Have We No Rights?

Dr. James Boice: We often hear someone say, "I know my rights," in regard to a certain matter. As both human beings and American citizens, we are blessed with certain inalienable rights, but is it always prudent to exercise those privileges as Christians?
Dr. James Boice: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour. The radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. While we might have certain rights and freedoms as individuals, there is a number of situations where we might refrain from exercising those rights as followers of Christ. Listen now as Dr. Boice examines the Apostle Paul's instructions as he guides the Corinthian church through this sometimes problematic area of our Christian walk.
Dr. James Boice: a little over 25 years ago, a missionary with the China Inland Mission, now the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, published a book that bore the title, "Have We No Rights?" The missionary's name was Mabel Williamson. I read that book years ago and was very impressed with it, and early in my ministry, when I was preaching on the sermon on the Mount, I had occasion to refer back to it and quoted it favorably in what I was saying and writing. So much so that some years later when Moody Press was about to republish this small book, which I regard as a classic, they wrote to me to see if I wouldn't do a forward commending it to a new generation of readers. I said something in that forward that I feel is true of this subject even now. I made a prophecy. I'm not generally inclined to do that because it's very easy to be proved wrong, and I don't like to be proved wrong. But in this case, I thought the gamble was worth it. I made a prophecy that, number one, this book would not become a best-seller in its reprinted year. And number two, it was unlikely to make many lists by distinguished Christian leaders as one of the 10 most influential books in my entire life. But I said, I think it should make a best-seller list, and I think it should be among those books that are influential because Mabel Williamson was simply saying what the Apostle Paul says so clearly in the 9th chapter of 1st Corinthians. She was saying that we do have rights, but if we are to be the servants of Jesus Christ, and effective in His ministry, there are situations in which we must be willing to waive those rights for His sake and for the sake of the Gospel. Now, that's what Paul is doing. I'm sure you understand that there's a connection between this subject and 1st Corinthians 9 and what he was talking about in chapter 8. In chapter 8, he was talking about this question that the Corinthians had brought to him, perhaps by letter or maybe by messenger. He is dealing with a number of such items in this portion of the book, and they had apparently come to him in one form or another and had raised this question about eating food that had been sacrificed to idols. And he answered that. He answered it very carefully. He had an analysis of what it really is to know anything spiritually and how that relates to man as well as God and to actions and all that. Then he dealt with the subject theoretically in terms of what it means to offer food to an idol. An idol is nothing, Paul says, and whether you eat or don't eat any particular kind of food is not intrinsically important to how you get on or fail to get on in the Christian life. And it follows from that, that eating food that had been offered to an idol is simply a matter of indifference. But he said, "If you're really thinking about others and if you really know the way God would have you know, which is to say, know in a way that relates your theoretical knowledge to what's happening in the lives of other people, you ought to be willing and at times actually forgo eating food that has been offered to idols for the sake of your weaker brethren." Now, that's what he's just talked about. We come to chapter 9, he begins to talk about his rights as an apostle, and we say, "Well, it sounds very much as if he's changed subject entirely." No, he hasn't. The reason we know he hasn't is that in the next chapter, he goes back to the subject of food that was sacrificed to idols, and he talks about that in the latter portion. And you say, "Well, if he was talking about it earlier in chapter 8, and then is talking about it later in chapter 10, what he's doing in chapter 9 must have some relationship to that which went before and comes after." And of course, that's entirely right. You see, what Paul is telling these Corinthians is that they must be willing to give up their right to eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols for the sake of others, if that's necessary. And in order to make clear that he is not suggesting to them something that he has failed to do himself, he brings in this matter of the rights of an apostle and says, "In my case, I have laid aside even greater rights in order that the Gospel might come to you." And of course, if I have done that, why should it be so difficult for you to lay your pride aside and be more concerned about your brothers and sisters in the Lord than you are with this matter of eating such food?" Now, that's the context. If we're going to talk about rights and laying them aside, as Paul does here, using himself as an example, you have to recognize, first of