If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! (1 Cor. 9:16)

I grew up in a county that has a nice population of both wild turkeys and turkey hunters. The local newspaper faithfully publishes a photograph of the first hunter to kill a turkey each season, along with the turkey’s weight and the length of its “beard.”

Local woodsmen know both where and when to look for (and sometimes to bait) potential prey. They know how to use a turkey call to attract the big toms. The same hunters may also be proficient in the use of a duck call, or in rattling old deer antlers to simulate two battling bucks, but when they are hunting turkeys, they stick to a turkey call.

Most of us don’t have to look far to discover churches who are hunting turkeys with duck calls or deer antlers, and it doesn’t take a strategic analyst to discern why they are not succeeding. Churches that do effective outreach make the effort to identify the cultural backgrounds and the prevailing attitudes of their communities. They understand that you don’t reach young apartment dwellers with rundown facilities and tired, repetitive worship. They can see that retirement communities will probably not respond to contemporary praise worship. They recognize that many techniques used effectively in the 1950s or the 1990s may fall flat today.

Appreciating the importance of effective communication and flexibility is nothing new. When the church was still so young that it struggled to emerge from its cradle, the Apostle Paul emphasized the importance of understanding other people, adapting to their needs, and communicating on their level. [DD]

A question of rights

(vv. 16-18)

            For Paul, a positive witness begins with the believer’s own sense of identity before Christ. In the previous two chapters, Paul addressed issues of contention within the church. Did people have the right to marry (chapter 7)? Did they have the right to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols (chapter 8)? Paul acknowledged that while believers may have certain liberties, they should remember that building relationships is more important than preserving rights.

            Chapter 9 may appear to go on a different track, but it is really Paul’s continuing argument that one should not let personal rights get in the way of encouraging other believers: he came back to the subject of eating meat offered to idols in chapter 10. We may not worry about meat offered to idols, but many still harp about their “rights.”

            Paul began this chapter by making an extended case for why those who devote themselves to preaching the gospel have every right to financial and other support from the churches (vv. 1-7). Soldiers don’t have to provide their own food. Vine-keepers drink wine from their grapes, shepherds drink milk from the flock, oxen eat from the grain that they thresh, and priests share in the offerings brought to the temple (vv. 8-13). “In the same way,” Paul said, “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel” (v. 14).

            Though he defended the right of other missionaries or pastors to receive pay, Paul pointedly refused to demand support for himself. He may have been the premier evangelist of his time, but he did not expect large honoraria or posh lodgings. He didn’t wear tailored clothes and ostentatious jewelry as a purported sign of God’s blessing, as modern “prosperity preachers” do. For that matter – though he had the right to benefit from his missionary efforts – Paul didn’t expect anyone to buy him lunch or cover his travel expenses: he found enough work to support himself. [DD]

            Nor did Paul brag about his accomplishments. He didn’t see his missionary career as a path to material rewards or popular praise, but as a divine obligation, saying “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” (v. 16). His work was not a self-directed enterprise, but a commission from God (v. 17), and he considered the privilege of unselfishly preaching the gospel to be all the reward he needed (v. 18).

Intentional adjustments

(vv. 19-23)

Paul’s basic approach was to put other people first. He regarded himself as free in Jesus – freed by grace from legalistic obligations and bound only by the law of Christ. [DD] Yet, Paul recognized the gospel imperative of sharing the gospel in effective ways, and he knew that started with building relationships. He also understood that cultivating relationships with people of different cultural backgrounds could impose some restrictions on him, but he accepted those limitations gladly because he recognized their purpose (v. 19).

“To the Jews I became as a Jew,” Paul said, “in order to win Jews” (v. 20). When Paul was living and working in a Jewish town, for example, he followed their customs of eating kosher food and observing Sabbath rest. Paul recognized that he was no longer bound by Hebrew purity rules or the extensive oral tradition of the rabbis, but he was willing to live “as one under the law” to win “those under the law” (v. 21a). When he worked and taught among Jewish people, Paul accepted their customs: he did not ask for milk with his mutton or fail to wash his hands in the accepted way.

Likewise, when Paul worked among Gentiles who had never been subject to Jewish law, he acculturated himself to local practice (v. 21b). He accepted the food that was offered to him without concern for whether it was kosher, or whether it was killed in ceremonial fashion with a rabbi’s blessing. Early Judaism accepted proselytes from other backgrounds, but only on its own terms. Paul sought to persuade people by reaching out to them on their own terms.

This does not mean that Paul felt free to do whatever he liked. He did not practice immorality just because he worked among an immoral people. He did not adopt foul language so he could relate to profane persons. Paul exercised reason and common sense in his dealings with others. He recognized that he was never free of his obligation to God’s ultimate law of love as revealed in Christ (compare Rom. 13:8; Gal. 5:14, 6:2). Paul was never free to become hateful to others or to be unethical in his dealings, but he was just as free to adapt his eating habits as he was free to switch between languages when the situation required. [DD]

Paul spoke not only of persons with different cultural backgrounds, but also differing levels of maturity. Some people in Corinth, perhaps harboring old superstitions, refused to eat any meat that might have been offered to an idol. Paul regarded such scruples as a sign of weakness, yet he still chose to adopt their practice if it meant winning more people to Christ and causing fewer to stumble: “To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some,” he said (v. 22).

Paul hoped that others would follow his example. “I have become all things to all people” sounds like a remarkable capitulation, but Paul made it clear that his adaptability remained within the bounds of “the law of Christ,” and that it functioned for the purpose of reaching others. Paul recognized his own radical freedom in Christ, but never forgot that the freedom Christ gives is subservient to the obedience Christ deserves. That obedience is not without reward (v. 23). [DD]

Disciplined Effort

(vv. 24-27)

Paul did not believe in wasting effort, either through carelessness or a lack of personal discipline. His evangelistic efforts were based on intentional strategies for mission (vv. 19-23) and personal self-control (vv. 24-27). He illuminated this with the familiar illustration of running a race. Paul did not just run for the sake of running, as recreational joggers do: he ran to win, and encouraged others to “Run in such a way that you may win” (v. 24).

Though stressing the importance of winning, Paul was not suggesting that only one winner would gain entrance to the kingdom. The race of faith is not a competition with others, but with ourselves. Can we practice self-discipline and trust so firmly in Christ that we can avoid getting side-tracked, slowing down, abandoning the race, or prematurely concluding that we have arrived?

As athletes learn to practice self-control, so believers need to run with discipline, Paul said (v. 25). The goal is not so much to outrun others but to run with purpose, to complete the course, and to avoid being disqualified (vv. 26-27). If we finish faithfully, we win.

We learn with experience that the race we run is not on a level track or always in daylight. It may lead us into places we didn’t expect to go, and many tempting detours may lead us off the track. Often our race is more like an obstacle course run in the fog, or even in the dark.

Sometimes it is all we can do to see the path and put one foot in front of the other: it takes both commitment to the task and focus on the path to persevere.

Paul challenges us to ask how our own race is coming, and that of our church. Our challenge is not to capitulate to our culture, but to understand it and reach out in effective ways as we call others to join us on the kingdom course.