1 Corinthians 9:14

“Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.”

Rückert does not think that we have here a new argument; he regards it as only the application to the Christian Church of what was common among Jews and Gentiles (1 Corinthians 9:13). But the apostle could not possibly have presented the consequence of a Jewish or Gentile usage as a positive command of the Lord. We must therefore understand the οὕτω καί in the sense of: And so also. This is the last fact which completes the proof of the apostles' right. When Paul says: hath ordained, he is thinking of a saying of Jesus; it is that of Matthew 10:10 and Luke 10:7. He knew it from apostolic tradition, as he did that which he has already quoted 1 Corinthians 7:10. It is somewhat remarkable that in 1 Timothy 5:18 this command of Jesus is connected, as in our passage, with that of Deuteronomy cited in 1 Corinthians 9:10.

By the dative τοῖς καταγγέλλουσιν, to them who preach, Paul does not mean that it is to the preachers the command is given; it is the dative of favour: for them. The expression: live of the gospel, may apply, according to time or place, to free gifts or to a regular salary. It is only the principle which is of importance.

According to St. Paul, the Lord has established in His Church a class of members occupying a particular position. While other believers realize the new life in the exercise of a secular profession which affords them a livelihood, they renounce every secular occupation to consecrate all their time and powers to the development of the spiritual life in others; and consequently the Church to which they thus consecrate their life is bound to provide for their material support, as Jesus provided for the maintenance of His disciples from the day when He commanded them to leave their nets, and said to them: “I will make you fishers of men.” Such is the foundation of the institution of the Christian ministry. The object of Jesus in establishing it was not to institute a new priesthood, a human mediatorship between God and the Church; but neither did He wish to abandon the development of His work to the spontaneous zeal of the faithful. He has avoided these two opposite rocks, and confined Himself to instituting a ministry to preach and have the cure of souls, the members of which live for the gospel, and consequently ought also to live of the gospel. But woe to the man who claims to live of the gospel without living at the same time for the gospel!

Paul has reminded his readers that he was really an apostle (1 Corinthians 9:1-3), and then demonstrated by five arguments of increasing force the right which therefore belongs to him and his fellow - labourers (1 Corinthians 9:4-14). He now reaches the idea which he had in view from the beginning: that of the voluntary sacrifice which he has made of this right (1 Corinthians 9:15-17). In 1 Corinthians 9:15 he expresses the fact of the sacrifice itself; in 1 Corinthians 9:16-18, the reason which impels him to act thus.