"Nether the less ... we endure everything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the Gospel of Christ". 1 Corinthians 9:12.
Life is worthwhile when it is filled with something substantial, so even when we're amidst the 'ho-hum' of daily routines our imperative is to 'look up', to press in, to reach further than the present narrative will take us. We know there's more.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians to say what happens in their fellowship together (1 Corinthians 10,11,12,13 and 14) impacts directly upon how they then live in the day to day (chapters 3-8), he was seeking to convey something that clearly motivated his own passion to live for the truth.
The Apostle understood that the gospel had truly made him free, but that freedom required something vital - eternal in consequence. So he married himself to the task of recovering those beyond his own culture, beyond his natural home, to the freedom he knew in Jesus Christ. His faith was no longer about what he deemed essential (1 Corinthians 9:5) or good, however legitimate such claims were. Paul made his peace with suffering for God's church so no one could bring accusations of his only 'behaving' well for his own profit.
It's all too easy for us, like the Corinthians, to be all about our wants and needs, but Paul raises this example to state that often God's call upon us may take us beyond what we deem to be reasonable or fair. Our faith may include living at times without what is reasonable to underline the genuine nature of a real liberty.
His point here raises something vital. True despair would mark him, he says, if he wasn't about the business of proclaiming the good news (verse 16). He knows he has been entrusted with something essentially precious in the world - so genuine and all-encompassing that to be a person required to share such a treasure is, in fact, an extraordinary reward in itself (Verse 17). The Gospel is entirely about bringing each one a total and complete freedom that is unique in this world - peace with God by the liberation achieved in His begotten Son - so Paul wants to echo that splendour in the way he himself conveys such truth, without any 'requirements' imposed upon others by himself.
Paul's insight into full servanthood takes us to what truly counts - being able to come alongside another amidst their need to, in effect, say 'I'm like you - broken, either by the law you're trying to keep, or the pretence of freedom you're trying to parade, but there's a greater 'law', greater truth than either of these situations, and that's what we really need to be about'.
In any valuable pursuit, there is always something we're aiming for - that's the 'prize' that truly makes all the endurance and arduous 'going for it' worthwhile - it brings real satisfaction. The faith we've been given and made home wants that to be true of us - we don't act aimlessly - but we give of ourselves to allow something far more glorious to become evident.
That is where we're heading.
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