If others be partakers of this right over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not used this right; but endure all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 9:12 Go To 1 Corinthians 9
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
If others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather? The Apostle proves by six arguments that that he and other ministers of the Word of God and the Church may receive their expenses from their flocks: (a) By the examples of the other Apostles (ver5); (b) by comparisons drawn from the practice of soldiers, shepherds, and agriculturists (ver7); (c) from the law of Moses (ver9); (d) from the example of the priests and Levites of the Old Testament, who lived on the sacrifices offered on the altar that they served (ver13); (e) from the ordinance of God and of Christ (ver14); (f) from the very nature of the case, from the positive command of God, as well as from the law of mature, which declared that, as payment is due to a workman, so is support to a minister of the Word, not as the price of sacred things, which would be dishonouring to them and simoniacal, but as what is necessary for them to fitly discharge their sacred functions for the people"s sake. Hence this support is owing to them as a matter of justice. So Chrysostom.
Nevertheless we have not used this power, but suffer all things. We have not claimed out right to maintenance, but endure the utmost poverty, and undertake every kind of evil to relieve that poverty by working with our hands.
Lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ. He would not receive money for his support, lest he should give occasion to covetous or injudicious men to hinder the Gospel and bring obloquy upon it. That there was no cause of offence given here by the Apostle, but that it was received from others, and that it was in him a work of supererogation to refuse to receive payment, appears from what has gone before, and from ver15 , where he says, "It were better for me to die than that any man should make my glorying void."
