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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - 1 Corinthians 9:17 - 9:17
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For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward; if I who have a liberty to take a maintenance for my labour in the gospel, yet notwithstanding preach it freely, out of a free and cheerful mind, desirous to promote the honour and glory of Christ, I then may expect a reward:
but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me; but if I only preach the gospel because there is a necessity laid upon me, all that can be said of me is, that there is such a dispensation committed to me. The strength of the apostle’s argument seems to lie here: That no man can reasonably expect thanks, or any extraordinary reward, for doing what he is obliged by his snperior’s command under a great penalty to do. The apostle was obliged by such a precept, and under such penalties, to preach the gospel; therefore he desired not only to do it, but to do it willingly and readily, a greater testimony of which could not be, than for him to do it without desiring or expecting any reward for his pains, but what God of his free grace should give him; this made this matter of glorying to him, which he desired might not be in vain. So that though the word ekwn here be truly translated
willingly, and opposed to akwn, which is as truly translated unwillingly, yet it seems to comprehend without charge, and taking nothing for his pains, as a demonstration of his willingness to and cheerful performance of his work; which being a thing as to which God had laid him under no necessity by any precept, was matter of glorying to him against the false apostles, who did otherwise; and also a ground for him to expect a greater reward from God, than those who, though they did the same work, yet did it not from the like free and cheerful spirit.