1 Corinthians 9:23

Note

Paul gathers up his long account of becoming all things to all people in one sentence. He did it all because of the gospel, and what he hopes for at the end is to share in that gospel himself, together with those he served.

Though free, Paul made himself a slave to all: a Jew to Jews, as one under the law to those under the law, as one without the law to those without it, weak to the weak. He sums it up: "I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Corinthians 9:22). This verse is the conclusion of that confession, and the images of the runner and the boxer follow at once. They end with a warning Paul addresses to himself: he disciplines his body "so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:27).

The noun euangelion (εὐαγγέλιον) appears once, in dia to euangelion, ‘because of the gospel’: it is the reason for everything Paul does. The second half refers back to it with a pronoun, autou, ‘of it’. Paul wants to become sugkoinōnos (συγκοινωνός) of the gospel: a koinōnos, a partner or sharer, with the prefix sun, ‘together with’. The verb is an aorist subjunctive, genōmai, ‘that I may become’. The one who hands the gospel on must himself receive what it gives, alongside the others. Paul uses the same word when he tells the Philippians, "you are all partners in grace with me" (Philippians 1:7).

The versions show a difference in the manuscripts. The KJV reads "And this I do for the gospel’s sake," following the Textus Receptus (touto, ‘this’); the older manuscripts read panta, ‘all things’, and the BSB has "I do all this." Either way the words point back to everything Paul has just described. The KJV's "that I might be partaker thereof with you" spells out the "with" in the Greek prefix, and the LSV keeps it in "a fellow-partaker of it." The BSB's "share in its blessings" names what the sharing is in: the gospel's gifts, salvation itself.

Wesley explains becoming weak as "As if I had been scrupulous too" Wesley, and he draws a line around "all things to all people": "Accommodating myself to all, so far as I could consistent with truth and sincerity" Wesley. Matthew Henry marks the same limit: "Though he would transgress no laws of Christ, to please any man, yet he would accommodate himself to all men, where he might do it lawfully, to gain some" Matthew Henry.

The Corinthians knew the athletic contests held at the nearby Isthmus, and Paul speaks to what they had seen: athletes train hard, but "They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable" (1 Corinthians 9:25). Adapting oneself for the gospel's sake is like the self-control of a runner who means to win.

In this verse the one who preaches does not stand outside the gospel, dispensing it. He stands with his hearers, needing the same gift. Whoever hears the gospel stands in the same place as the one who brings it, before the same grace.