1 Corinthians 9:18

“What is my reward then? [It is] that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel without charge, that I use not the right which belongs to me in my preaching.”

According to Meyer, the understood answer to the question: “What is my reward?” is negative: “I have none; I receive no reward.” And the sequel signifies, according to him: “And it is so willed of God that I may render the preaching of the gospel free of charge, which alone can procure me a true recompense.” Idea and construction, all is forced in this explanation. That of Hofmann is equally far-fetched. All of his explanation I can understand is, that he continues the question to the end of the verse: “What is the reward which could lead me to make the preaching of the gospel free of charge?” But the meaning which he gives to this question is beyond my comprehension. Paul's question after what precedes has a very simple meaning: “If the apostleship in itself gives me no ground of glorying because it is forced upon me, and if consequently it does not assure me of any reward, what shall I do after all to obtain that reward without the hope of which it would be impossible for me to labour?” The answer follows: “The way which presents itself to me, is to make the preaching of the gospel without charge. Thereby I do at least something which was not imposed on me; I introduce into my apostleship that element of freedom which was wanting at its origin, and I thus establish, as far as in me lies, a sort of equality between me and the apostles who attached themselves freely to Christ.” We have here a feeling of exquisite delicacy, and, if one may so speak, of transcendent modesty, which is far from having been always understood. Baur, especially, has thought that there is here the idea of the merit of works, which Paul had cherished during the time of his former Pharisaism. The apostle imagines, he thinks, that he can do more than is strictly obligatory, and thereby procure supererogatory merit before God. But Paul wishes simply to escape from the position “of the unprofitable servant who does only what he is obliged to do” (Luke 17:10). He wishes at any price to pass from the servile state to that of a freeman acting from gratitude. The apostle does not for a moment suppose, when he thus speaks, that love goes beyond moral obligation rightly understood, but only that love is more than the legal and purely external fulfilment of duty. This latter secures against punishment; but it does not introduce the servant into his master's intimacy. It is strange to hear the apostle accused of going back to his old Pharisaic viewpoint in the very passage where he expresses most forcibly the insufficiency of the external work, and the imperious need of a spiritual relation to his God. The proposition beginning with the ἵνα, in order that, is the grammatical subject of the understood proposition containing the answer to the question: “What, then, is my reward?” “It is that I may make without charge...” This ἵνα, in order that, is not altogether equivalent to a simple ὅτι, that; it indicates the aim as ever requiring to be attained anew.

The word μισθός, reward, denotes, as is shown by the end of the verse, the advantage which Paul gains for the preaching of the gospel by the gratuitousness with which he follows it. This useful result for the kingdom of Christ is the reward which corresponds to the internal feeling of elevation (καύχημα) which is imparted to him by the position as a free servant, thus acquired.

The form εἰς τὸ μὴ καταχρήσασθαι, so as not to use..., is almost equivalent to a Latin gerund: in not using. We need not here, any more than in the passage 1 Corinthians 7:31, give to καταχρῆσθαι the sense of abuse. The κατά simply strengthens the notion of using: to use to the utmost. Paul means that there remains of his right a portion which he does not use, that this remnant, which he declines to use, may impress on his ministry the character of free-will which is wanting to it by nature (from the mode of its origin).

There is, perhaps, no passage in the apostle's letters where there are more admirably revealed at once the nobility, delicacy, profound humility, dignity, and legitimate pride of his Christian character. Serving Christ cannot give him matter of joy except in so far as he has the consciousness of doing so in a condition of freedom. And this condition he must gain by imposing on himself a mode of following the apostleship more laborious for himself, but more favourable to the propagation of the gospel, than that used by the other apostles, on whom the office of preacher was not imposed. But for this very reason we also understand how personal and exceptional this renunciation was which the apostle practised, and that it would be unjust to set it up as a model for the ordinary preachers of the gospel. Finally, let us call to mind that we have not here to do with an arbitrary renunciation imposed by Paul on himself with the view of inflicting meritorious and, in a sense, expiatory suffering. Paul had discerned how useful and even indispensable to the honour of the gospel this mode of acting was, especially in Greece. It was the one way of distinguishing the preaching of salvation from that venal eloquence and wisdom on which the rhetoricians lived.

With 1 Corinthians 9:18 Paul has closed the digression relative to apostolic payment. But his abnegation is not confined to that; it extends to his entire conduct in his ministry. In all respects he acts on this principle: to give up his liberty from regard to others, so far as it can contribute to save them.