1 Corinthians 9:1,2 - Am I not an apostle?

9:1

There seems to be a sudden jump here as Paul now starts to talk about his being an apostle. However, the link is in the “Am I not free?” In the previous section Paul has been addressing those who said they had the “right” and “freedom” to eat food offered to idols. Paul did not dispute this, but said they also had the responsibility to consider the well-being of the “weaker brother”. He now demonstrates how he has applied this in his own life. Paul was an apostle, the “top job” in the church if we can put it in those terms. Moreover, he was “spiritually superior” (again, if we can put it in those terms), for he had had his vision of the Lord on the Damascus road. Then the Lord had used Paul to bring the gospel to many places and to establish many churches.

9:2

There were those who disputed Paul’s apostleship, or attacked him in other ways. This will become all the more evident in 2 Corinthians, but we get a foretaste of things to come here. Surely the Corinthians should recognise Paul as an apostle? Paul had spent eighteen months in Corinth (Acts 18:1-16) and had established the church there, so the Corinthians should have respected Paul as an apostle. The establishment of the church was the “proof” of Paul’s apostleship. So we see a key sign of an apostle (there are no apostles in special sense that Peter, Paul etc were apostles, but the term is used in a more general sense as well), and it is not some badge of honour. One of the true signs is God working through that person to establish churches and take the gospel to new areas. New areas does not need to be used in a purely geographical sense. There are many areas of society in the West that desperately need a new preaching of the gospel (and definitely not the preaching of a new gospel!).