Thoughts With Dalt

“To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some.” – 1 Corinthians 9:22

All things to all people. What exactly does that mean? Is it a changing of personality? A compromise to sin(s)? An acceptance of sin(s) for other people around you? Is it simply being a people pleaser?

As always with scripture, we need to back up and ask a few questions about the surrounding context.

Who is writing?

To whom are they writing?

What is written prior to this?

Paul is our writer in this passage, writing under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. According to chapter 1:2, he is writing to “the church of God at Corinth. (CSB) Starting in chapter 9, Paul is laying out his example as an Apostle. He is specifically addressing his lack of financial gain from sharing the gospel, and his freedom of how he presents the gospel.

Sharing the gospel to the gentiles would come to be Paul’s main mission. He would be one of the first to minister under the new covenant that would utilize a gospel that spreads to the Gentile people, ultimately to you and I. He was ministering in an environment where people had lived under the old covenant for thousands of years. A man named Jesus had came and completely disrupted the scene. He would leave in dramatic fashion via resurrection, directly after He commanded his disciples to take the gospel to the ends of the Earth. He had also fulfilled the law perfectly, and nullified the ceremonial requirements of the law.

This reality was still very fresh during Paul’s ministry. You can imagine different levels of adaptation were present. Some had jumped on board completely, some accepted Jesus’ message, but rejected Him as Messiah, and some had called Him a false teacher. You can imagine the struggles Paul faced in his ministry.

Verses 19 through 23 describe how he navigated this reality. To those still under the law, he would honor the ceremonial law. To those not under the law, he would disregard the ceremonial law. Regardless of who he was dealing with, he never forsook the moral or judicial law.

Allow me to explain. The old law established by God in the Old Testament had three distinctions.

• Ceremonial (Celebrations, Rituals in the temple, Cleanness, Don’t eat this, Don’t drink this)
• Judicial (Ownership, Marriage, Legal Issues)
• Moral (Behavior and Relationships between God and Man)

Ceremonial law was essentially nullified after Jesus fulfilled His promise in John 4, where He said in a few more words that we will now worship God in Spirit in truth and in any location. God would no longer reside in a temple, but in His people.

Judicial law worked. If it were applied more accurately and consistently today, I submit that crime rates would plummet. Is stealing a candy bar worth losing your hand? Is raping a woman worth being stoned to death in public? Is dishonoring your parents worth death? Is breaking someone’s jaw in an unjust squabble worth getting yours broke? No is the answer to all of those. God’s law works.

Moral law also works! Start with the 10 commandments. If you were to follow those perfectly, sin would essentially be eliminated. Jesus followed them perfectly for us thankfully.

So back to it. Paul’s “being all things to all people” never involved breaking Judicial law or Moral law. He would only submit or not submit to the ceremonial laws based on the person he was ministering/witnessing to. What he was NOT doing was adapting to a persons sins and personal preferences within sins. Some people really want to read that as a permission to sin with others in order to win them. This ain’t that, as we say in Mississippi.

Paul didn’t want to become a stumbling block to his audience at any given time. So in humility he adapted to their stance on a law that they had previously been held under by the same God that he was trying to convince them to trust in “by grace through faith”. Had he given into sin in order to win someone to Christ, he would be leading with hypocrisy. That would have led to much confusion down the line.

So where do we go with this? I am going to write more extensively on this next week in a post dealing with living counter culturally. Until then, I want to leave you with this.

The people God puts in front of you need one thing and one thing only. They need a clear gospel presentation given by a person that is giving 100% of their effort to live consistent with what they are presenting. Notice, I was careful not to say living consistent. I said giving 100% of their effort to do so. God judges what is in our heart. Man can’t know the heart, he can only see actions.

It is a fault, but it brings an application. Your neighbor needs to see you adhering to God’s moral law. It may be the closest they have been to reading a Bible. Don’t get lost in preference while loving your neighbor. Bend your preferences, desires, and comfort for your neighbor, but never bend God’s law.

As I wrote this out, I realized how little I do for God’s kingdom. I am convicted to share His story and His love more. That is the ultimate reason I write. Finishing my thoughts out on paper help me organize what God is dealing with me on any given day, and this is where I am at today!

Hope this will encourage you in some way. Thanks for hanging with me!

Till next week,

-Dalton