How Should We Live?

DEVOTION

1 CORINTHIANS

HOW SHOULD WE LIVE

1 Cor 9:3-6

3 This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. 4 Don't we have the right to food and drink? 5 Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas? 6 Or is it only I and Barnabas who must work for a living?

NIV

Why would Paul feel that others are sitting in judgment of him? Those in Corinth must be expecting Paul and Barnabas to live to a different standard then all the other leaders of the church. And although it seems this is about Paul, Barnabas, James, Peter and the others, it is also about us.  Do we have the right to sit in judgment of how others are living? Do we have the right to expect certain people to live in any different manner then we do? Do we expect those who are leaders in the church to have less in their lives then us? Do we expect anyone to have less sin in their life than us? Do we expect or think that we have less sin in our lives than others. Do we feel like others expect that of us? It would seem this is all about equality. We are all sinners saved by the grace of God. We are all the same in the eyes of God as He does not show favoritism. Yet in our humanism we set up rules and regulations for the correct behavior and life style of certain people without regard for that same expectation of ourselves.  How is that possible? Who made any of us superior to another? Who gave us the right to put any restrictions on others that we are not willing to abide by? We must all live under the same grace and thus all of us should be equal. There is another truth here in the sense that those who lead the church should be taken care of by the church. Now of course in our modern culture it done in quite a different manner then in those days. I am sure men like Peter, James, John and the others were not on staff pulling down a weekly income commensurate with their respective positions of authority. Paul certainly wasn’t as he worked to support himself, which he is questioning why he must when the others aren’t. Yet it does seem that it is appropriate that those who serve the Lord in full time ministry or for that matter in part time ministry should be taken care of by those who have incomes from the normal course of working for a living in other fields of endeavor and are paid according to their skills and labor. God does say that a laborer is deserving of his wages. Those who labor for the Lord should be paid accordingly, but of course the question is always about paid staff and then all those who labor for God, but hold no official position. How do we care for those who do so much for God and others yet must also work for their own living? Would that be like the question which Paul is asking here? Lots of questions, and not sure we have lots of answers. Yet we do live in a different era, a different cultural, and certainly a different church. But should we settle for that as the answer to our inequality and judgmental attitudes? How do we deal with this? Once again, how should we live?