Dear friends,
Slavery is one of the ancient world’s most common practices. The notion that chattel slavery would be banned around the world was unthinkable until relatively recent times; yet today in our society, it is chattel slavery itself that is unthinkable.
All slavery is a restriction of freedom, and so our title ‘Freedom of Slavery’ is intentionally paradoxical. But then, Paul’s attitude to slavery in 1 Corinthians 9 is something of a paradox. For in this freedom, he chooses to enslave himself for others that they may enjoy the freedom of the gospel. It is in this context that we have one of the great passages on cross-cultural evangelism.
I hope you enjoy this episode of Two Ways News. If you want to contact us with a comment or question, please email us at respond@twm.email.
Yours,
Phillip
Phillip Jensen: This week, we will be looking at the second half of 1 Corinthians 9. In our last episode, we raised some very big questions about the nature of rights and authority, as well as the concepts of freedom and responsibility. Because the Apostle Paul, though he was free, chose to serve; in fact, the passage describes this using the word ‘slavery’.
1 Corinthians 9:19–27
For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 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. 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. 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. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
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. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
Peter Jensen: Freedom is a key category in the Bible, and also in modern culture. Indeed, we enjoy freedoms that not every person in human history has been able to enjoy. But it is little understood, and one of the reasons is that people do not understand that we are sinners to start with—that we are enslaved to sin. We think we are free from sin. But we will come back to that.
Paul is free, and so he has certain ‘rights’. For example, as an apostle, he can be married, and he can ask for money for his ministry. These are things that are written in the scriptures. But the exercise of rights is not how he understands freedom. For him, liberty is to give himself in practical ways for the good of others. In this, of course, he is following Christ. Paul chose to preach the gospel free of charge, and he saw this as his reward.
Phillip: It’s a different understanding of freedom than that which our particular culture has embraced. We’re constantly being told that freedom is about doing what you want to do. Freedom is making your own choices, living your own way. It’s not to be restricted by the authority of others. We’re told to live by that terrible phrase, ‘You do you.’ That’s freedom in the way the world speaks of it.
Peter: It’s a disastrous approach to freedom, not least because we are not free; we are enslaved to sin. We might simply say that freedom is about doing what you want to do, but our hearts are sinful. Is what we want to do for the good of others? I think that Paul’s approach is confronting to our modern culture. How do you understand it?
Phillip: It starts with the general principle enunciated in 9:19, “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.” There are 3 crucial elements to that passage:
He’s free from all, and so he owes no man anything.
But at the same time, he’s chosen to make himself a servant of all.
He has enslaved himself to all so that he may “win more”. He’s not enslaving himself because he’s a masochist; it is for the purpose of bringing more people to the gospel.
Peter: But isn’t the phrase “I am free from all” exactly what our culture is saying? How can you truly be free whilst being a slave to all?
Phillip: The reason he says that he’s free from all is because he has a Lord. He’s already a slave. His Lord is, of course, Jesus, whom he is serving, and the Lord Jesus wants him to serve others. We use the word ‘lord’ so freely that we forget that a lord is a slave owner. But Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 4:5, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants (the Greek is ‘slaves’) for Jesus’ sake.” The reason why he is serving other people is because his Lord, Jesus, wants him to serve other people. So he enslaves himself, not because he is a slave to anybody other than Jesus, but because he is the slave of Jesus. This gives him freedom from anybody else. And yet under Jesus, he is enslaved to everybody else.
Peter: So, if I’m hearing you correctly, true freedom is about being the person you were designed to be by God, which means that accepting the lordship of Jesus, becoming the slave of Jesus, is to be set free. The idea of freedom in our modern culture is very individualist. Being free means that nobody else can order you around. You wonder, then, if people have ever been in love, or if people have ever loved their marriage partners, if they say that nobody can order them around. For it is not in absolute freedom, nor in individual freedom, that we find true freedom; it’s in our love for someone else. Particularly, of course, it is found in our love for Jesus, our submission of ourselves to him. Furthermore, Jesus models this freedom himself, and then enables his slaves, his people, to say that they are the slaves of all by their choice: the choice driven by love.
Phillip: We must make it clear, though, that he’s not talking about literal political slavery. Back in 7:23, Paul makes it clear that you’re not to become a slave of anybody; in other words, don’t choose political slavery. Slavery is the yoke, as he describes it to Timothy. Yet in this passage, he is referring to the concept of being the spiritual slave of everyone.
Philippians 2:7 tells us that Jesus took the form of a slave, born in the likeness of men. That’s what we are to do. There’s also Jesus’ great example in Mark 10:43–45
But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
So Christians are not to put themselves into literal physical, economic, political slavery. But they are to put themselves in spiritual service of everybody.
