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1 Corinthians 9:1 "Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?"

 

By making himself a slave to all (1 Corinthians 9:19), Paul has become more free than ever. It is one of those counterintuitive outcomes that are so common in our relationship with God. The more we selflessly love, the more we experience true love; the more we submit to God and obey Him, the more power we have; the more we surrender to Him, the more we escape from the bondage of this world; and the more we enslave ourselves to others for Christ, the more free we become. None of this makes any sense until we start doing it, but once we do, it's like unlocking the secret of life (because, really, that's what it is)!

 

So Paul, as an apostle of Christ, and a slave to all for His sake, is totally free. He can therefore claim as his workmanship all those to whom he has brought Christ (with, it must be admitted, a little bit of that characteristic ego/self-confidence that often comes through with Paul, and is one of the things that made him such an effective evangelist).*

 

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*When reading Paul, I so often think of this song written from the point of view of an original disciple, and how that ego/self-confidence must have grated on, and maybe even frightened them a little. "Walks into this room and swaggers, like he's God's own messenger. ... Says that he speaks to him, but he never even knew the man", etc.