If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things?
Parallel translations
- WEB If we sowed to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things?
- KJV If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?
- BSB If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much for us to reap a material harvest from you?
- NASB If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?
- NLT Since we have planted spiritual seed among you, aren’t we entitled to a harvest of physical food and drink?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
If Paul sowed spiritual blessings among the Corinthians, it is hardly too much to reap material support from them. Spiritual giving fairly warrants material return.
Overview
Paul presses the fairness of the exchange: he has given them the immeasurable riches of the gospel; receiving from them ordinary material provision would be a small and just thing. The contrast between "spiritual" and "fleshly" (material) things highlights how modest the minister's claim really is. This reinforces the legitimacy of the support he nonetheless declines for the gospel's sake.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Rom 15:27Yes, it has been their good pleasure, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them also to serve them in fleshly things.
- Gal 6:6But let him who is taught in the word share all good things with him who teaches.
- 2 Cor 11:15It is no great thing therefore if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
- Matt 10:10Take no bag for your journey, neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff: for the laborer is worthy of his food.
- 2 Kgs 5:13His servants came near, and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had asked you do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? How much rather then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean?’”
- Mal 3:8–9Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In tithes and offerings.
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Christ at the center
Christ crucified is the wisdom and power of God; he is our Passover sacrificed for us, the firstfruits of resurrection, the foundation on which everything is built.
How 1 Corinthians 9:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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