all, that we do have rights. I think if there's anything to be said in a negative way about that book I mentioned by Mabel Williamson, "Have We No Rights?" It's that it implies that there are no rights. And that's not right. Because you see, if we have no rights, then what's the big deal about laying rights aside? The point of this is that we do have rights. We recognize that. We recognize it even in a secular way in our Declaration of Independence, we talk about the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Every human being has a right to life. That's a key term, and that's one of the things that is being assaulted in our time. But that's something that our founding documents speak of, and to liberty. We believe that liberty is something that is a right given to us by God. And anybody who tries to take away liberty is fighting against God, and furthermore, is fighting against the standards by which we're willing to live and die. And the pursuit of happiness, we talk about that. Nobody has the right to happiness. That's not something you can guarantee, but you can guarantee an environment in which a person has the right to pursue happiness, and whatever they think may be the right way. And so we have a system of free enterprise, so that people who think that happiness is to be found in the accumulation of goods have a right to pursue that if that's what they want to do. And we believe in equal opportunities in education because people who believe that the way to find happiness is through education have a right to pursue that if that's what they want to do. And the same thing is true of religion. People that would believe, and we think rightly, that happiness is to be found in a relationship to God must, in our society, have the right to pursue that. We speak of those inalienable rights. Furthermore, the Bible does. All you have to think of in that connection is the 13th chapter of Romans, where Paul is writing about the state and the rights of the state established by God. And in which context, he says, "Romans 13:7, give everyone what you owe him. If you owe taxes, pay taxes. If revenue, then revenue. If respect, then respect. If honor, then honor." Those are rights. Certain people deserve honor. It's their due. It's their right. And others deserve respect and so on. So, both from the secular standpoint and also from a biblical standpoint, you have to talk about rights. That's important. Now, that doesn't mean that everybody has equal rights. You see, the student that does well in in school, that applies himself or herself to the academic load and does better than the other students has the right to a superlative grade, but not the one who doesn't work. We have a inverted kind of equality in our time that says that the dullard is equal in honor so far as grades are concerned to the one that has applied himself and has ability, and that's not true. Not everyone has the same rights. There are certain inalienable rights that belong to all. There are other specific rights that are due to certain individuals because of who they are or what they have done. Yet the point is, there are these rights. Unless you recognize them, then the kind of point that Paul is making in 1st Corinthians 9 just has no weight. What Paul is going to say and says so clearly is this, as an apostle, I have certain rights. What he is going to say, just because we have rights, doesn't mean that we have to exercise the right. It's a question of laying these aside, waving our rights for the sake of something which we believe by the instruction of God is of far greater importance. Now, here's the way Paul develops it in this chapter. First of all, he talks about himself as an apostle. Because that's what he has to establish. He's going to talk about the rights of an apostle. So if he's going to talk about the rights of an apostle and use himself as an illustration of how he laid aside those rights, he first of all has to show that he's an apostle. That follows, doesn't it? So that's what he does in the first two verses. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen our Lord? What he's dealing with there are the qualifications for an apostle. Not everybody could claim to be an apostle because an apostle was one, as we understand from different references to the apostleship in the New Testament, who fulfilled two qualifications. First of all, he had to have seen the Lord. The way that's talked about in the first chapter of the book of Acts as the disciples and apostles were gathered there in Jerusalem and were seeking about for someone to fill the place of Judas, who fell by the betrayal of the Lord, they said, "Look, let's seek out from among us someone who was with the Lord during the days of His ministry, from the time of the baptism of John until His death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven." So, an apostle was to be a witness of the Lord during those days of His ministry. That was the first qualification. And then the second, which is clear in the way this is handled in the first chapter of Acts, is that the person had to be chosen specifically by Christ Himself. And in the case of Acts 1, they did this by the casting of lots, and we're told that the lot fell on Matthias, and so he was numbered with the 12 apostles. Now, that had created a problem for Paul because Paul