1 Corinthians 9:21

These verses come in the middle of a long argument. In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul wrote about food offered to idols and about how Christians should use their freedom. He warned the Corinthians against letting their liberty make a weaker brother stumble (1 Corinthians 8:9–13).

In 1 Corinthians 9 he turns to himself as the example. He sets out his rights as an apostle, above all the right to be supported by those he served and to leave off working with his hands, and he backs them with examples from daily life, from the law of Moses and from the Lord’s own commission to his labourers (1 Corinthians 9:1–14). Then he tells them he has used none of these rights. He was ready to bear anything sooner than hinder the gospel of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:12), and so he preached to them free of charge (1 Corinthians 9:15–18). Everything he has said about his rights in 1 Corinthians 9:1–18 leads up to the principle of verse 19, and the verses after it show that principle at work among Jews, Gentiles and the weak. Right after the passage Paul takes up the picture of an athlete, to show the discipline and sacrifice his work requires (1 Corinthians 9:24–27).

Corinth was a busy port city where Jews, Greeks and Romans, slaves and free citizens all lived side by side. The church there held both Jewish and Gentile believers, some from idol worship and some from strict Jewish homes, and the city around them prized status, eloquence and personal rights. Into that setting Paul holds up an apostle who lays his rights down.

The word for free, eleútheros, describes someone unrestrained and independent, exempt from obligation or liability. In the Greek and Roman world, freedom (eleutheria) and slavery (douleia) set a person’s place in society. A free man had rights and privileges, while a slave was property and lived at another’s bidding. So when Paul says he is “free from all men”, his first readers heard a claim to full independence.

His freedom reached into every part of his life. He had chosen to support himself (1 Corinthians 9:15), so he was in debt to none of the churches he served. In Christ he was also free of human traditions, legal requirements and the expectations of others, and his only master was God.

Yet he “made myself servant unto all”. The verb doulóō comes from doulos, a slave or bondservant, and means to enslave or to bring into bondage. Paul puts it in the active voice, “I made myself”, so the servitude was his own doing and his own free choice. For a man of his learning and standing, this turned the world’s values upside down. His freedom was the liberty to choose his responsibilities, and he chose to spend it on others. That is the highest use of Christian liberty, to lay down rights and privileges out of love for other people.

Jesus taught this very thing when he told his disciples that whoever would be great among them must be their servant, even as the Son of man came to minister and to give his life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:26–28). Mark records the same words of the Lord about himself (Mark 10:45).

Paul’s purpose stands at the end of the verse: “that I might gain the more”. The verb kerdaínō means to acquire, to win or to profit. The profit Paul seeks is people won to Christ, and “the more” means as many of them as possible. Every verse of this passage ends with a “that I might” clause, and the purpose it names is always the gospel reaching people.

Paul’s first example is his own people. Ioudaîos means a Judaean, one belonging to Judah, a name that goes back to Judah the son of Jacob, his tribe and its land. Paul was himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews and had been a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5), so he knew Jewish custom and the law from the inside.

Yet he says that he “became as a Jew” among Jews. In Christ his standing with God rested on grace through faith, and he had set aside the works of the law as a way of being made right with God (Galatians 2:16). So when he was among Jews he took up Jewish ways again for their sake. He would keep the food laws, take part in the life of the synagogue and keep ceremonial practices such as the vow he made in Acts 18:18. He had Timothy circumcised to avoid offending the Jews of that region (Acts 16:3). These practices weighed heavily with the people Paul wanted to reach, and by keeping them he cleared a stumbling block from the gospel’s path.

The words “under the law” come three times in verse 20. The preposition hypó means “under”, and nómos here is the law of Moses, the Torah, the whole body of Israel’s moral, religious and ceremonial commands. “Them that are under the law” are those who live by that law, and the phrase may point especially to Jews who kept it strictly even after they believed in Christ, out of long tradition or conviction. Paul respected their keeping of it and left them to keep it without pressing his own freedom on them, so long as the truth of the gospel stood. “As under the law” means that he took on its practices of his own accord and for a time. Twice in this one verse Paul says “that I might gain”, once for each group.

Paul’s second example is the Gentiles, who had grown up outside the law of Moses. The word ánomos is formed from a negative and nómos, and it can mean lawless, without law, or outside the Jewish law. Here it names Gentiles who stood outside the law of Moses, many of them from pagan backgrounds with very different customs. Among them Paul lived as one outside that law, and the gospel came to them free of Jewish custom and food laws. As the apostle to the Gentiles he crossed this divide all the time, and his freedom among Gentiles sometimes drew the charge that he was against the law.

“Without law” comes four times in verse 21, and the third time Paul uses it of himself in order to set it aside. Between the brackets he adds, “being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ”. The word behind “under the law to Christ” is énnomos, from en (“in”) and nómos, and it means in law, subject to law, bound by law. With Christ’s name it reads ennomos Christō, bound by law to Christ. So the same man who set aside the customs of Moses among Gentiles stayed under Christ’s authority the whole time, and God’s will governed his freedom.

