1Cor 9:19-23 - Classic Abuse of the Text

19-23 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.


And now we come to one of the most tortured and abused texts in all of scripture. This passage has been used to justify all manner of worldliness and cultural compromise in the name of preaching the gospel. Arguments abound, even today, in movements like the Emerging/Emergent movement, just as they did over the last 75 years in the liberal movement and its child, the social gospel. These are often arguments condoning compromise in the name of relevance. They make culture the defining factor in making the gospel clear instead of the Spirit of God at work in the faithful preaching of Christ.

"I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some."

This "benchmark phrase" needs to be seen in two contexts, namely: a) the whole of scripture and what it says about how men are saved - and b) the particular context that Paul is addressing here in Corinthians, and in this section of Corinthians in particular. This is how we interpret scripture. We don’t jump on the words in any given verse as if they are unrelated to everything else God has said - or as if this a truth unrelated to THE Truth in the larger - one might say "ultimate" - context.

Foremost in my own mind when I read this is what Paul has already spoken in this very epistle about Who it is that saves and how. Do we remember the teaching that "the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he, for they are spiritually discerned"? Of himself, Paul can actually save no one, even though he uses language that his objective is to "save some." Paul has spent time describing himself as an instrument, a tool, a slave - as being dead to himself, as the living Christ being in him by the Spirit to will and to do of God’s good pleasure. It is through submission to God, through obedience to the Word, and by means of the faith that springs from regeneration by God that he becomes (by enactment) the will of God in the world. He does not necessarily understand that will in the fullest sense. He does not know what God will do with his own work in exhaustive detail. He cannot see the future.

God alone knows all things and God’s plan, including the life of Paul, is unfolding as it should, according to God’s purpose. But God’s plan includes that Paul must live by faith. He must believe God. He must act upon that belief. And when he acts it will be revealed to him what the good and acceptable will of God is. Is it success? Is it failure? Is it apparent indifference? Is it a call to further patience and hope?

All of this is included in the simple assertion that Paul wants to save people. It is not largely found in the surrounding text, but is readily gleaned from other things - inspired things - that Paul wrote to this and to other congregations.

But why is it important? It is important because this text must be approached with the idea in mind that it is God alone Who saves - and that He does it through the faithful preaching of Christ by people who are speaking the truth in love, having themselves been delivered from darkness, regenerated by the Spirit of God and living a life that trusts God to be at work for His glory in their believing, obedient and submissive proactivity.

That said, the immediate context must reflect this truth, even though it is not necessarily spelled out clearly here. Is Paul giving carte blanche to people to evangelize by any means available, including mimicking the culture? Is this what Paul has done? Or is the context much more limited and specific than that?

I submit that it is limited. The key to the limitation is that Paul is acting under the law of Christ and not without any law whatsoever. The law of Christ is not "works justification" but holiness in all things and a desire to honour and obey God because of what He has done in Christ. This is true witnessing. It is not "save people by all means and at any cost" but "God has already paid the price for the salvation of all His people, and they must be brought into the fold by holy means".

"Holy means" are the obedience of faith. They are bringing Christ to the culture without mimicking or partaking in the sinful aspects of it. They are loving those who are different while being different ourselves. They are "not seeking to give offence for any other reason than that the gospel itself is an offence to the natural man." The offence cannot be taken out of the gospel and no compromise must ever be entertained that would do so. But neither should anything be introduced with the gospel presentation that offends because we ourselves are offensive.

In all this God must be both trusted and obeyed. It is no use to trust God unless we are obedient. It is no use to trust means that clearly compromise holiness.

What has Paul done? In his own words, he has complied with certain observances when among Jews so as not to make himself a stumbling block to his audience. He has not let their adherence to moral and ceremonial law as a means of acceptance before God keep him from bringing the good news of Christ. To do this he did not feign a belief in their error, but neither did he shy away from his Jewish heritage. Central to his evangelism of Jews was, in fact, that their whole trust in law for justification with God was wrong and that they needed to trust in this (seemingly) accursed, criminal, "dead" peasant as the Messiah they were waiting for. It was the message that was offensive and not Paul himself. Paul went to great lengths to ensure that when they rejected the gospel they were not simply rejecting him - and whenever they accepted the gospel it was because the word of Truth was made alive in their hearts by the Holy Spirit.

By saying that he has become all things to all people Paul is simply asserting and testifying to his desire not to be the stumbling block by which people reject the gospel. He will bring the gospel in a Jewish context to Jews; he will bring it in a pagan context to pagans; he will not make a show of either his great heritage or his great learning so as to put people off from listening to the message. But he never changes the message itself because all else is merely an attempt to bring that message without baggage or distraction to men of all cultures and nations. And the message is that men are lost, hell-bound sinners unless they trust God in Jesus Christ to be their only justification before Him.


I know of a woman who ministers to the underculture on the streets of Amsterdam. She has tattoos and visible body piercings and she preaches Christ to them. Does she look that way in order to be relevant when the Bible clearly frowns on tattoos and body piercing? Or is she a person saved from the idolatry that lies behind these things and to whom they have no more importance or power than meat sacrificed to idols did to truly delivered pagans? Does she look this way so as not to offend - or is it a secret desire to enjoy a freedom she does not truly have? She must give an answer to God, as we all must.

Note that the question never, ever turns upon whether a thing "works." That is the lamest, most ignorant and least god-fearing excuse for an evangelistic behaviour that there could be. It betrays an ignorance of how God works and what grace really is. The measure of all things in the kingdom of God is not "do they work" but are they pleasing to God. If we today applied the "do they work" paradigm to Jesus’ methods in His earthly lifetime he would be hounded out of the church and condemned as a failure. He always did what was pleasing to His Father, even when it flew in the face of, angered or puzzled men. And we should look no different whenever we are walking in Him.

Finally, Paul is careful to couch his attitude of mind as that of a servant to all. He serves mankind for Christ’s sake and in Christ’s way. He serves unbelievers by bringing the gospel to them. He serves believers by guiding and exhorting them in the ways of God. As God’s servant to humanity, in the mold of Jesus Christ who came to serve and not to be served, Paul is absolutely free from ritualistic and cultural observances. He is under no compulsion in such matters as long as his conscience is not offended. But he is under compulsion to preach the gospel. It is not a compulsion arising from the despotic tyranny of a law he cannot keep, but a freely given response to the grace of God by which he has been regenerated and is being sanctified.

No mere man’s "ought" can compel Paul. And no mere man’s invention can deter him. Only in all things that he pleases God by fulfilling his commission in God’s way.