The epistle containing this answer was written to meet practical questions that troubled early Christians, and its lessons apply also to followers of Christ in later times. The answer belongs to Paul's teaching that those who have received the gospel should support its ministry, appealing to the provision of the law for religious workers and applying that teaching to the gospel. The passage in 9:1-19 shows that tithe-paying is a law of the Christian dispensation and a test of loyalty in the use of means. There Paul discourses upon the Christian ministry and its support, referring to the Levitical priesthood who ministered in sacred things and waited at the altar and were supported by the tithes.
He declares that even so, in the same manner, the Lord ordained that those who proclaim the gospel should live of the gospel. Those called in this dispensation to give their whole time to labor for souls constitute the Christian ministry and are to be supported in that same fashion, so that the duty of tithe-paying is as incumbent on Christians since Christ as upon those who lived before Christ. The teaching bears on abstaining for the sake of others and on temperance. The illustration of the race in chapter 9 presents the climax of true physical consecration, carrying forward the consecration before God taught for the married life in chapter 7.
The epistle containing this answer was written to meet practical questions that troubled early Christians, and its lessons apply also to followers of Christ in later times. The answer belongs to Paul's teaching that those who have received the gospel should support its ministry, appealing to the provision of the law for religious workers and applying that teaching to the gospel. The passage in 9:1-19 shows that tithe-paying is a law of the Christian dispensation and a test of loyalty in the use of means. There Paul discourses upon the Christian ministry and its support, referring to the Levitical priesthood who ministered in sacred things and waited at the altar and were supported by the tithes.
He declares that even so, in the same manner, the Lord ordained that those who proclaim the gospel should live of the gospel. Those called in this dispensation to give their whole time to labor for souls constitute the Christian ministry and are to be supported in that same fashion, so that the duty of tithe-paying is as incumbent on Christians since Christ as upon those who lived before Christ. The teaching bears on abstaining for the sake of others and on temperance. The illustration of the race in chapter 9 presents the climax of true physical consecration, carrying forward the consecration before God taught for the married life in chapter 7.