Winning Some to Christ

1 Corinthians 9:19–23 AV

For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.

The early church father Ambrose once said, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” He meant that we should adapt as much as possible to the prevailing customs of wherever we are at the time. For example, when in the UK, we should drive on the left side of the road.

Sometimes this can be a tricky business for Christians because it’s often difficult to separate Biblical regulations from cultural practices. One area in which this has been discussed over the years is worship music. We’re accustomed to singing traditional hymns with the accompaniment of a piano or organ. But are our choices of hymns and musical instruments required by Scripture or passed down from previous generations? Should we expect churches in Asia and Africa to follow the same practices?

In this evening’s text, the apostle Paul speaks to this matter. His concern was his own preaching ministry, but in addressing it he laid down some guidelines that are just as helpful in other areas.

Free or Enslaved?

Our text begins with a simple declaration in verse 19: For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.

Earlier in the chapter Paul insisted that he was truly free. In verse 1 he asked, Am I not an apostle? am I not free? He had exercised his freedom by not accepting a salary during his eighteen-month stay in Corinth, preferring instead to support himself by tentmaking. Why did he do this? Part of the answer, as we’ve already seen, is that he didn’t want to be a burden to the newly-formed church. But he gave an even better reason in verse 19. To put it simply, he believed he could win more converts to the Lord Jesus by emphasizing service over rights.

The freedom that Paul had in mind is called Christian liberty. Yes, he could have eaten meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Yes, he had the freedom, if he were married at the time, to have his wife accompany him on his travels. Yes, he could insist that the churches he established and served support him financially. But he also had the option of not doing any of these things. His choice in each case was based on factors other than the fact that he was allowed to do something.

Augustine said, “Man is most free when controlled by God alone.” The best illustration of this is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, in obedience to his Father and out of love for his people, became a servant for our sakes and offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins. In doing his Father’s will, he freely fulfilled his mission and purpose.

Paul lived by the words and example of Jesus. Jesus said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many (Matt. 20:25–28).

As we said, Paul’s goal was to win more converts. This brings up another consideration. In Reformed circles, it’s often said that our goal should be faithfulness, not numbers. When people say this, though, it often sounds like they’re suggesting that faithfulness and growth are incompatible — you can one or the other, but not both. But Paul said exactly the opposite. For him, faithfulness to Lord demanded that he preach to as many people as possible. Whether he would actually win them as converts or not was up to the Lord. It was the Lord, after all, who had opened Lydia’s heart to believe the gospel that Paul preached. But if Paul hadn’t sought converts by preaching among the Jews gathered along the riverbank in Philippi, she wouldn’t have heard the gospel’s joyous tidings in the first place.

And note that Paul mentioned his great desire to gain more converts — Jews, Gentiles and the weak — over and over in today’s text. This was the overwhelming burden of his heart. To satisfy that burden, he was willing to do whatever it took short of compromising the gospel or his own testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ.

All Things to All Men

In the next three verses, Paul explained what he meant. First, he defined his relationship to the Jews in verse 20. He wrote, And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law.

The word that really stands out here is became. Paul was born a Jew. He listed his credentials for us in the third chapter of Philippians: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews (v. 5). So, if he was already a Jew, how could he possibly become one? The answer is that he no longer thought of himself as a Jew. When he wrote his second letter to the Corinthians, he explained that faith in Jesus effects a radical transformation in the believer. It’s such a radical transformation that old things are passed away and all things are become new. A Christian is a new creature.

However, Paul wasn’t content simply to say that he became a Jew. He added a second description of Jews in the second half of the verse. He referred to them as them that are under the law. So, he also became one that was under the law.

When we read this, we might wonder why he thought a second description was necessary. After all, wasn’t the fact that he called them Jews specific enough? Of course, it was. But we have to understand the nature of Paul’s ministry. He more than any of the other apostles was responsible for preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. But it came at a great cost. Unbelieving Jews opposed him constantly, and even the believing Jews in Jerusalem didn’t know what to think of him. And what was their complaint? Because he taught that Gentiles didn’t have to be circumcised in order to become Christians, they said that he had cast off the law of Moses. Acts 21:20–21 says, And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law: and they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. Paul added the second description to show that becoming a Jew required more of him than just claiming a biological or religious heritage. He also had to submit to customs and laws that he knew were fading away, things he didn’t have to submit to, but submitted to anyway for the sake of the gospel.

The New Testament gives several examples of Paul making himself a Jew for the sake of the gospel. Here are the three most obvious ones. First, he had Timothy circumcised so that he would have credibility among the Jews (Acts 16:3). Second, he made a Nazirite vow to thank God for his deliverance from the Corinthian official Gallio (Acts 18:18). And third, he joined four Nazirites in their purification ritual, even paying their expenses (Acts 21:23–26). None of these things was strictly necessary, but he did them to remove barriers to the preaching of the gospel.

Now, if verse 20 describes Paul’s ministry to the Jews, verse 21 describes his ministry to the Gentiles, whom he described as without law. Presumably, he meant that they didn’t have God’s self-revelation in Scripture. They certainly had the law written on the heart, as Paul wrote in Romans 2, and they also had some system of human law. But they didn’t have the Word of God. Psalm 147 says, He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them (vv. 19–20).

