1 Corinthians 9:7-11 - Who serves at his own expense?

9:7

Paul now emphasises his right “not to work for a living”. However, he is doing this not in order to claim that right, but to show that he is not claiming a perfectly justifiable right. Soldiers do not risk their lives and fight at their own expense. Someone who plants a vineyard eats the produce of the vineyard. Those who tend herds drink the milk. 

9:8-11

So far Paul has been using natural analogies, but now he turns to Biblical support for his argument. Paul now turns to the Law, in particular Deut 25:4, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Now to us the argument seems a bit spurious, for it is most obviously speaking about animals.However, Paul is used to rabbinical type arguments, and moving from the lesser (oxen) to the greater (humans) was a well known construct. However, Jesus also argued in a similar way on occasion. Jesus pointed out that if a sheep  had fallen into a pit on the Sabbath (Matt 12:11) they would rescue it, so how much more was it right to heal a man on the Sabbath. It is the same sort of reasoning that Paul is using. So if someone sows and reaps the gospel, then it is reasonable for the preacher to “reap a material harvest”.Now we need to consider this carefully.Most of us rightly react against so-called prosperity teaching, but the church can also be guilty of not treating its workers properly.