1 Corinthians 9:7, commentary and pictures

Those who do the work should share in its benefit, so as soldiers are sustained and planters and shepherds partake of the vineyard and flock, those who preach the gospel are to be maintained by those they serve.
It is God's will that gospel workers who leave other employment receive adequate wages to support themselves and their families, whether men or women, and to withhold this weakens their work and brings hardship.
Paul held this right at Corinth but laid it aside by choice lest any thought of gain hinder his hearers, which leaves the right itself fully just.
God also pledges not to leave His chosen workers to labor in their own strength and means, but to go with them and supply wisdom and help for the work He assigns.
Yet believers are enlisted as soldiers under Christ and must take up active, self-denying service, with those not called to supported ministry advancing soul-winning work on their own at their own cost in trust in God.

Right to Receive Support

Laborers rightly share in the results of their work, for soldiers are supported, planters of a vineyard eat its fruit, and those who feed a flock receive its milk, which means those who preach the gospel should be maintained by the people they serve. It is the will of God that ministers of the gospel receive support from those for whom they labor, and all who preach the gospel, whether men or women, are entitled to a just reward for their services. Church members should provide adequately for workers who leave secular employment to serve the gospel rather than making them bear their own expenses. Withholding that support weakens their work and can cause hardship and heartache, for faithful ministers are entitled to wages sufficient to support themselves and their families.

Paul could have asked the churches to support him, but he voluntarily gave up that right at Corinth so that suspicion that he preached for personal gain would not hinder the gospel, yet his choice did not make the right itself any less just. Ministers have just as much right to wages as workers in publishing houses and other labor, and paying meager wages for full time and thought and labor in the Master's service is robbery. A minister should receive his due, enough to supply his family with food and clothing even though he himself pays tithe according to his ability. His due must reckon the extra cost of traveling ministry, leading out in donations where he labors, helping meet tent expenses and providing his own food, supporting a family at home while separated from them, needing costlier clothing for travel, pledging to enterprises with no surplus left and long debt, and practicing self-denial in fare and food especially where the truth is first lifted.

It is right for those who have labored and invested means to reap the fruit of their labor. Those who have spent precious time, made many experiments, laid out means, and provided expensive facilities to prepare special foods should be allowed to control a reasonable income from those products to make appropriations for the advancement of God's work. No one has a right to borrow or steal that business, learn the secrets of their composition, and then manufacture and sell those special foods in a selfish way for personal profit.

God's Help Versus Self-Chosen Warfare

The verse shows that no one whom God has chosen to labor for Him is left to bear the cost of the warfare in his own strength, for God has pledged to go with such workers and supply the help they need. Applied to the Lord's service, it means that the appointed agent is not expected to carry the work alone, but receives wisdom and favor with God and man, with God Himself as helper. He chooses and equips His agency to exalt the truth where it is not otherwise represented, as with the Battle Creek Sanitarium to be known as an institution where the Lord is daily acknowledged as Monarch of the universe.

To go to warfare at one's own charges is to venture in self-sufficiency without Christ's help, as when a man in responsibility lifts up his soul to vanity and feels capable of a great work. He exalts himself as a man of superior wisdom who must be highly esteemed, wants to act as ruler and lord it over God's heritage, decides what each one shall do with talents and what place each must occupy as if he were God, and gives God no chance to work. He mingles selfishness, injustice and unrighteousness with his service, hurts souls, has forgotten that he was cleansed from iniquity, and is a backslider from right principles with whom God is not. It is not safe to keep him where eternal interests are involved, and he must be relieved of his trust.

To go to warfare at one's own charges is to act from one's own inventions instead of searching and understanding the Scriptures. All who have stood in the light of truth must fear and shun this course, lest the mind become perverted and spiritual perception clouded. It makes a person a means of tempting others, tearing down what was once built up in order to complete a self-determined tower they are resolved to build. In the same way, it means entering dangerous service without clear light from the Lord that it is duty, for God does not sustain such self-chosen work. Those who do the work God has for them receive His help, but those who move thoughtlessly on man-made duty, such as going to plague-stricken fields without the word of God to sustain them, are left without His sustaining power, so His servants must use reason and take measures to preserve their lives for His appointed work.

Going to warfare at one's own cost also means taking up work independently out of personal zeal apart from assigned duty, spending one's own strength and resources on behalf of a local church effort and thereby robbing vital energies that should have gone into the appointed work. It means exalting self and pressing forward without consulting reliable fellow workers even when counsel is within reach, taking a stand as though position in office makes a man infallible in his ideas. Such self-exaltation and boasting of infallibility is positive evidence of fallibility and of liability to make wrong moves as long as that spirit is retained, and spoils influence as one who can be depended on in emergencies, whereas minds under the guidance of the Holy Spirit never boast of infallibility. When a physician leaves the work of God and connects with the world to gain its favor and obtain widespread influence, he divorces himself from God and must carry on the warfare in his own strength and at his own cost, without God's sustaining power. So too, people seduced into error must wage their own struggle and bear its cost without support.

Call to Active Service

Christians are soldiers in Christ's army on the battlefield of service under Christ as Captain. Every believer is under obligation to God to be an active, diligent worker according to ability, and ability grows by exercise. No crippled soldiers with spiritual defects can serve, those who seek the easiest place, nurse little infirmities, love ease, or shirk self-denial and self-sacrifice. All must forget infirmities, put on the armor, refuse cowardice and compromise, hear the trumpet call to advance, do aggressive warfare, lift up the standard and bear it through the battle under orders, entering earnest engagement because the Lord is coming, gaining valuable experience by partaking of Christ's self-denial and self-sacrifice and working while it is possible through the grace of Christ.

Lay church members are to go forward in soul-winning work at their own expense, after the example of a soldier going to war at his own cost. Each is to seek to do as much as possible to bring people to Jesus. They are not to wait for support but to trust in God as they go forward in this work of winning souls.