Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Read back through 1 Cor. 9:19-27. What stands out to you? What questions do you have?
2. Paul seems to have a mission that organizes everything he does in life: "I do it all for the sake of the gospel." Do you feel like you can sense an overarching mission that organizes your life? If so, what is it? If not, what would you want it to be?
3. Reflect on Paul's perspective on circumcision (see Acts 16:3-4 and Galatians 2:1-5). What do we learn from this about the balance Paul maintains between contextualization and convictions?
4. Read 1 Cor 10:32-33 together. Does this describe your life? How do we pursue this without falling into sinful people-pleasing?
5. Where is discipline lacking in your life?
In Angela Duckworth’s book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, the professor of psychology and MacArthur Fellow argues that hard work and doggedness, in contrast with raw talent, plays a vastly more important role in being successful in life. We tend to assume that successful people are born with innate abilities that average people lack—which is sometimes true. But less true than we assume. Most successful people have grit, a determination to push through when others quit, to work hard, and to stick with a commitment over a long period of time. One example the author uses is Tom Seaver, one of the most successful pitchers in the history of the MLB who was inducted into the hall of fame in 1992 with the highest-ever percentage of votes (98.8%). In an interview, Seaver records how his goal of becoming the best pitcher he could possibly be organized his entire life:
“Pitching…determines what I eat, when I go to bed, what I do when I’m awake. It determines how I spend my life when I’m not pitching. If it means I have to come to Florida and can’t get tanned because I might get a burn that would keep me from throwing for a few days, then I never go shirtless in the sun…If it means I have to remind myself to pet dogs with my left hand or throw logs on the fire with my left hand, then I do that, too. If it means in the winter I eat cottage cheese instead of chocolate chip cookies in order to keep my weight down, then I eat cottage cheese.” (Grit, Angela Duckworth, p. 63)
Tom Seaver had a mission for his life that organized everything he did. And it paid off—the 12-time All Star was awarded with the highest accolade a professional athlete can be given: the hall of fame! And yet, I bet many of you (unless you are a particular baseball enthusiast) have never heard of Tom Seaver. He exercised all of that discipline and self-control to have his name etched in a hall, yet still can be forgotten. Now, if professional athletes do that to receive an award that fades, that perishes, how much more ought we to strive and labor for the imperishable, eternal reward that awaits us? This is Paul’s life that he lays out as a model for us to follow.
19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
1 Cor 9:19-27
Paul’s Freedom
For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. (1 Cor 9:19)
Paul is repeating his comment he made at the beginning of the chapter: “Am I not free?” (1 Cor 9:1). The question is…free to do what? Earlier he stated that he is free to be paid for his ministry work, he sometimes chooses to go without if taking a paycheck makes it harder for the church to receive the gospel (1 Cor 9:12). But now he is just claiming to be “free from all” people in general. What does that mean?
Persons who are not free are enslaved in some way. It could be external enslavement: you are literally a slave—materially in bondage to the will of another person. Or maybe not slavery per se, but someone else has a kind of power over you that you fear. Or it could be an internal enslavement. You are a people pleaser, so you are not free to do what you want, but what the other person wants. Paul makes it clear: he is a slave to no one.
Yet, at the same time that is exactly what he is. The ESV translates Paul’s phrase as “I have made myself a servant to all” but the word specifically means “slave.” How can Paul be free from all, yet a slave to all? The key is that he has made himself a slave—he has voluntarily lowered himself to the place of a servant for a very specific purpose: that I might win more of them.
Paul here possesses two things that we tend to view as mutually exclusive. Normally, if someone has the freedom to say: I don’t care what anyone thinks of me, I am my own boss. That usually comes at the expense of humility. You possess that internal confidence by denigrating other people: I don’t care what they think about me because I am better than them, they are lower than me. And it is very hard to serve people that you feel superior to.
And generally when someone becomes “a servant to all,” it is usually because they are a people-pleaser, they fear what others think of them, and they have low self-confidence. They do not feel “free” from the opinions of others, they are putty in the hands of those stronger than them, those they wish to impress.
So we tend to either be self-confident, but maybe arrogant or unwilling to serve others. Or we tend to lack any confidence and malleable to those we wish to impress. And yet, here is Paul, a man who has a spine of steel, and yet is willing to freely stoop down and humble himself to the point of being a slave to others. And he can do this, of course, because this is how he has been served in Jesus Christ. Jesus, though free from all, made himself a servant to the point of death, even death on a cross. And Paul knows that the service that nailed Jesus to the cross was the service directed at himself—Jesus came to serve men like Paul, to take arrogant, self-righteous, sinners and turn them into forgiven, beloved sons of God. This has punctured the inflated ego of Paul, while also giving him the rock solid certainty that the most important Person in the universe—God—love him.