But if this interpretation is correct, how could Paul say that he became as without law to the Gentiles? He didn’t dispose of God’s law in its entirety. No, look what he wrote in the remainder of the verse to explain himself. He added that he was not without law to God, but under the law of Christ. In other words, when he labored among the Gentiles he didn’t observe those elements of Jewish law that were fading away and would have been offensive or peculiar to a non-Jewish audience, such as the dietary laws, circumcision, the New Moon and sabbath celebrations. Such things would have interfered with the preaching of the gospel.

We also have two good examples of this in the New Testament. One comes from the second chapter of Galatians, where Paul rebuked Peter’s hypocrisy (vv. 11–14). When there were no Jews around, Peter ate with Gentiles; but once the Jews arrived, he refused to sit with them. Our point here is this: Paul didn’t have a problem with Peter eating with the Gentiles, which no doubt included eating Gentile foods and following Gentile customs. Rather, he approved of it. His problem was Peter’s hypocrisy. The other example is in the book of Colossians. Speaking to a Gentile audience, Paul said rather clearly, Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days (Col. 2:16).

But there’s even more than that in verse 21 of our text. Paul made it clear that Christian liberty does not extend so far as to allow believers to violate God’s commandments. This was important because the Jews regarded the law as a means of salvation. By affirming that he was free from Jewish distinctives and yet under a different law — the law of Christ — he implied that he found salvation somewhere other than the law. He found everything he needed in Jesus Christ. Thus, the law was transformed in his thinking from being a tool used to earn God’s favor to a way of expressing gratitude to God for salvation.

And finally, we see Paul’s ministry to the weak in verse 22. The great apostle observed foolish scruples to avoid turning men away from the gospel. But in this case, however, the weak were already Christians — Christians whose consciences would not allow them to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols for fear that it make them participants in pagan idolatry. But if they were already Christians and had already been won for the gospel, how could Paul speak of winning them to Christ?

It seems to me that there are at least two answers to this. One is that Paul didn’t assume that everyone who professes faith in Jesus or shows enthusiasm for the gospel is actually saved. He understood that some seed lands on rocky ground and others among the thorns. He was very explicit about this in the next chapter, where he wrote, Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall (1 Cor. 10:12). By avoiding certain behaviors among the weak Paul made sure that the weak remained under the influence of the gospel longer with the hope that the Spirit of God would make their enthusiasm genuine. Along with this is a second reason. For Paul, salvation was much more than just conversion or justification. It included the whole order of salvation, including sanctification. Weak Christians needed to grow so that they would no longer be weak. So, to encourage this Paul chose not to offend them unnecessarily.

In these ways, Paul became all things to all men. He did exactly what Jesus did when he ate and drank with tax-collectors, prostitutes and assorted sinners. He was called their friend (Matt. 11:19). He asked water from a Samaritan woman (John 4:9, 11, 27). He paid taxes to the Roman government (Matt. 22:21). In other words, Paul accommodated himself to the culture around him so that he could minister anywhere. The gospel is inherently offensive to unbelievers. He saw no need to complicate it by adding cultural baggage that doesn’t need to be there.

If you want to see just how committed Paul was to this, look how many times the word all appears in our text — twice in verse 19 and three times in verse 22. The apostle was willing to do whatever it took to reach as many people as possible.

Apostolic Joy

Today’s text concludes with verse 23. Paul wrote, And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. That is, he not only preached the gospel; he also lived it. He wanted the Corinthians to live it too, so that he might have real communion with them.

What did all of this mean for Paul? Did the fact that he enslaved himself to all men to minister the gospel to them imply that he was a loser? Far from it! It made him a winner because it meant that he would share in the joy of his converts, and nothing was more important to him than that.

We’re comfortable in our own culture. Hudson Taylor, a Methodist missionary and founder of the China Inland Mission, found out the hard way that he had to lose himself and his culture if he was to win the Chinese. When he first arrived in China, like other missionaries of the time, he continued to wear western clothes. But very few of the Chinese paid any attention to him. After a while, he began to wear Chinese garments and cut his hair like the Chinese. And guess what? His ministry exploded. The Lord used the work of the China Inland Mission to bring eighteen thousand people to the Lord Jesus Christ.

How much of our culture are we willing to give up for the gospel? If we’re white-collar executives or gold-collar professionals, can we talk to blue-collar factory workers? Can a red-collar government worker really talk to a pink-collar waitress or salesperson? Are we willing to get to know our Muslim, Hindu or Sikh neighbors, even though they sometimes dress differently or act differently? Can we share the gospel with people of other races and nationalities? Or do these differences get in our way?

The fact is that in heaven there will be people from every tribe, nation and language group. They will have had different experiences and different practices. We’ll be together forever. For that to happen, though, as Christians we have to step out of our comfort zone and become all things to all men, just like the apostle Paul did, as we testify about the Lord has done for us. Amen.