1 Corinthians 9:12

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 (ver. 5); (b) by comparisons drawn from the practice of soldiers, shepherds, and agriculturists (ver. 7); (c) from the law of Moses (ver. 9); (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 (ver. 13); (e) from the ordinance of God and of Christ (ver. 14); (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 ver. 15, where he says, "It were better for me to die than that any man should make my glorying void."

Ver. 13. Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? The priests and Levites partake of the victims offered, and the tithes and firstfruits. The Greek for "minister" is "labour." The office of the priest was to labour at killing, cutting up, skinning, boiling, and burning the victims, all of which are laborious, and under other circumstances would be the work of butchers.

And they which wait at the altar. He does not say, says S. Chrysostom, the priests, but they which wait at the altar, that we may see that constant attendance of sacred things is required from the ministers of the temple of Christ, who partake of the good things of the Temple. On the other hand, now-a-days, none are less often at the altar than some who derive the greatest profit from the altar and from tithes. These are condemned by the Council of Trent.

Ver. 14. Even so hath the Lord ordained. S. Luke 10:7; S. Matthew 10:10-11, and Matthew 10:14.

Ver. 15. For it were better for me to die than that any man should make my glorying void. His glorying has for its subject the preaching of the Gospel without charge, or his work of liberality, free grace, and supererogation, as is evident from ver. 18. It appears from this that it is an Evangelical counsel to preach the Gospel without charge, as is now done by some apostolic and religious men. So Theophylact, Theodoret, and Anselm. Cf. also Chrysostom and Anselm.

Observe that S. Paul does not speak of his glory but his glorying, viz., that which he could make before God and before men, especially before the false apostles, who were held of great account and sumptuously maintained by the Corinthians. Cf. 2 Corinthians 11:7, for similar "glorying."