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Thursday, October 24th, 2024
the Week of Proper 24 / Ordinary 29
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Read the Bible

New King James Version

1 Corinthians 9:4

Do we have no right to eat and drink?

Bible Study Resources

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Giving;   Hospitality;   Work;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Collection;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Tribute;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Bag;   1 Corinthians;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Church Government;   Liberty (2);   Power Powers;   Preaching;   Property (2);  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Authority in Religion;  

Parallel Translations

Easy-to-Read Version
We have the right to eat and drink, don't we?
Revised Standard Version
Do we not have the right to our food and drink?
Tyndale New Testament (1525)
Have we not power to eate and to drynke?
Hebrew Names Version
Have we no right to eat and to drink?
International Standard Version
We have the right to eat and drink, don't we?1 Corinthians 9:14; 1 Thessalonians 2:6; 2 Thessalonians 3:9;">[xr]
New American Standard Bible
Do we not have a right to eat and drink?
New Century Version
Do we not have the right to eat and drink?
Update Bible Version
Do we have no right to eat and to drink?
Webster's Bible Translation
Have we not power to eat and to drink?
English Standard Version
Do we not have the right to eat and drink?
World English Bible
Have we no right to eat and to drink?
Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Have we not power to eat and to drink?
Weymouth's New Testament
Have we not a right to claim food and drink?
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Whether we han not power to ete and drynke?
English Revised Version
Have we no right to eat and to drink?
Berean Standard Bible
Have we no right to food and to drink?
Contemporary English Version
that Barnabas and I have the right to our food and drink.
Amplified Bible
Have we not the right to our food and drink [at the expense of the churches]?
American Standard Version
Have we no right to eat and to drink?
Bible in Basic English
Have we no right to take food and drink?
Complete Jewish Bible
Don't we have the right to be given food and drink?
Darby Translation
Have we not a right to eat and to drink?
Etheridge Translation
Have we not authority to eat and to drink ?
Murdock Translation
Have we not authority, to eat and to drink?
King James Version (1611)
Haue wee not power to eate and to drinke?
New Living Translation
Don't we have the right to live in your homes and share your meals?
New Life Bible
Do we not have the right to have food and drink when we are working for the Lord?
New Revised Standard
Do we not have the right to our food and drink?
Geneva Bible (1587)
Haue we not power to eat & to drinke?
George Lamsa Translation
Have we not the right to eat and to drink?
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Have we not a right to eat and drink?
Douay-Rheims Bible
Have not we power to eat and to drink?
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Haue we not power to eate and to drinke?
Good News Translation
Don't I have the right to be given food and drink for my work?
Christian Standard Bible®
Don’t we have the right to eat and drink?
King James Version
Have we not power to eat and to drink?
Lexham English Bible
Do we not have the right to eat and drink?
Literal Translation
Have we not authority to eat and to drink?
Young's Literal Translation
have we not authority to eat and to drink?
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Haue we not power to eate and drynke?
Mace New Testament (1729)
have we not a right to meat and drink?
New English Translation
Do we not have the right to financial support?
Simplified Cowboy Version
A ramrod has the right to eat and drink, doesn't he?
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Do we not have a right to eat and drink?
Legacy Standard Bible
Do we not have authority to eat and drink?

Contextual Overview

3 My defense to those who examine me is this: 4 Do we have no right to eat and drink? 5 Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? 6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working? 7 Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock? 8 Do I say these things as a mere man? Or does not the law say the same also? 9 For it is written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain." Deuteronomy 25:4">[fn] Is it oxen God is concerned about? 10 Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope. 11 If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? 12 If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more? Nevertheless we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

we: 1 Corinthians 9:7-14, Matthew 10:10, Luke 10:7, Galatians 6:6, 1 Thessalonians 2:6, 2 Thessalonians 3:8, 2 Thessalonians 3:9, 1 Timothy 5:17, 1 Timothy 5:18

Reciprocal: Leviticus 22:7 - General Nehemiah 5:14 - I and my Mark 6:3 - James 1 Corinthians 4:11 - unto 1 Corinthians 9:14 - ordained

Cross-References

Genesis 9:10
and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.
Genesis 9:14
It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud;
Leviticus 3:17
"This shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings: you shall eat neither fat nor blood."'
Leviticus 7:26
Moreover you shall not eat any blood in any of your dwellings, whether of bird or beast.
Leviticus 19:26
"You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying.
Deuteronomy 12:16
Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water.
Deuteronomy 12:23
Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; you may not eat the life with the meat.
Deuteronomy 14:21
"You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to the alien who is within your gates, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are a holy people to the LORD your God. "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
Deuteronomy 15:23
Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it on the ground like water.
Acts 15:20
but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, [fn] from things strangled, and from blood.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Have we not power to eat and to drink?] Having proved his apostleship, he proceeds to establish his right to a maintenance as a Gospel minister; which he expresses by various phrases, and confirms by divers arguments: by a "power to eat and drink", he does not mean the common power and right of mankind to perform such actions, which everyone has, provided he acts temperately, and to the glory of God; nor a liberty of eating and drinking things indifferent, or which were prohibited under the ceremonial law; but a comfortable livelihood at the public charge, or at the expense of the persons to whom he ministered; and he seems to have in view the words of Christ, Luke 10:7.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Have we not power - (ἐξουσίαν exousian) Have we not the “right.” The word “power” here is evidently used in the sense of “right” (compare John 1:12, “margin”); and the apostle means to say that though they had not exercised this “right by demanding” a maintenance, yet it was not because they were conscious that they had no such right, but because they chose to forego it for wise and important purposes.

To eat and to drink - To be maintained at the expense of those among whom we labor. Have we not a right to demand that they shall yield us a proper support? By the interrogative form of the statement, Paul intends more strongly to affirm that they had such a right. The interrogative mode is often adopted to express the strongest affirmation. The objection here urged seems to have been this, “You, Paul and Barnabas, labor with your own hands. Acts 18:3. Other religious teachers lay claim to maintenance, and are supported without personal labor. This is the case with pagan and Jewish priests, and with Christian teachers among us. You must be conscious, therefore, that you are not apostles, and that you have no claim or right to support.” To this the answer of Paul is, “We admit that we labor with our own hands. But your inference does not follow. It is not because we have not a right to such support, and it is not because we are conscious that we have no such claim, but it is for a higher purpose. It is because it will do good if we should not urge this right, and enforce this claim.” That they had such a right, Paul proves at length in the subsequent part of the chapter.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Corinthians 9:4. Have we not power to eat and to drink? — Have we not authority, or right, εξουσιαν, to expect sustenance, while we are labouring for your salvation? Meat and drink, the necessaries, not the superfluities, of life, were what those primitive messengers of Christ required; it was just that they who laboured in the Gospel should live by the Gospel; they did not wish to make a fortune, or accumulate wealth; a living was all they desired. It was probably in reference to the same moderate and reasonable desire that the provision made for the clergy in this country was called a living; and their work for which they got this living was called the cure of souls. Whether we derive the word cure from cura, care, as signifying that the care of all the souls in a particular parish or place devolves on the minister, who is to instruct them in the things of salvation, and lead them to heaven; or whether we consider the term as implying that the souls in that district are in a state of spiritual disease, and the minister is a spiritual physician, to whom the cure of these souls is intrusted; still we must consider that such a labourer is worthy of his hire; and he that preaches the Gospel should live by the Gospel.


 
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