have we not a right to take round a sister [as] wife, as also the other apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?
Paul is defending his apostleship at Corinth, where some were willing to question it. His defence takes an odd form: he lists rights he never used. Verse 5 names one of them — the right to travel in service with a wife at his side, supported as the other apostles were.
The phrase joins two words that describe one person: a fellow believer who is also a wife. One commentator restates Paul's question and explains why an unbeliever would not do.
It is, "Why should I not have a sister as a wife?" It would not do for him to have an unconverted person. He was at liberty to marry, though an apostle. Cephas had a wife, we know; for Simon's wife's mother lay sick with a fever.
The right Paul names is larger than permission to marry.
He does not claim only a right to marry. He claims that if he were married, or took a wife, she too could look to the Church for support, just as he could. Not all twelve of the first apostles were single men. The Lord's own brothers were not all single either. The others claimed and enjoyed freedom from ordinary work, so that they could give themselves fully to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
Cephas is Peter, the last name in the verse. One writer takes it as evidence about how Peter travelled.
From this one would gather that Peter's wife accompanied him on his missionary journeys.
The same detail explains a greeting at the end of Peter's own letter, where a woman sends greetings from Babylon:
The Revised Version is right in its rendering, "She that is in Babylon, elected together with you, salutes you" (an older translation). The apostle is just sending a Christian greeting from his wife. She was with him as he wrote, in Babylon, the old capital of King Nebuchadnezzar.
The verse also names the Lord's brothers. During His ministry they did not believe in Him. One writer follows what became of them.
We know that for some time after He entered His public ministry His brothers did not believe in Him... But how sweet it is to see that the one next in age, and perhaps closest to Him, "James, the Lord's brother" (Gal. 1:19), was quickly won to be His loyal and faithful follower. And James was not the only one of those four won by Him; for in 1 Cor. 9:5 we see "the brothers of the Lord" linked with Cephas.
Writers have long used this verse against rules that forbid marriage for Christian workers.
It was an evil day for Christendom when the idea took hold of men's minds that Christ's servants should remain unmarried. This idea has exposed frail human flesh to the gravest moral danger. It also defies both apostolic example and the plain instructions of Holy Scripture. In 1 Cor. 9:5 Paul insists that he had the same right to a wife as to eat and drink. He points to the example of "the other apostles," and names Cephas (Peter).
One writer dates the ban on priests having wives to A.D. 324. Another records the resistance when the rule was first proposed:
At the council of Nicaea they wanted to make a rule that church leaders must stay unmarried. But one old bishop stood up and told them they would only be setting a trap for their own feet.
Paul had no wife travelling with him, and his critics used that against him.
He did not, like other apostles, have a wife to help him and share his travels... His critics seized on every one of these things to discredit him. In fact they were heavily to his credit; each one was within his rights.
Paul had one aim in proving these rights.
He states his rights only so that he may give them up. Many quote his words only so that they may insist on the very rights he gave up for the gospel's sake. There would be no grace, no moral beauty, in giving up privileges you had no right to. But when the right is clearly established, the grace that gives it up is seen in full.
- Right, not rule. Paul claims the right to take along a believing wife — a sister who is also a wife — and to have her supported along with him.
- Right, proved. Peter, the other apostles, and the Lord's own brothers all used it. Peter's wife travelled with him, and she sends greetings at the end of his letter.
- Right, defended. Writers set this verse against later rules that forbid marriage for Christ's servants.
- Right, surrendered. Paul proves the claim in full and then gives it up for the gospel's sake.
- Right, and grace. Giving up what was never yours costs nothing; the beauty lies in laying down a right you have proved you hold.
Or *I* alone and Barnabas, have we not a right not to work?
Some people at Corinth doubted that Paul was a real apostle. So he lists the rights he could have claimed. Here he names one more: he and Barnabas could have stopped earning a living and let those they served support them.
The tone of the question is legal. Paul is not boasting against the other apostles. He is answering a cross-examination from the very people he had led to Christ.
Had it come to this? Paul was put on trial — at least in the first inquiry, to see whether there was a case against him. He had to make his defence to his own Corinthian children in the faith. He then asserts the title of an apostle... To cut off the self-seeking of false apostles, he did not use his right, above all at Corinth. He worked with his own hands, as it seems Barnabas did too. Yet he lays down as beyond question the right of the spiritual worker to a living for himself and his family.
The phrase is not about idleness. It is the right to stop doing manual work and live on the support of others. Paul adds it to the rights he has already named.
The apostle, at the opening of this chapter, states his rights and privileges as an apostle... "Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?" That is, working with their hands for their own support. So he goes on stating his rights, and he gives his authority for them, both from the law and from the ordinances of God.
Of all the names Paul could have added, this one surprises. Barnabas and Paul had separated after a sharp falling-out.
Not many years before, these devoted fellow-workers had parted in anger over a point of godly judgment. From that moment the inspired record says no more about Barnabas and his labours. But it was not in Paul's heart to stop remembering his first and closest friend in Christ with affection. Now false Jewish influences were at work to belittle his own claims next to the original apostles. So he brings into the defence of his rights, as if by instinct, the name of the one fellow-worker in the gospel who from the first had been quickest to welcome and rejoice in God's grace reaching the nations outside Israel.
Paul's wording also hints at how Barnabas was living years after the two men parted.
The mention is of him and Barnabas both being people who worked for their living while serving the Lord. It is written as though this was the way Barnabas continued to serve the Lord, even though no longer with Paul.
Paul proves the right, then walks away from it. The proof is what gives the surrender its beauty.
He states his rights only so that he may give them up. Many quote his words only so that they may claim the very rights he gave up for the gospel's sake. There would be no grace, no moral beauty in giving up privileges you had no right to. But once the right is settled, the grace that gives it up shines out in full. So it was with Paul. He had a right to live by the gospel, but grace led him to live by the work of his hands. He would take nothing from the Corinthians; but that was to their shame. He did receive "once and again" from the Philippians; that was fruit increasing to their account.
Paul's choice was his own to make. It does not become a rule others may quote back at workers to justify keeping their money in their pockets.
On the other hand it is a wonderful testimony when a man has the best gift and is full of the most self-denying labours, like the apostle, and still is not above working with his hands. He supplies the needs of others as well as his own... But, precious as this is, the church has no right to use such a scripture as an excuse for her own selfishness and neglect. It is a good word from a man who works like this to his fellow-workers, small or great. But it is quite out of place when the saints use it to hold back the faith of a spiritual worker, or to forget their own duty to those given up to the Lord's work.
- Right claimed. Paul first proves the right. He and Barnabas could have laid down their tools and lived on the support of those they served.
- Right shared. Paul names Barnabas long after their painful parting. He still counted his old friend a fellow-worker with the same rights as himself.
- Right refused. He had the right to live by the gospel. Grace led him to live by the work of his own hands instead, for the gospel's sake.
- Right measured. He took nothing from the Corinthians, and that was to their shame. He did take gifts from the Philippians, and their giving was fruit increasing to their account.
- Right owed. What one worker gave up by choice, no assembly may demand. The duty to care for those given to the Lord's work still stands.