Bp – Refusing to Use Your Freedom in Messiah 9: 15-27

Refusing to Use Your Freedom in Messiah
9: 15-27

Refusing to use your freedom in Messiah DIG: What are some of the reasons Paul provides for why he preaches the Good News? What are his rewards for doing this? Why did Paul give up some of his rights to preach the Good News? What does it mean to become “a slave to all?” What kind of language would you use today to get the same point across? Why is it so difficult for believers to give up their rights? What are some of these rights? What point is Paul making by comparing the life of a believer to a race?

REFLECT: Paul was not as concerned with his method of evangelism as with the message he was proclaiming. How can you apply his thinking to the way you share the Good News about Yeshua today? Think about the times you tried to witness to people. What have you learned in those experiences that you can share with others? What behaviors, attitudes, or beliefs hinder a believer’s witness? When was the last time someone sacrificed his or her own needs to help you? What are you willing to give up to win more people to Messiah?

With all kinds of people, both Jews and Gentiles, I have become all kinds of things,
so that in all kinds of circumstances I might save at least some of them.

Paul now picks up where he left off in 9:12b, “we put up with all kinds of things so as not to impede in any way the Good News about the Messiah.” He has not made use of any of the rights that he had just been talking about (see Bo – Laying Aside Rights). That is, he does not want to accept money from those to whom he preaches, nor is he giving all these arguments about financial support in order to convince the Corinthians that at this stage they should start supporting him. Rather, it is a matter of personal pride for him, as well as a matter of missionary principle, not to receive such money.²⁴⁰

Paul’s restraint (9:15-18): Although Paul has the right to live from preaching the Good News, he does not; rather, he supports himself through his trade, tentmaking (Acts 18:3). He regards his keeping himself independent as its own reward, because it means that he can make the Good News available free of charge and not expose himself to the slightest risk of abusing his right to be supported by fellow believers.

But I have not made use of any of these rights (to see link click Bo – Laying Aside Rights). Paul deals with the pride issue first. Nor am I writing now to secure them for myself, for I would rather die than be deprived of my ground for boasting! Then what motivates him? For I can’t boast merely because I proclaim the Good News – this I do from inner compulsion: woe is me if I don’t proclaim the Good News! For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if I do it unwillingly, I still do it, simply because I’ve been entrusted with a job. So then, what is my reward? Just this: that in proclaiming the Good News I can make it available free of charge, without making use of the rights to which it entitles me (9:15-18). Some people might not believe the Good News if they felt it might lead to financial obligations.

Paul’s freedom (9:19-23): For although I am a free man (9:1), not bound to do anyone’s bidding (7:22), I have voluntarily made myself a slave to all. In the following verses, Paul illustrates this principle. He says, in effect, that although he could behave in a selfish way that would make him feel natural and comfortable; he goes out of his way to empathize with, and serve others and their needs. He did this in order to win as many people as possible to trust in Messiah – Paul’s central goal in life (9:19).

Dear Heavenly Father, How awesome You are! What great mercy and grace You give those who love You by forgiving their sins. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His mercy for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us (Psalms 103:11-12). Yet, You are also Holy so You cannot allow anyone into Your holy home of heaven who does not love You and trust in Your Son whom You sent as the atoning sacrifice to pay the price for our sins. He who trusts in the Son has eternal life. He who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him (John 3:36).

Eternity – a great thought for those who love God and will spend forever in heaven – but a horrifying thought for those who love themselves and will not be allowed into heaven, but will be separated from God forever! At the revelation of the Lord Yeshua from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, He will command judgment on those who do not know God and do not heed the Good News of our Lord Yeshua.  They will pay the price of eternal ruin, away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power (Second Thessalonians 1:7c-9).

Let us do everything that we can to pray for and to lovingly and humbly persuade all peoples that You, God, are the only way to heaven. Let us lay aside pride and be busy to do the most important of work – to pray for unsaved friends and family that they may choose to follow You and so be saved for all eternity (Romans 10:9-10). Praise and thank You for always being with us to help us to be bold in witnessing for You. You are wonderful! In your holy Son’s name and power of His resurrection. Amen

That is, with Jews, what I did was put myself in the position of a non-Messianic Jew (9:20a). No matter to whom Paul was speaking, He never compromised his message. He presented the Good News truthfully and forcefully. But by the same token, he never unnecessarily offended those to whom he spoke by behaving in an insensitive manner (10:32). Unfortunately, today, this phrase suggests being a deceiver or a chameleon who changes his behavior to suit his audience. We know that Paul rebuked Peter for behaving in this way (see the commentary on Galatians Bb – The Antioch Incident: How Can You Force Jews to Live Like Gentiles). Paul would later write: We refuse to make use of shameful underhanded methods, employing deception or distorting God’s message (Second Corinthians 4:2a), and then used three chapters of that letter to defend himself against such charges (Second Corinthians Chapters 10-12). He could hardly expect them to believe him there if in the present passage they were to understand him as teaching that the end justifies the means.

