1 Corinthians 7:23

The second person plural which comes in here shows that the apostle is addressing the entire Church without distinction. If some from being slaves have become free, and the others from being free have become slaves, it is because a purchase has been made; this purchase, so far as it is a ransom, has freed the slaves, and, as a purchase price, it has brought the free into servitude.

But how is the warning which follows connected with the mention of the great fact of redemption? Some have thought that Paul meant thereby to prevent the free men of Corinth from selling themselves as slaves for the service of Christ (Michaëlis, Heydenreich). But no trace is found of such conduct, and in any case the transition to so new an idea would be denoted by some particle or other.

Monod compares this saying with a passage of the letter of Ignatius to Polycarp (c. 4), where the former writes of male and female servants: “Let them not desire to be set free at the charge of the common treasury, lest they should be found the slaves of their lust.” Paul, he thinks, is reminding Christians thus redeemed that they ought to take care to maintain their independence over-against the Church, or those who have rendered them this service. But how can we bring ourselves to apply to such a purchase the solemn expression, bought with a price? comp. 1 Corinthians 6:20. Besides, Paul addresses this recommendation, as we have seen, to the whole Church. This last reason equally forbids us to accept the opinion of Chrysostom (De Virgin., c. 41), quoted by Edwards, according to which Paul recommends slaves not to serve servilely, but as exercising their spiritual liberty; comp. Colossians 3:23. Rückert, Hofmann, compare this warning with 1 Corinthians 3:21: “Let no man glory in men;” they think that Paul is inviting the Church to shake off the yoke of the party leaders spoken of in the first Chapter s. Nothing appears in the context which could call forth such a warning here, and how should Paul immediately return from this strange thought to the general rule, 1 Corinthians 7:24 ? Meyer's solution seems to me the most natural. Paul, he thinks, wishes to combat the docility of the Church towards certain agitators who were urging believers, in consequence of their conversion, to change their external situation. Indeed, Meyer rightly observes that unless we assume such a tendency, this whole digression (1 Corinthians 7:17-24) lacks a basis. Perhaps it was above all in regard to questions about slavery and liberty that those men sought to impose their opinions on the other members of the Church. Let the severe saying, 1 Corinthians 4:15, be remembered: “Though ye should have ten thousand tutors in Christ...!”

The apostle concludes by reproducing in a summary form the general principle already twice stated, 1 Corinthians 7:17; 1 Corinthians 7:20.