Peter: And it must be driven by love. That is, the love of Jesus for us, and then our response to him expressed in our love for others. So Paul is free to marry and to receive money from the Corinthians for his ministry. But being driven by love, he exercises his freedom for the sake of others. In this case, he’s telling us that the salvation of men and women is more important than his comfort, desires, wealth, and reputation—all of those individualist values that we keep hearing of. This, he says, is true freedom. Have you ever seen this done in our time?
Phillip: This is a major challenge for us. We are so often servants of our own culture, at the expense of sharing the gospel. We need to contextualise the messenger, not the message. That is, we need to change ourselves, instead of changing the message of the gospel, or its urgency. So Paul changes himself. He willingly embraces all the permissible cultural diversity of other people for the sake of their salvation, out of his love for them and love for the Lord Jesus. To the Jew he becomes as a Jew; to the Greek he becomes as a Greek. But he doesn’t do that because he loves multicultural living. It’s not that he really likes eating pork, and so he’s very happy to evangelise to the Greeks. Instead, he is like Christ, laying down his life and his interests for the sake of the other person and their salvation. He will change himself in order to preach the unchanging gospel. That’s the evangelist in him.
You know, Peter, because you and I were raised on it, that we love cricket and rugby. But for the sake of the salvation of another man, would you go to the Aussie Rules? Would you watch AFL?
Peter: Of course.
Phillip: The same can be said about music. We all have our tastes, but my taste of music is unimportant compared to the salvation of the other person. If listening to someone else’s music and going to his concerts is the way to share the gospel with him, then his music will play on my radio. The passage is about the evangelist rather than the church per se, but you could extend it to the church. What kind of music are we playing in church? Is it the music of the people that we are preaching the gospel to? That is, do we have to impose the music of Handel and Bach on people in the mission field who listen to a completely different style of music? Of course we don’t. We change ourselves in order that the unchanging gospel may be heard clearly.
Peter: I asked you earlier whether you’ve seen this done in our time. I presume that what made me ask the question is because I can see it being done by those who are sent as missionaries, and who spent a great deal of time learning a different language and culture in order to communicate. I know that when I have traveled overseas, I’ve travelled as an Aussie, and that doesn’t always work. I’ve managed to offend a number of people by just being Australian. But those who go in our circles do spend a great deal of time enculturating themselves to a different culture. This doesn’t mean that they change the message, but it does mean that they change themselves.
Phillip: Yes, although as Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message,” and so it’s not easy to do. It’s tricky, because sometimes the message is caught up in the culture. But you don’t have to go overseas to evangelise to another culture, because in 21st century Australia, ‘overseas’ has come to Australia. You only have to move to the next suburb to preach the gospel to people from a different ethnic background, which requires us to make those changes.
Peter: We also need to be aware of the old Aussie culture that we grew up in. When I joined Moore Park Golf Club as a junior way back in my teenage years, my father, who had been the president of the club, took me aside and gave me a warning. He said, “Peter, we don’t talk about politics or religion to our fellow members.” I can understand that, because these things are very divisive subjects. But was that right? The trouble is, if the culture shuts our mouths, if it means that we never talk about the gospel, where does that get us?
Phillip: Well, it’s not written in the rule book. If it’s written in the rule book that you mustn’t preach the gospel, I’d suggest you shouldn’t join the club.
Peter: No, it wasn’t written in the rule book. It’s far deeper than that. It exists in our community for various reasons. But the Apostle says, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” In other words, I will reach out. I will, in a sense, share their heart so that I can share the blessings of the gospel. The importance of people being saved is what drives him, which is exactly what drove the Lord Jesus: love, but also the Christlike godliness in so doing. He wasn’t telling us to yell at people, but rather that we must reach them in a way suitable to their culture—but not in a way that lessens the gospel.
Phillip: ‘Culture’ is such a highbrow word. Can’t we just say, “The Lord Jesus sat with sinners and tax collectors?”
Peter: That’s another subject, but yes. At any rate, Paul, like the Lord, pays the cost involved so that we may reach people, and sometimes the cost is being rejected by people. So what are the blessings of this freedom? Is it becoming like Christ, and being saved ourselves?
Phillip: It’s more than that. Even in verses 9:24–27, the end of the last paragraph of the chapter, Paul is saying that he subjects himself for others’ salvation. But he’s talking here about the utilitarian, costly cycle. It’s not just to save others, but also to save himself. I’m not at all meaning that by doing evangelism, you save yourself and so you don’t need the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for you, or the resurrection of Jesus. It’s not as though the 11th commandment that didn’t occur in the Old Testament is to preach the gospel to save yourself. It’s to avoid the blatant hypocrisy of preaching to others what we ourselves do not believe: of preaching to others what we ourselves will not do. Refusing to put yourself out for other people’s salvation is tantamount to rejecting the cross. There’s an old saying, “If you do not care for the lost, it’s because, most likely, you are one of the lost.” For if you have been found by the Lord Jesus Christ, you will live and die to find others.
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Links & Recommendations
For more on this topic, check out this talk on 1 Corinthians 9 called Freedom of Service.
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