was converted later. Paul had been around at the time of Jesus Christ, but he hadn't been one of the disciples that had followed Him throughout the days of His earthly ministry, certainly not from the beginning at the time of the baptism by John. And there were people who, perhaps rightly, on the basis of that understanding of who an apostle should be, said that Paul really wasn't an apostle, that he was a person who had come along later and who had made claims to some special kind of revelation, but all he was really teaching was the traditions of man and not the Gospel. And so, again and again, in Paul's writings, and particularly in the book of Galatians, because his apostleship was under attack among the Galatian churches, Paul has to insist that he is an apostle and that the qualifications were fulfilled in him, though in a slightly different way than had been spoken of in the earliest days of the Christian church. And so Paul stresses again and again that he actually had seen the Lord. Oh, he hadn't been with him all three years. But he does say on more than one occasion, "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord?" You see what he says here in 1st Corinthians 9:1. And then the second part of that is that he had been chosen to be an apostle. And in that respect, the Apostle Paul always referred to his experience on the road to Damascus when Jesus stopped him in his tracks as he was on his way to persecute the Christians and commissioned him to be an apostle to the Gentiles. Now Paul has that in mind here. He says, "Have I not seen the Lord?" And then he adds another thing because he wants to bring it home to them in a personal way. He says, "Look, not only have I seen the Lord, not only did He choose me to be an apostle, but you are the fruits of my labor." And so he asks the question, "Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? Are you not the seal of my apostleship? I came to you as an apostle," says Paul, "and God worked through me in such a powerful way that you came to faith." So the very fact that you're a Christian itself is a seal upon who I am. He lays that down first of all. Now having done that, he speaks in the second place of the rights of an apostle. You see, he's building this in a very logical way. We read these things, they some sound somewhat casual, you know, we write letters without a great deal of thought and we think, "Well, he's just writing a letter." No, no, he's presenting this in a very logical manner. First of all, you see, I'm an apostle. Now, secondly, the rights of an apostle. He talks about two of them. One is the right to get married. He says that others of the apostles were married, and as they went around, they brought their wives with them. So do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas, that is, Peter. And what he's saying is, "Look, this is a right. Who can who can say that it is not an apostle's right to have a wife?" Nobody could say that because the other apostles had wives. And yet the point he's making is that he himself, in his own experience for the sake of the Gospel, in order that he might be more effective as he traveled from place to place in an unfettered manner, had foregone the right to have a wife. And then there's a second thing. An apostle, he says, has the right to adequate support. That is, if he's spending all his time serving the churches through the preaching of the Gospel and in missionary work, as he takes that Gospel to other places in the Roman world, he has the right to be supported by the Christian community. Now, it might be at that point that people in Paul's day thought the way some people think in our day. Generally, people today don't say, "Preachers don't have a right to live." They just say, "Well, they don't have a right to live well." At any rate, Paul was facing something of that argument, so he begins to talk here in a rather lengthy way about his rights to support. And he brings forward a whole series of arguments in order to deal with this. Let me show them to you. First of all, in verse 7, he deals with what I would call a universal principle. And the principle is simply that the laborer is worthy of his reward. Now, he illustrates it in different ways. He talks about a soldier. If a soldier is serving, he has the right to be paid. He doesn't serve as a soldier at his own expense. He talks about a man who keeps a vineyard. He says, "A man who keeps a vineyard has the right to eat of its grapes when the harvest comes." He talks about a shepherd. He says, "A shepherd has the right to some of the milk of the flock." Who, he says, in the whole wide world would ever question that principle. You see, we were talking about rights a moment ago, and this is one of them. If an individual, a man or a woman, is working for a company, that individual has the right to the wages that are commensurate with that job. That's a right. And Paul says, "When you're talking about adequate support for work done, just looking about generally in the world, this is a principle which all men everywhere recognize." Secondly, and he gives another argument, the Old Testament teaches the same thing. This is what you find in verses 8 through 10. He says, "It's written in the law of Moses, do not muzzle an ox while it's treading out the grain." Now, he's quoting from Deuteronomy, it's the 