1Cor 9:8-11 - Picking a Proof Text?

8-11 Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain." Is it for oxen that God is concerned? 10 Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. 11 If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?


So, here is where Paul cites the ultimate authority for the right of ministers to the financial support of their flock. I love the place he plucks this support from. An obscure passage in Deuteronomy dealing with some finicky ordinance about livestock. Until this time we never find in scripture any reference to this precept or any application of it as justification for anything. Yet Paul, like he does in other places, and in the same way that Peter and John seem to - draws heretofore unthought of implications from Old Testament scriptures. This happens so much because these former things were written for our benefit and education. There is an underlying spiritual application to many of the historical factual details of God’s former dealings with Israel.

Those who are spiritual will immediately see the application as proper and true. Paul goes so far as to imply in this instance that we would have to be a bit dense to think that God was concerned about dumb oxen when He said they ought not to be muzzled when treading out the corn. I happen to think that God is concerned with both oxen and men - but that men are so far above oxen in God’s scheme of things that the main application was always meant for them. Initially, the simple ordinance would be on a par with not boiling a kid in it’s mother’s milk. Such an attitude would demonstrate a hardness of heart - an indifference - an emotional deadness for dumb animals that was a step on the rung for the same attitudes towards people and towards God. God cares about the sparrows. How much more, then, does He care about men, whom He made in His own image? In other words, a certain sensitivity of spirit needs to be cultivated at all times in order to avoid that gradual hardening to which we are all susceptible. And faithfulness in the small things will ultimately result in more responsibility with the larger things.

Yet it is hard to ignore the fact that Paul says that in the Deuteronomic passage {De 25:4} Moses (inspired by the same Holy Spirit that is inspiring Paul here) is speaking entirely for the sake of believers. And why should this be such a shock? Though the OT verse does indeed speak of animals it cannot speak to them. Of all God’s creatures, mankind alone was made capable of understanding and to receiving the communications of the Creator’s Mind. Therefore anything that God has to say is always for us in one way or another - and is intended for our good and for His glory.

But not only was this written for the sake of mankind (specifically the Jews) - it was also written with the church in mind. This is what Paul means when he says "It was written for our sake..." To me, this is precisely the sort of passage that shows us the need we still have for the Old Testament to be preached, taught, searched, mined and meditated upon. God was speaking to we Christians then, just as surely as He was also speaking to the nation of Israel under Moses. This is the manifold wisdom of God - that by His dealings in history under one testament, he was laying down those things that were to be revealed and to bring forth fruit in history in the new testament. In the one it was interpreted through the law and the other it is interpreted through grace; yet it is the same God, the same eternal covenant with His (true) people and the same end is in view - the sanctification of true Israel, to the glory of God.

But here the main principle in view is that those who labour in spiritual matters on behalf of others in the church have a right to share in the material goods of those being pastored.