The "Rights" of an Apostle

The “Rights” of an Apostle
1 Corinthians 9.1-12a

One of the great moral gains of the second half of the twentieth century is the belief, shared by most people around the world, that all people are to be respected and valued. All people, not just some. Weak people, poor people, little people, hungry people, frightened people, people of different colour, people of either sex – they all matter; and the strong, rich, big, well-fed, confident, socially advantaged people in the world have no right to do what they like with them.

This has often been expressed by talking about ‘human rights’. That phrase has become common in a way that wasn’t true a hundred years ago. It has become a way of saying that we, the worldwide community, won’t stand for tyranny and oppression, won’t tolerate the bullies who exploit people for their own ends. We say that people have ‘rights’ in order to say that other people don’t have the ‘right’ to abuse or exploit them...

Taken from Paul 1 Corinthians for Everyone – by Tom Wright