Corinthians (The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the )

Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen our Lord Jesus Christ? Are you not my work in [the] Lord?

If I am not an apostle to others, yet I am indeed to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in [the] Lord.

My defense to those examining me is this:

Have we not authority to eat and to drink?

Or [is it] only Barnabas and I [who] have no authority to quit work?

Who serves as a soldier at his own wages at any time? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not eat of the milk of the flock?

Do I speak these things according to man, or does not the Law say these things also?

For it has been written in the Law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox treading out grain." Is it [that] it matters to God [as to] oxen?

Or does He say [it] altogether because of us? It is written because of us, so that the [one] plowing ought to plow [in] hope, and the [one] threshing [in] hope to partake of hope.

If we have sowed spiritual things to you, [is it] a great thing if we shall reap of your fleshly things?

If others have a share of the authority [over] you, [should] not rather we? But we did not use this authority, but we endured all things, so that we might not give a hindrance to the gospel of Christ.

Do you not know that those who have labored eat of the holy things of the temple? Those attending on the altar partake with the altar.

So also the Lord ordained those announcing the gospel to live from the gospel.

But I have not used one of these. And I do not write these things that it be so with me. For [it is] good to me rather to die than that anyone nullify my glorying.

For if I announce the gospel, no glory is to me; for necessity is laid on me, and [it] is woe to me if I do not announce the gospel.

For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, I am entrusted with a stewardship.

What then is my reward? That announcing the gospel I may make the gospel of Christ free, so as not to use fully my authority in the gospel.

For being free of all, I enslaved myself to all, that I might gain the more.

And I became as a Jew to the Jews, that I might gain Jews; to those under Law as under Law, that I might gain those under Law;

to those without Law as without Law (not being without law of God, but under [the] law of Christ), that I might gain [those] without Law.

I became to the weak as weak, that I might gain the weak. To all I have become all things, that in any and every way I might save some.

And I do this for the gospel, that I might become a fellow partaker of it.

Do you not know that those running in a stadium indeed all run, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain.

But everyone striving controls himself [in] all things. Then those truly that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.

So I run accordingly, as not uncertainly; so I fight, as not beating air;

but I buffet my body and lead [it] captive, lest proclaiming to others I myself might be rejected.