The arrogant man is brought low—he is a sinner, and the harder he tries to do good, the more of his sin he will become aware of. He cannot look down on anyone because he knows himself to be a greater sinner than everyone else. And when he sees how Jesus has served him, he is eager to now become a servant to others. But the lowly is brought high—he knows that no matter what, God approves of him and has called him as his child. So he is psychologically secure of his identity and station, he isn’t a slave to other people’s opinions of him. He is free from all.
This is what frees Paul, and makes him a servant to all. We tend to define “freedom” as “freedom from constraints,” but for Paul, his freedom is not a freedom to indulge, but a freedom that willingly sets aside its own rights to serve others (Gal 5:13). And the bullseye that drives Paul is his mission: For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.
Paul’s Mission
In this paragraph Paul is going to list different people groups that he serves in order to “win” them to Christ, and then concludes with this summary statement: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some,” (1 Cor 9:22b). That is the universal principle that animates Paul. But let’s look at how he applies this to the different people groups he lists as examples.
To the Jews…those under the Law
“To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law,” (1 Cor 9:20)
We may ask, “what is the difference between Jews and those under the law?” One did not have to be ethnically Jewish to adhere to the Mosaic Law, so “those under the law” likely refers to Gentiles who had converted to Judaism. But both groups of people are living under the Mosaic Law. What should catch our attention, however, is Paul saying that he “became as a Jew” when ministering to Jews. This is odd because Paul, of course, is Jewish! This reveals to us just how far-reaching Paul’s “freedom” is when he states that he is “free from all.” Paul’s ethnic identity as a Jew was not the foundational or primary marker of his identity; he is not a “Jewish Christian” any more than we are “white Christians” or “American Christians.” He was, and we are, first and foremost in Christ, before he was anything else. But when interacting with the Jewish community, Paul was willing to adopt some of their cultural practices, including some adherence to the Mosaic covenant.
What did that look like? In Acts 16 we are told of Paul meeting Timothy, his young protégé: “Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek,” (Acts 16:3). Now, we don’t know exactly how old Timothy was when this happened, but he was old enough to join Paul on his missionary journey, so old enough for that to really hurt. But then read the next verse with me, “As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem,” (Acts 16:4). What decision is that? It was the decision that circumcision was no longer required! You don’t have to be circumcised to be a member of the New Covenant (Acts 15:1ff). Timothy, in other words, had the “right” to not experience the painful procedure of circumcision as a grown man; yet, he freely chose to set aside that right—at great cost to himself!—in order to make ministry among the Jews easier. That’s a model of maturity for us.[1]
To Those Outside the Law
To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. (1 Cor 9:21)
Those “outside of the law” refers to Gentiles, those who are not Jewish nor adhere to the Mosaic Law. What did that look like for Paul? Well, one chapter later in Acts 17, Paul is in Athens and is grieved over the numerous idols in the city (Acts 17:16). Yet, when he is invited to speak to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in the Areopagus, he commends their religious impulse: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you,” (Acts 17:22-23). He uses their world as the starting point to tunnel towards the gospel. He then goes on to quote Greek poetry (Epimenides and Aratus) to explain his own worldview (Acts 17:28). Paul is willing to enter into the world of Greek life in order to make the gospel more clear to Greek hearers.
To the weak
To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. (1 Cor 9:22a)
The previous two categories were clearly dealing with non-Christians, but who are these individuals? In chapter eight, Paul identified the “weak” as those already in the Church (1 Cor 8:7-13). So, this likely isn’t referring to “winning” a non-Christian to Christ necessarily. That has been the emphasis Paul has been making thus far, but here he demonstrates the same principle that is at work in all of them: Paul’s willingness to set aside his own rights to help others see Jesus more clearly. Paul ended chapter eight with an example of what this looks like: “Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble,” (1 Cor 8:13).
A great commentary on this whole section is found just a chapter later, where Paul explains: “Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, 33 just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved,” (1 Cor 10:32-33).
What a model for us! Want a goal for your life? Live in such a way that you are striving, laboring, sacrificing to please everyone in everything you do—to give offense to no one. Sometimes Christians disparage the idea of considering the sensibilities of those we disagree with, confusing convictional consideration with compromised convictions. It can be tempting to assume that real faithfulness and courage is displayed by casting aside efforts to be “winsome” or persuasive, and to “tell it like it is,” which sometimes comes across as the exact opposite of what Paul is telling us here. Paul says that he tries to please people, that he tries to not offend anyone! The gospel will offend all on its own, it does not need our help.
Anchored to the Rock
I want to demonstrate the wisdom Paul’s freedom brings. He is a servant to all, so he is willing to meet people where they are at. He works hard to not offend people and tries to please “everyone in everything” he does (1 Cor 10:33). Yet he is “free from all.” He is not a people-pleaser, even though he breaks his back to please everyone. How can that be?
