9:17
Preaching was not voluntary for Paul! This runs counter to our Western mindset. Now, if we look at Acts and all that Paul says in his letters, including this one, it is quite clear Paul was full of joy in the ministry he was carrying out. So what on earth does he mean and what is its significance? Paul was motivated and directed by God, he was fulfilling the command given to him by the Lord. The source is God, not his own motivation or desire. In the West we usually put the focus on our own motivation, and this is one of the reasons we are so often ineffective. This is particularly true of evangelism. I think we can all agree that for the most part the church in the West is not good at evangelism. So what do we do about it? We try and make people feel guilty and/or try and motivate them. We have been trying this for donkey’s years and it has produced precious little fruit. For Paul the motivation came first and foremost from Christ. We need to recapture this if we are to be effective.
9:18
The above way of looking at things is fairly Calvinistic, it puts the focus on God and His desires, rather than man and his desires and abilities. This is absolutely right, but when we look at Paul’s life we see this most definitely did not produce a dead life. Paul was utterly motivated and worked with all his strength, and all of Christ’s strength to fulfil the task. Paul’s aim was to offer the gospel “free of charge”. So he forewent his “rights” as a preacher. Fulfilling the task was the goal of Paul’s life. Paul has earlier urged the Corinthians to change their approach to life, their whole way of thinking, and he is now demonstrating this has worked out in his own life.
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