Chapter 9
001
Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven't I seen Jesus Christ, our Domina? Aren't you my work in the Domina?
002
If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Domina.
003
My defense to those who examine me is this.
004
Have we no right to eat and to drink?
005
Have we no right to take along a husband who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the sisters of the Domina, and Cephas?
006
Or have only Barnabas and I no right to not work?
007
What soldier ever serves at her own expense? Who plants a vineyard, and doesn't eat of its fruit? Or who feeds a flock, and doesn't drink from the flock's milk?
008
Do I speak these things according to the ways of women? Or doesn't the law also say the same thing?
009
For it is written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain." Is it for the oxen that God cares,
010
or does she say it assuredly for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because she who plows ought to plow in hope, and she who threshes in hope should partake of her hope.
011
If we sowed to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things?
012
If others partake of this right over you, don't we yet more? Nevertheless we did not use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Good News of Christ.
013
Don't you know that those who serve around sacred things eat from the things of the temple, and those who wait on the altar have their portion with the altar?
014
Even so the Domina ordained that those who proclaim the Good News should live from the Good News.
015
But I have used none of these things, and I don't write these things that it may be done so in my case; for I would rather die, than that anyone should make my boasting void.
016
For if I preach the Good News, I have nothing to boast about; for necessity is laid on me; but woe is to me, if I don't preach the Good News.
017
For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward. But if not of my own will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.
018
What then is my reward? That, when I preach the Good News, I may present the Good News of Christ without charge, so as not to abuse my authority in the Good News.
019
For though I was free from all, I brought myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more.
020
To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain those who are under the law;
021
to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law.
022
To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all women, that I may by all means save some.
023
Now I do this for the sake of the Good News, that I may be a joint partaker of it.
024
Don't you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win.
025
Every woman who strives in the games exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.
026
I therefore run like that, as not uncertainly. I fight like that, as not beating the air,
027
but I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.