Look back at the parenthetical comments he made: “To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law,” (1 Cor 9:20-21).
Paul is not actually under the law of Moses or outside the law of Christ. He is willing to be flexible, to contextualize where he can, but he remains anchored to the rock of truth—he will not actually submit himself again to Old Covenant in his efforts to contextualize to those under the law; he will not actually step outside of the Law of Christ as he contextualizes to those outside of the Law. Paul knows who he is.
So, Paul knows that if he circumcises Timothy it will make ministry to the Jews more effective, so he does. But when the circumcision party told Paul that he had to circumcise Titus in order to be saved (cf. Acts 15:1), Paul explains: “…to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you,” (Gal 2:5). Paul didn’t say, Well, I know that my aim is to please people in everything I do, this would please them, so come on, Titus, let’s circumcise you. No, he know that if he submitted to this act it would actually lose the gospel! And Paul said he resisted this in order to preserve the gospel for the Galatians! In other words, Paul’s aim in pleasing others is not an ultimate goal—making the gospel as clear as possible is. And if doing what will please others actually makes the gospel less clear, then Paul will be as unyielding as a stone.
Example: maybe you have some coworkers who are not Christians, and they end the workday by going to a bar and having a few drinks. Maybe that isn’t normally your scene, your preference, but you set aside your preferences and go to build a relationship and hopefully open a door to share the gospel. But if that co-worker wants you to get drunk with him? Well, getting smashed with him isn’t going to open doors to the gospel, it is going to close them. It is going to make Jesus more difficult to see, even if they slap you on the back and say, “I used to think you were this uptight religious guy, now I see you’re just like us!” Relatability that comes at the expense of the fruit of the Spirit, but channels the works of the flesh, is not our aim. We want to relate to people in our shared humanity and our shared need for Jesus, but not in our shared rejection of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Paul’s Discipline
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Cor 9:24-27)
This may feel like a bit of a shift Paul has made in his message thus far. He has gone from talking about his missional living to talking about his discipline and self-control. But, of course, to be willing to live the kind of life Paul is laying out, requires discipline, effort, and grit.
The city of Corinth hosted the Isthmian games, an event that rivalled the Olympics in its popularity in the Greco-Roman world. And Paul points his readers to this realm of professional athletics to illustrate how Christians should strive in the Christian race. It is like a race; it is like a boxing match—but the stakes are infinitely higher. We aren’t competing to win a perishable wreath, a name written down in a hall of fame that will be forgotten in a generation. We are striving to inherit an imperishable, undefiled, eternal reward: our salvation.
But this makes us ask two questions:
- Who are competing against?
- Aren’t we saved by grace, not our works?
Who Are We Racing, Fighting?
Paul makes it sound like we running to edge someone else out of the prize: many run, but only one receives the prize. Are there only a certain number of slots in heaven and we are fighting to get one? I don’t think so. I think that verses 26 and 27 make it clear: “So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified,” (1 Cor 9:26-27).
When Paul says “I discipline my body,” the word for discipline is from the world of boxing; it literally means to “give a black eye.” So Paul says that he does not run aimlessly or box aimlessly, rather he directs his blows…against himself? Paul shows us that the opponent we are fighting, racing against, isn’t another person—it is ourselves. It is our own flesh, our sin nature. That’s why Paul says he keeps his body under control, “lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” Paul doesn’t want to be the kind of preacher whose life and preaching diverge from each other, lest he preach the gospel to others, but find at the end that he himself has so indulged the flesh that he has denied the gospel with his life!
So this constrains Paul. If athletes exercise self-control in everything they do just to eek out an extra couple of percentage points in performance…how much more should we who are dealing with eternal things? And this idea of “self-control” presents a unique perspective for the Christian psychologically. It means that there are two versions of you. There is the new you in Christ, filled with the Spirit; and there is the old you in Adam, in bondage to the flesh. And the new you is summoned to exercise self-control over the old you. In fact, the language of the New Testament is more extreme than that—we are to put the deeds of the old man to death.
Aren’t We Saved by Grace, not Works?
In many ways, you already know the answer to this question. The grace that saves us from the penalty of sin is the same grace that saves us from the power of sin. Jesus put it simply: you shall know them by their fruits. The root of salvation has been given to us, but roots produce fruit. And this root of new spiritual life, the new desires we have in Christ draws itself up to produce the fruit of good deeds. But the trunk of the tree that connects the root and the fruit is your will. You must choose, you must act upon those desires, you choose to mortify the flesh, you choose to say yes to God, you choose to love your neighbor, you choose to say no to your own preferences.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,” (Heb 12:1; cf. Phil 3:14)
[1] We see this same willingness to adopt certain practices of the Old Covenant by Paul, like taking a Nazirite vow (Acts 18:18), and paying for the purification of four others in the temple (Acts 21:20-25).