Nevertheless, modern critics of this passage continue to claim that Paul was Torah observant when he was with Jews, but ignored it when he was with Gentiles. But their misunderstanding of these verses forces them into a cul-de-sac from which their only escape is to view Paul as putting on an act for the sake of the Kingdom. For they give his circumcising Timothy (Acts 16:1-3) as an example of “becoming as a Jew to the Jews” and “as under the law to those under the law” and they cite his eating with Gentiles, whose food, presumably, was non-kosher (Galatians 2:11-14), to illustrate his “becoming as apart from law to those apart from the law.” By doing so, they reveal three misinterpretations. First, they think that “becoming as” means “behaving like;” secondly, they think that “under the law” means “expected to obey the Torah” and as a consequence equate “the Jews” with “those under the law;” and thirdly, they seem unaware of the fact that being Jewish is not something one can turn-on or turn-off at will like a water faucet.

With regard to this third point, Paul never considered himself an ex-Jew. Since he remained a Jew all his life, we can eliminate another misinterpretation of “becoming as” or “becoming something that one formerly was not.” Paul did not become a chameleon, “becoming as” the people around him. What he did was empathize with them. He put himself in their position. He entered into their needs and aspirations, their strengths and weaknesses, their opportunities and constraints, their ideas, feelings and values – in short, using the current way of saying it, he tried to understand “where they were coming from.”

Having established common ground with those he was trying to reach, Paul could then communicate the Good News in ways familiar to them, using rabbinical teaching methods with Jews, and philosophical reasoning with Greeks. With the weak, he would bear with them because he understood the origin of their weakness (8:7-12). He did everything possible to overcome all barriers to the gospel – psychological, social, and especially cultural; for he knew the task of communicating the gospel had been entrusted to him (9:15-18 and 23). He knew he could not expect others to meet him half-way. But he was never a hypocrite.

In order to win Jews (9:20b). Earlier, Paul announced that his goal was to win as many people as possible to trust in Messiah, that is, as many of all kinds of people as he could. By “winning” them, of course, he means getting them to realize that they are sinners who need ADONAI’s forgiveness, and can obtain it only by accepting Yeshua’s atoning death on their behalf. It is critical to understand that Jews are not excluded from needing God’s forgiveness through Yeshua; if they were, Paul would not be making efforts to win Jews. Those who ignore this mandate, or purposely ignore it because of replacement theology (see the commentary on Romans Ai – The Righteous Shall Live by Faith), violate this teaching.

Paul just mentioned the Jews, no need to repeat that. Now he talks about three groups of Gentiles. The first have been Judaized and subjected themselves to a legalistic perversion of the Torah; the second, pagans with no involvement with Torah at all; and the third, are the “weak” who subject themselves to their own overly strict conscience as if it were Torah.

First, with [Judaized Gentiles] in subjection to a legalistic perversion of the Torah (Greek: upo nomon, meaning under something that is not the Torah but a perversion of it, specifically, a perversion that tries to turn Torah into a set of rules that one can supposedly go through the motions, with neither faith nor love for either God, yet earn a right standing with God). That is why David Stern in his translation of the Complete Jewish Bible translates this verse: With those people (Greek: ho) in subjection to a legalistic perversion of the Torah (9:20c). Furthermore, people are not “under the law” in the sense of “having to obey” it, but “under” it in an oppressive sense, in subjection to it as to a slavemaster, a metaphor that Paul uses whenever the Greek phrase upo nomon appears in both Galatians (see the commentary on Galatians Bm – The Torah Became our Guardian to Lead Us to Messiah), and Romans (see the commentary on Romans Bv – The New Master in Messiah).²⁴¹

With [Judaized Gentiles] in subjection to a legalistic perversion of the Torah (see the commentary on Galatians Ag – Who were the Judaizers), I put myself in the position to empathize with someone under such legalism, in order to win those [Gentiles] under this legalism (9:20d). The legalistic perversion of the Torah that [Judaized Gentiles] became enslaved to was not always non-Messianic Judaism. In fact, more often than not it was a watered-down form of it, perhaps binding them to observe certain Jewish holidays (Colossians 2:16-17; Galatians 4:10), or binding the men to get circumcised by not obeying the rest of the Jewish mitzvot (Galatians 5:3 and 6:13). Unsaved Gentiles who subjected themselves to some, but not all, of the Jewish practice were called God-fearers (see the commentary on Acts Bb – An Ethiopian Asks about Isaiah 53), but not all God-fearers became legalistic about their observance of Jewish customs, Paul applied the principles of the Jerusalem Council (see the commentary on Acts Bt – The Council’s Letter to the Gentile Believers).

