed live on the church’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/leptondalebiblechurch. This Sunday, we’ll continue a sermon series from 1st Corinthians titled “Written for Our Instruction” with a message from 1st Corinthians 9:1-23 titled “All for the sake of the gospel.”
God bless!
Pastor Mike