I Corinthians 9
1 Am I not free? Am I not [an] apostle? Haven't I seen Jesus our Lord? Aren't you my work in the Lord? 2 If I am not apostle to others, rather to you I am certainly; for you are my seal or apostleship in the Lord. 3 This is my defense to those examining me. 4 Don't we have authority to eat and drink? 5 Don't we have authority to take [about] [a] sister, [a] wife, as do also the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas1? 6 Or don't I only and Barnabbas have authority to not be working? 7 Whoever serves as soldier on his own wages? Who plants [a] vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Who shepherds [a] flock and does not eat from the milk of the sheep? 8 Don't I say these [things] according to men, or does the law also not say these [things]? 9 For in the law of Moses it is written: You will not muzzle [the] threshing ox. Doesn't God care for the ox? 10 Or does he say [it] entirely on our account? For on our account it was written, that: The [one] plowing ought to be plowing in hope, and the [one] threshing, in hope of partaking. 11 If we sowed in you the spiritual [things], [is it a] big [thing] if we reap from you the fleshly? 12 If others be partakers of this authority over you, [are] we not rather? But we have not used this authority, but bear everything in order that we not give anyone hindrance to the good-news of Christ. 13 Do you not know that the [ones] working the temple [things] eat the [things] from the temple, those attending to the altar have [a] share in the altar? 14 Thus the Lord also commanded to those proclaiming the good-news to zoe-live2 from the good-news. 15 But I have used none of these [things]. And I have not written these [things] in order that it thus come to pass for me. For it is better to me to die than my boasting be made empty. 16 For if I good-news, it is not [a] boast for me. For necessity presses upon me, for woe to me if I do not good-news. 17 For if willingly I practice these [things], I have [a] reward. But if unwillingly, [a] management is entrusted to me. 18 What therefore is my reward? In order that good-newsing I may place the good-news without charge, that I not abuse my authority in the good-news. 19 For I being free from all am enslaved to all, in order that I gain more. 20 And to the Jews I became as [a] Jew, in order that I win Jews, to those under the law as under the law, not being myself under the law, 21 to those without law as without law, not being without [the] law of God, but in [the] law of Christ, in order that I win those without [the] law; 22 I became weak to the weak, in order that I win the weak; to everyone I am become everything, in order that I certainly win some. 23 But I do everything on account of the good-news, in order that I become [a] co-partaker of it. 24 Don't you know that all [those] running in the stadium run, but one receives the prize? Be thus running in order that you win. 25 And everyone engaging in contest exercises self-control in everything, they on the one hand therefore in order that they receive [a] corruptible crown, but we [an] incorruptible. 26 So I thus run, as not uncertainly, I thus box, not as beating [the] air, 27 but I smite3 my body and enslave it, lest having proclaimed to others I myself become disqualified.1another name for Peter
2from ZOE "ZOH-ay" (ζωη)—Life 'collectively', interdependent, interconnected. Although it means 'life' in the conventional sense (for example: Matt.9:18, Matt.27:63, Luke.2:36, Acts.25:24, Rom.7:2, 2Cor.1:8, 1Thes.4:17, 1Tim.5:10, Rev.19:20), Jesus uses ZOE exclusively of 'life eternal' (with the possible exceptions of Luke.15:13, Luke.16:25). The other N.T. writers use ZOE in both senses—temporal and eternal, generally clear from the context. The Father is the 'zoe-living God' (see Matt.16:16). The Septuagint (LXX) in Gen.2:7 has "...[God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of zoe-life, and the man became a zoe-living psyche-life" (and see 1Cor.15:45); and Gen.3:20 (LXX) "And Adam called his wife's name ZOE, because she was the mother of all zoe-living." Contrast PSYCHE (ψυχη): an individual manifestation of life/consciousness. See John.12:25 where both ZOE and PSYCHE occur. Greek also has the word BIOS (βιoς ) for 'life' in the sense of biological processes.
3means generally "beat black and blue"