25th chapter, verse 4. He says, "Look at the Old Testament law. The Old Testament law says, you're not to muzzle the ox that's treading out the grain." Now, he asks the question, "Why did God write that? Is it only for the sake of oxen? Does God have a special concern for oxen that he doesn't care for other animals or doesn't care for people?" No, no, he says, "Look, God wrote that for our benefit. It's the principle that if a person labors in a certain endeavor, he has a right to a fair portion of that reward." If you're working in a business and it produces a certain amount of profit, you have a right to share in the profit. That's all he's saying, and the Old Testament teaches it. In verse 11, he has another argument, and it would go like this, the one who gives a lot has a right to share in that which is less. Let me read it, verse 11. "If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest?" You see, he's saying, if you're going to weigh material things over against spiritual things, spiritual things are of greater value, being eternal. So, it's an obvious principle that if someone is giving that which is of great value, there's nothing wrong and indeed it's a right to receive something of lesser value in return. Verse 12, he brings in a fourth argument. And his fourth argument is that the Corinthians themselves recognized this principle that he's trying to establish because the Corinthians were giving of their means to support other teachers. If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more? You see, he's saying, you may disagree with my argument from general appeal to human experience. You may disagree with my interpretation of Deuteronomy 25:4. You may disagree with this matter of spiritual and material things, but certainly, you can't argue against what you yourselves are already doing. You support other teachers, so he says, "We have the right as apostles as well." His fifth point has to do with the temple worship. And that's in verse 13. He says, "Everywhere in the ancient world, even in the Greek world, those who share at the altar have a right to some of the offering." This he mentioned earlier. It was involved in this whole matter of the meat that was sacrificed to idols. A portion would be sold and a portion would go to the priest and the portion was consumed in the offering. Well, he said, "Everyone recognizes that, if the person is serving in the temple, they have a right." And then finally, his fifth point, he refers to the teaching of Jesus Christ. You have that in verse 14 where he says, "In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the Gospel should receive their living from it." Now, that's a fairly detailed argument. Paul obviously thought this was important enough to elaborate at length because he suspected, and I imagine it was the case, that he had enemies there that would say, "Oh, he doesn't have any rights. He's just trying to push something over on us because he wants to get money out of us or some such thing." And that's not what Paul is doing, not at all. Paul's emphasis is entirely on the other side. And what Paul has to say first of all is, "I am an apostle, and number two, the apostles do have rights, and one of those rights is to support from Christian people." But now you see, he comes to the point for which he's writing the entire chapter. And he says, "Although I have these rights, I, not everybody, but I, in my case, have willingly laid these rights aside in order that I might have the privilege of taking the Gospel to you without cost." He's talking in verse 15 and following with that. And what he's saying there is that he doesn't want anybody to misunderstand his motivations. He says, "Here I am writing along these lines, and I don't want anybody who reads this to say, 'Oh, well, Paul is saying this because, well, it's really just a spiritual way of complaining.'" Paul is saying, "Look how I labor. Look how difficult my life is. Look how faithful I've been as an apostle. And you haven't paid me a single thing." A way of kind of suggesting that maybe they ought to do that. Paul says, "No, no, I'm not writing this. As a matter of fact, he says, 'If you offered it to me, I wouldn't even take it because I count it one of the great joys of my life to be in a position in which I can labor with my own hand, support myself, and have the privilege of preaching the Gospel without cost.'" Now, you see how this is to be applied. Paul would say, "Look, if I am doing that, and he was, it is certainly no great thing in this matter of food being offered to idols, the question which you raised with me. It's certainly no great thing for you to lay aside this lesser thing that you consider to be your right in order that Christians might not be hindered, but rather all might be built up in the Gospel to the praise of the glory of Jesus Christ." Now, it's an interesting thing. Paul isn't introducing this subject of laboring in the Lord's work in a voluntary way without remuneration to make this point. He's making the point that I have just been making in turn. But it is worth applying it in this way to say that there ought to be, I think, or at least we ought to give consideration to it in our own experience of doing certain things in the Christian life that we do entirely without any idea of remuneration. I think preachers ought to