Even though I myself am not in subjection to a legalistic perversion of the Torah (9:20e). If the Greek phrase upo nomon meant “required to obey the Torah,” Paul could not have written this. Paul was a Jew (Acts 13:9), and Jews are required to obey the Torah . . . the true Torah. The psalmist said it this way: How blessed are those who reject the advice of the wicked, don’t stand in the way of sinners or sit where scoffers sit! Their delight is in ADONAI’s Torah; in His Torah they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams – they bear their fruit in season, their leaves never wither, everything they do succeeds (Psalm 1:1-3). The next verse reveals what Paul understood about himself in relation to the one and only Torah . . . the Torah of Moshe; this present verse only talks about his relationship to the legalistic perversion of it.²⁴²

Second, when I am with [pagan Gentiles] who live outside the framework of Torah (9:21a). Those who live outside (The Greek: tois anomois can mean to the lawless, in the sense of “wicked,” or, as here, those who do not relate to the Torah at all). In Romans 2:12-16 this would be synonymous with the Gentiles; but here, as indicated in 9:20c, it means a particular group of Gentiles – those who have neither subjected themselves to a legalistic perversion of the Torah, nor “weak” who have made their overly strict consciences into a Torah of their own. This pagan Gentile tends toward lawlessness and lack of discipline (see the commentary on Romans An – The Depraved Mind of the Gentile Pagan). Some of the people to whom Paul was writing were once in this category (6:9-11). Indeed, the whole tone of 8:1 to 11:1, and indeed the whole letter, suggests that this was the mindset Paul was dealing with among many of the leaders of the Corinthian church.

I put myself in the position to empathize with [the pagan Gentile] in order to win him to the Lord – although I myself am not a pagan, but live within the framework of the Torah of Moshe,  as upheld and modified in accordance with what Messiah has said and done to establish the B’rit Chadashah (9:21b). The Torah of Messiah is not something that does away with or replaces the Torah of Moshe; rather, as Yeshua said: Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete (Matthew 5:17). As a result, even though the Pharisees and the Torah-teachers, and the rabbis after them, teach many things about the Torah that are true, they miss the mark to the extent that non-Messianic Judaism makes the Torah a legalistic system that perverts its true intention, which is to receive the grace of ADONAI through faith (see the commentary on Romans Ct – Praying for the Jewish Community).

Paul does not say that he is in subjection to (Greek: upo, meaning under) a perverted Torah of Moshe which leads to legalism, because there is no oppressiveness, no subjection, in being within the framework of the Torah of Messiah. Yeshua Himself said: My yoke is easy, My burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30; Acts 15:10). When Paul wants to emphasize oppressiveness or compulsion in relation to something abstract, such as the Torah, he uses upo, meaning under; if that is not his intention, he uses en, meaning in, within, or in the framework of. Thus, for example, Romans 3:19 reads: We know that whatever the Torah says, it says to those living within the framework of the Torah. The last seven words translate the Greek en to nomo, or in the law. A number of English translations fail to bring out this important distinction.²⁴³

Third, when I am with the “weak” [Gentiles], I put myself in the position to empathize with the “weak,” in order to win the “weak” (9:22a). In relation to its context (see Bj – Concerning Our Freedom in Messiah), this is the main point of 9:20-22. Paul had voluntarily made himself a slave to all (9:19). Examples of this included non-Messianic Jews (9:20a-b) and Judaized Gentiles (9:20c-d-e). But now he speaks of a group the others above were willing to ignore and ride roughshod over – the weak, those with misguided consciences (see Bm – The Weaker Brother or Sister). Their scruples were not to be despised, but understood, so that they may be won to faith (in the immediate context), or their life in the Lord strengthened (in the larger context). A deeper understanding of God’s truth will free the weak from bondage: You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:32).²⁴⁴

With all kinds of people, both Jews and Gentiles, I have become all kinds of things, so that in all kinds of circumstances I might save at least some of them (9:22b). He did not compromise the gospel. He would not change anything to satisfy anyone. But he would condescend in any way for anyone if that would, in any way, help bring them to Messiah. He would never set the truth of the gospel, but he would gladly restrict his liberty in the gospel. He would not offend a Jew, Gentile, or those who were weak in understanding.

