1 Corinthians 9:7-12, 19-23 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
“Be a Slave to Everyone”
Pentecost 22 October 21, 2018
“When I grow up, I want to be a slave.” I have heard children, including my own, come up with some very interesting career choices that they would like to pursue, but I have never heard anyone say that they would want to be a slave when they grow up. When we think of slaves and slavery, most of us tend to think about harsh, even gruesome treatment of the sort that characterized slavery in the southern states leading up to the Civil War. While slavery did not always look like that throughout the world’s history, it in all its forms would rarely be something to have as a goal. Being a slave means you are not in control. It means that you cannot decide for yourself. It means you have a master and the master decides what you will do and how you will act. It is almost completely nonsensical to want to be a slave. Yet in the verses in front of us today, read earlier, we find Paul saying, “I have made myself a slave to everyone.” And his words really give us encouragement and advice to act in the same way, to do the same thing, to make ourselves slaves to everyone. As we take a closer look at Paul’s word and this advice in particular, we pray that God would bless us with a deeper understanding of this phrase that is rather shocking on the surface. The first section of our lesson from 1 Corinthians really gives us a little additional background on Paul’s situation and helps us understand some of the details he shares. And to appreciate what he describes, we also need to remember that Paul was called directly by God to be his spokesperson, his missionary, his apostle. He was not doing what he had planned to do when he was a child. He was doing what God directly called him to do, sharing God’s Word with people. And Paul could have expected people who heard God’s Word and believed it to support him in his work. Christians are called to support those who bring them God’s Word. In fact, Paul references an Old Testament passage about not muzzling the ox that treads grain, to make the point that God has always been interested in workers receiving appropriate wages. He was even concerned that animals that were put to work were treated fairly. How much more his people as they work for him! But why Paul writes about this to the Christians in the city of Corinth is that he did not make use of this right. Paul chose to work a different job in order to support himself while he shared God’s Word with others. He says that this was one way he could show his appreciation to God. He could go above and beyond expectations by not only doing what God called him to do—to share the gospel, but also by doing it without the support that might normally be expected. And this decision on Paul’s part is one example of what he speaks about throughout this section of Scripture: serving others. He has an opportunity to serve by sharing God’s Word in this way. And Paul goes further in his description and application of the principal of serving others when a few verses later he writes, “I am free and belong to no one, [but] I have made myself a slave to everyone.” So what exactly does he mean? Let’s start with the statement about being free. Paul was free in a number of ways. There were slaves in parts of the Roman world, and he was not one of them. He was a free man and a Roman citizen. But he was also free in much deeper and more profound ways. He was free from the law. And Paul knew what it meant to be burdened by the law and to be a slave to it. He had in his previous way of life worked hard—very hard—to do what he could to attain salvation. He was a Jew and a Pharisee. He kept the law as best as he knew how. He put in the effort. He felt the need to please God by his actions. But he was now free from all that. Jesus had freed him. Jesus had died for Paul’s sins and rose to life again. And Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus. He spoke to Paul and called Paul to follow him. He called Paul to faith and assured him that his sins were forgiven. Paul didn’t need to do anything. God called Paul to be his messenger and share that same good news with others. For Paul forgiveness meant absolute freedom from any works and any law. And because of his forgiveness, Paul could rightly claim to be free in every way.
But there was so much more to Paul’s explanation. In that freedom, Paul made himself a slave to everyone. He didn’t use freedom to serve himself. He didn’t use it to try to gain some temporary joy or pleasure. He shared the love that God had shown to him by loving others. He lived like a Jew to bring the good news to them. At other times, he lived like a Gentile to bring the good news to them. Sometimes he carefully followed the Old Testament ceremonial laws; other times he didn’t concern himself with them at all. Even though Paul was free, he tempered the use of his freedom for the sake of the weak, those who might have been offended by what he did. God had freed Paul from the law in order that he might share the gospel. The sharing of the gospel was Paul’s most pressing concern. That was the reason he didn’t seek support from the Corinthians and why in so many ways he lived not for himself but for others, those to whom he brought the good news. In this way, Paul showed himself to be a servant of Christ. Paul was following the example that Jesus Christ himself gave. You heard Jesus speak about this in our Gospel today (Mark 10:35-45). He said about himself, “[E]ven the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” And he encouraged his disciples, “[W]hoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” In making himself a slave to others, Paul was following both the words and the example of Jesus. You and I have heard those same words. We have seen the same example. We have opportunity, like Paul did, to follow them. What does this look like in your life and in mine? Well, it starts with recognizing the fact that we by nature were also slaves to sin and the law. Paul had been instructed in the Old Testament ceremonial laws and felt that slavery from the outside. This sort of slavery comes naturally as well, even to those who do not attempt to follow the ceremonial law. People gravitate toward believing that if they do right, they will receive a reward. If that is the approach, it means slavery to the requirements of God’s law in attempt to curry God’s favor. If I rely on myself, it means slavery to the law. And even though Jesus has freed us from slavery to sin and the law, we still have a natural propensity not toward serving others, but toward serving ourselves. Our selfishness is basically slavery to ourselves. The lesson of the disciples in today’s Gospel showed how strongly sin exerts its pull even in the lives of those who follow Jesus. That self-serving attitude asks, “How can I be the greatest?” It seeks power or fame or money or whatever else entices us. Sinful people need forgiveness and direction, and we find both in Jesus Christ. His was a life of humble ambition. He worked. He worked hard. And he worked not for himself but for others. He even went to the cross for them. He made himself a slave to others, to their wants and their deepest needs. In love he served and gave himself as a ransom for many. His ransom is our life. It gives us our freedom from sin and its consequences, from law and its demands, from hell and its grip on sinners. And we respond by living in freedom. We respond by serving others in love. We respond by making their needs our masters, by making ourselves slaves. To the weak who do not have an understanding of freedom, we become weak, gently and lovingly forgoing even some things we are free to do for their sake. To be a slave to everyone means to do all we do for the sake of others and for the sake of the gospel. It is our joy and our pleasure as we, too, share in the blessings of the gospel. No, I don’t expect my children to say, “I want to be a slave when I grow up.” But I do expect, and pray, and hope that all of us will realize that as we grow up as Christians, that is exactly what we want. As we grow in faith and grow in love, we will more and more serve and love and honor others above ourselves. We will make ourselves slaves to everyone. May God grant it.
The Text: 1 Corinthians 9:7–12, 19–23 (NIV) 7 Who
serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? 8 Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? 12 If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more? But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. 19 Though
I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.