do that. It's rather difficult in many circumstances for a preacher to have a secular job and at the same time carry on the kind of full-time ministry. But even though there are situations, and I think wisely in our day and in the majority of cases, in which ministers work at that job like anyone else and receive pay for it like anyone else, which principle Paul is establishing here very clearly. Everyone, including ministers, ought to think of areas in which simply because they're all right in terms of support and material needs, situations in which they volunteer their time not for remuneration, but in order to further the Gospel in some way. And I must say that many do that. Many ministers and others, Christian leaders, serve on boards where they even spend money to go to board meetings and where they give very graciously of their time in order that sort of under the umbrella of somebody who's already cared for in an an adequate way, they're able to see that some other work goes forward. There's hardly one of us that doesn't have some place in our life, some contact, some awareness of need where we're able to do that in the same way that the Apostle Paul did. Now, we come to the very end of this chapter, verse 24 and following. And we find here that in a very appropriate way, what Paul talks about is self-denial. Have we no rights? Oh, yes, yes, we do have rights. But for the sake of the Gospel, you see. We have to lay some of these aside even in a personal way in order that we might attain the prize of the high calling to which we're called. Paul uses an image at this point. It's an image from the athletic games. He talks about a runner, and some of his language has to do with a boxer. And what he says is this, "If you want to excel at a sport, you've got to endure a certain amount of hardship, and you must discipline your body. Disciplining your body is never fun. It's hard work. It hurts. Pain is a wonderful thing. It reminds you that you're human, and also it reminds you that there are things for which it is worth enduring hardship." And what Paul is saying here is this, "Look, if we are so concerned about doing this as individuals where mere matters of sport are concerned, where we discipline ourselves, bringing our body into subjection in order that we might run a little bit faster than we did the last time, or be a little bit thinner and better shaped than we were a year ago, certainly we should be willing to do that for the Gospel's sake." And yet, how many of us are really lean and fit where the greatest work that we can possibly have is concerned. Aren't we often what we'd have to call flabby Christians, undisciplined Christians, self-absorbed Christians? Paul says that ought not to be. But rather, we should see things as he's described them and pay the price in order that Jesus Christ might be exalted in other people's lives. Let us pray. Our Father, we ask you to bless this passage to us. We realize that whenever we talk about discipline, self-sacrifice, hardship, yielding our rights, that that's a hard thing, and we don't naturally take to it. We like rather the gospel of self-aggrandizement that says, "Well, if you follow Jesus, all of your problems will be solved, and life will be a bed of roses." Our Father, help us to see things the way Jesus Himself saw them, who for the joy that was before Him, the joy of leading many sons and daughters into glory, endured hardship, becoming subject to death, even the death of the cross. Our Father, give us grace to do that, that we might follow in His steps for His glory. Amen.
Dr. James Boice: You're listening to The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teaching of Dr. James Boice.
Dr. James Boice: While being in debt is seldom a good thing, there is a debt which we would never want to eliminate. Learn more about that debt with our free CD entitled The Debt of Love. This free offer is our way of saying thanks. Simply call 1-800-488-1888 for your copy of The Debt of Love. Again, that's 1-800-488-1888.
Dr. James Boice: Here at The Bible Study Hour, we want you to know how much we appreciate your prayers for this ministry and your financial support. Would you consider giving as you are able to keep Dr. Boice's timeless messages on the air and on the internet? You can make a contribution online at thebiblestudyhour.org. You can also call us directly at 1-800-488-1888. And our mailing address is 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. We thank you for your faithful support.
Dr. James Boice: How has The Bible Study Hour impacted your life? Perhaps you're more confident in your personal ministry. Just as likely, Dr. Boice's teaching has inspired a fresh appreciation for God's word. Well, be sure to tell a friend, and then tell us. Our entire staff would be greatly encouraged by your story when you call or write. Our email address is [email protected].
Dr. James Boice: I'm Mark Daniels. Glad you could join us. Of all the practical matters that are dealt with in 1st Corinthians, perhaps the most applicable is the matter of temptation, because unlike some of the issues Paul confronts, temptation affects everyone. Join Dr. James Boice as he examines a plague as old as time and touches the lives of every member of Adam's race. That's next time on The Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.