If a person is offended by God’s Word, that’s their problem. It they are offended by biblical doctrine, standards, or church discipline that’s their problem. That person is offended by God. But if someone is offended by our unnecessary behavior or practices – no matter how good and acceptable those may be in themselves – their problem becomes our problem. It is not a problem of Torah but a problem of love (Matthew 5:39-41). Paul’s life centered in living out the gospel and in preaching and teaching the gospel. Nothing else was of any concern for him. But I do it all for the sake of the Good News, so that I may be a joint sharer in it (9:23).²⁴⁵ This continues to elaborate the earlier principle: Paul made himself a slave to all in order to win as many people as possible to trust in Messiah (9:19).

Paul’s example (9:24-27): The Greeks had two great athletic festivals, the Olympic games and the Isthmian games. The latter was held in Corinth, and therefore intimately familiar to those to whom Paul was writing. Contestants in the games had to prove rigorous training for ten months. The last month was spent in Corinth, with supervised daily workouts in the gymnasium and athletic fields. The race was always a major attraction at the games, and this is the figure Paul uses to illustrate the faithful life of a believer. Don’t you know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one wins the prize? No one would train so hard for so long without intending to win. Yet, out of such a large number of runners, only one would win.

So then, Paul concludes: run to win (9:24)!

A great difference between the Isthmian races, and the race that believers run is that every believer who is willing to pay the price of careful training can win. We do not compete against each other, but against obstacles – practical, physical, and spiritual – that would hinder us. In a sense, every believer runs his or her own race, enabling each one of us to be a winner in winning souls for Messiah. Paul, therefore, advises us to run to win, by setting aside anything that might hinder the Good News (see Bo – Laying Aside Rights).

Holding tightly to your freedom in Messiah to do anything you want is a sure way to lose the race of soul-winning. Many of the Corinthian believers seriously limited their testimony because they refused to give up their rights, and in doing so won few and offended many.

Now every athlete in training submits himself to strict discipline, and he does it just to win a laurel wreath that will soon wither away. But we do it to win a crown that will last forever (see the commentary on Revelation Cc – For We Must All Appear Before the Bema Seat of Christ). But for that to happen, discipline and self-control are needed (9:25). No believer will be successful in witnessing, or anything else worthwhile, without discipline. Every good thing that we accomplish – whether in learning, business, artistic skill, marriage, witnessing, or whatever – is accomplished through discipline and self-control.

If an athlete expects to excel, he voluntarily restricts his freedom. His sleep, his diet, and his exercise, are not determined by his freedom to eat, sleep or exercise any time he wants, but by his training. And thus, the illustration of the athlete’s disciplined self-control is a rebuke to the half-hearted, out-of-shape believer who does almost nothing to prepare themselves to witness to the lost – and consequently never do.

Paul had a purpose in running. Accordingly, I don’t run aimlessly but straight for the finish line. Changing metaphors, he said: I don’t shadow-box but try to make every punch count (9:26). He was always fighting the real fight, the good fight (First Timothy 1:18). I treat my body hard (Greek: hupopiazo, literally to give his body a black eye) and make it my slave so that, after proclaiming the Good News to others, I myself will not be disqualified from rewards due to faithful workers (9:27). Here is another metaphor from the Isthmian games. A contestant who failed to meet the training requirements was disqualified. He could not even run, much less win. Paul didn’t want to spend his life preaching the requirements to others, and then be disqualified for not meeting the requirements himself.

Many believers start their walk with the Lord with enthusiasm and devotion. They train carefully for a while but soon tire of the effort and begin to “break training.” They begin to exercise their freedom in Messiah to do other things. Not necessarily bad things, but other things nonetheless. Before long they are disqualified from being effective witnesses. They do not have what it takes, because they are unwilling to pay the price. The flesh, the world, everyday life, personal interests, and often simple laziness hinder their spiritual growth and preparation for service. Even good things can interfere with the best. Indulging our freedoms can interfere with fulfillment of love. Following our own ways can keep others from knowing the Way. Souls are won by those who are prepared to be used when the Spirit chooses to use them.²⁴⁶