1 Corinthians 9:4-6

“Have we not right to eat and to drink? 5. Have we not right to lead about a sister as wife, as well as the other apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas? 6. Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working?”

Paul uses the plural (we have), because he is thinking also of Barnabas, who acted in this respect in the same way as himself (1 Corinthians 9:6); perhaps he means also to include Silas and Timothy, who had laboured with him in founding the Church of Corinth, joining him in his mode of living; comp. 1 Corinthians 9:11: “ If we have sown among you spiritual things....” The terms eat and drink receive from the context this special meaning: to eat and drink at the Church's expense. The eating of sacrificed meats is no longer in question. The interrogative μή assumes the negative answer: “It is not however (μή) possible that we have not (οὐκ) the right....?”