Totally Free Bible Version

Return to TFBV Index

1 Corinthians 9

¹Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord Jesus? Are you not my work in the Lord? ²Even if to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

³My answer (apology) to those who question me is this. ⁴Do we not certainly have authority to eat and drink. ⁵Do we not [certainly] have authority to take a sister as a wife around with us, as also the remaining apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? ⁶Or do Barnabas and I alone have no authority not to work? ⁷Who has ever fought earning his own wages? Who plants a vineyard and doesn't eat its fruit? Or who tends a flock of sheep and doesn't partake of the milk? ⁸I do not speak these things to you according to human standards, does not the Torah say these things? ⁹For in the law of Moses it has been written, "Do not muzzle the ox when it is threshing grain." Surely God is not concerned about oxen! ¹⁰or does he speak this all about us? For because of us it was written that the one who plows ought to plow in hope, and the one who threshes in hope of partaking. ¹¹If we sowed spiritual things to you, is it a big deal if we reap from you physical (fleshly) benefits? ¹²If others partake in your authority, why should we not partake even more?

But we don't make use of this authority, but we endure all things so that we might not place any hindrance in the way of the gospel of Christ. ¹³Don't you know that those who performed the activities of the temple, ate of the provision of the temple, and those who concern themselves with the altar partake in the altar? ¹⁴Thus also the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should live frthe gospel. ¹⁵But I don't make use of any of this. But I did not write these things so that it might become thus with me. For it would be a better for me to die--Let nobody empty my boast! ¹⁶For if I proclaim the good news, that doesn't give me a reason to boast. It's something I have to do. Woe to me if I do not proclaim the good news. ¹⁷For if I acted in this way willingly, I have a reward. But if it is not willingly, I have been entrusted with the task. ¹⁸What then is my reward? It is that in proclaiming the good news I offer it without cost, so that I might not make use of my authority in the gospel.

¹⁹For though I am free of all, I enslave myself to all so that I might gain the greater number. ²⁰And I became to the Jews as a Jew, so that I might gain Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law, not myself being under the law, so that I might gain those under the law. ²¹To those without the law, I became as one without the law, (not being without God's law, but in the law of Christ), that I might gain those without the law. ²²I became to the weak as one weak, so that I might gain the weak. I became all things to all people so that I might by all means save some. ²³But I do all things because of the gospel, so that I might become a fellow-partaker of it.

²⁴Don't you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? So run in such a way that you might receive the prize. ²⁵But everyone who enters a race exercises self control in all things. Those folks do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we do it to obtain an incorruptible one. ²⁶So I run in this way, not uncertainly, thus I fight, not as one beating the air. ²⁷But I put my body under strict discipline and bring it into subjection, lest having preached to others, I myself should be found unworthy.

Average revision: 3 (Draft # 1 by individual translator)