The law of Christ is the law of love. Paul tells the Galatians that bearing one another’s burdens fulfils the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2). He tells them too that they were called to freedom, to use it in serving one another by love, since the whole law is fulfilled in one word, the command to love your neighbour as yourself (Galatians 5:13–14). Jesus summed up the law and the prophets in the two great commandments, to love God with all the heart and to love one’s neighbour as oneself (Matthew 22:37–40). This law works from within, by the Spirit who lives in believers and by their life with Christ. It moves them to look also on the things of others (Philippians 2:3–4) and to keep every stumbling block out of a brother’s way (Romans 14:13).

Paul’s third example is the weak. The word asthenḗs is built from a negative and the root of sthenóō, a word for strength, and it means strengthless. Here it describes believers who are weak in faith or conscience, still unsure of their freedom in Christ, scrupulous and easily made to stumble. They are the weaker brothers of chapter 8, whom Paul has just told the Corinthians to protect.

Paul became as weak by holding back his own freedom, steering clear of anything that would make them stumble or feel shut out, so that he could stand beside them. His conduct changed for their sake, and his convictions stayed where they were. The strong, he writes elsewhere, should bear with the failings of the weak, after the example of Christ (Romans 15:1–3), and Romans 14 works out the same care for the weak at length. To “gain the weak” is to win them to Christ and to bring the struggling into a stronger walk with God.

Then Paul gathers everything into one line: “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” The “became” of verses 20 and 22 and the “am made” here are the same verb, gínomai, “to become”. “All things” covers his conduct, his way of speaking, his customs and his personal liberties. “All men” covers every kind of person he has named: Jews and Gentiles, those under the law and those without it, the strong and the weak.

“By all means” (pántōs) shows how far he would go, using every lawful method, every permissible change and every personal sacrifice that would help. The word “save” is sṓzō, to deliver or protect, and here it means rescue from sin and its consequences into eternal life in Christ. This is the work Christ gave his church when he sent his disciples to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19–20). Paul’s hope is to see “some”, real men and women, come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Verse 23 gives the reason behind everything Paul has said. “And this I do” joins the verse to what has gone before with the plain connective dé, “and”, while toûto, “this”, takes in all of it: the rights he gave up and his becoming all things to all men. The verb poiéō, “do”, is the very broad verb for making or doing.

“For the gospel’s sake” uses diá, which in the sense it carries here means “for the sake of” or “because of”. The gospel, euangélion, is the good message, the good news of Jesus Christ. Paul’s sacrifices were made for this message, which he calls the power of God (Romans 1:16).

“That I might be partaker thereof with you” names what Paul hopes for. Hína, “that”, introduces the purpose, as it usually does. Synkoinōnós, “partaker”, is a compound word meaning a co-participant or fellow sharer, someone who holds a common share with others. “Thereof”, autós, points back to the gospel. So Paul wants to share in the gospel’s blessings, and he wants to share them with the very people he has served. He gives the good news away and then enjoys it alongside those who receive it, in one salvation and one inheritance. In the same spirit he thanked God for the Philippians’ fellowship in the gospel (Philippians 1:5).

The rule he lives by here is one he gives the Corinthians later, to seek the good of others before one’s own (1 Corinthians 10:23–24). It is the outlook of a man who counted all things loss for Christ (Philippians 3:7–8).

Paul’s way of life here follows Christ’s own. Paul laid down rights that were his, and Christ, being God, laid down far more: “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6–7). Paul calls believers to have this same mind, and he follows Christ’s humbling all the way to his obedience unto the death of the cross (Philippians 2:5–8).

The Son became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14). He entered our weakness and was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). He lived under the law that we had failed to keep, and he came to fulfil it (Matthew 5:17). He washed his disciples’ feet (John 13:1–17) and gave his life a ransom for many. In him God was reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19), and the sinless one was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). He went to sinners, tax collectors, the lowly and the sick, for he came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Through his gospel we are made partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) and joint-heirs with him (Romans 8:17).

So Paul’s becoming all things to all men is an echo of the Son of God, who became one of us in order to gain us.

This passage shows us the use God intends for the freedom he gives. In Christ we are truly free, and that freedom is strong enough to be laid down. Paul could keep Jewish custom or sit at a Gentile table, hold back for a weak brother or use his liberty among the strong, because his own standing rested on Christ and his one aim was that others should come to him.

It shows us, too, where love holds firm. Paul’s flexibility had its limit in the law of Christ and in the gospel itself, which he passed on whole to everyone he met.

Above all it shows us God. The Son of God became a servant, entered our weakness and came near to every kind of person, so that he might gain us. The gospel Paul served is the news of that love, and its blessings are meant to be shared, so that the one who brings it and the one who receives it stand together as partakers of the same grace.