Choosing to sacrifice for others requires constant self-control. He compares it to the training an athlete maintains to remain at the top of his/her game. God’s Spirit here shows us that laying down our rights for the ministry of the Gospel requires a permanent and focused commitment to discipline.

1 Corinthians 8 showed us that love for Christ and His people determines how we use our “rights.” As applied to eating food offered to idols, we learned that even if we no longer fear demons or false gods ourselves, even if we have no conscience issues personally with eating offered food, we must abstain. Why? Eating food offered to idols emboldens weak believers to sin against their conscience, because that food is immediately associated with idol worship to which they recently were enslaved.
If, by exercising our “rights” we encourage our brethren to sin, we actually “sin against Christ” [1] (v.8:13). Our decisions affect others. Love for Christ and love for His people demand that we lay aside our rights for the sake of the Gospel.
In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul illustrates for us that he was not telling the Corinthian believers (and us!) to do something that he was not willing to do himself. He was a true apostle called by Christ (vv.1–2), not a self-proclaimed apostle motivated by selfish ambition such as some at Corinth who strove to discredit him. Paul was real. As proof, he often laid aside his rights, preferences, comfort, and sacrificed much to help unbelievers come to saving faith and for believers to be strengthened. The Corinthians knew this since they had experienced his life and ministry firsthand (v.2).
Paul delineates for us ways that he laid aside his rights for the Gospel. It is his “defense to those who would examine him” (v.3).
His Right to Financial Support
Paul was committed to a self-support model of ministry, particularly in a church plant. He doesn’t explain his reason here. It wasn’t because it was some kind of superior model of ministry or especially strategic. He declined support that people normally expected to give so that unbelievers and new disciples would not be confused about his motives or message. [2] He also did this to avoid being a burden upon the poor and to exemplify hard work where the example was desperately needed. [3] He chose this much more difficult path of self-support in most cases. He did this out of love to remove obstacles in making disciples. Enemies constantly challenged his motives as an apostle.
Paul knew and taught that God-sanctioned gospel workers were worthy of financial support. He knew and taught here that the norm was for gospel laborers to be supported by God’s people (vv.6–18). But he also knew that in his circumstances, it was important to be primarily self-supporting to protect his testimony and message. At great cost to himself, Paul “made no use of any of these rights” (v.15).
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All that we say and do and think is being noticed. That should help us to keep on the straight and narrow, and help us run the race with diligence and perseverance. It is too easy to be swayed by what we see and hear in this world, but we must be more conscious of what can be seen and heard in the next. 

The Christian is never alone. He is part of the Body of Christ. And what he does is always noticed, certainly by the Triune God. But one interesting passage of Scripture suggests that we are being watched by others as well. Consider what we find in Hebrews 12:1-2:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Now when you find a ‘therefore’ in Scripture, you need to learn what it is there for. And the chapter preceding this one is of course the great hall of fame chapter where so many past men and women of faith are listed and praised. After reminding us of all these amazing believers, the writer of this book urges us to run the Christian race with endurance.
The idea is that we should take strong motivation from knowing about all those who have gone before and finished the race well. And there is a two-tiered witnessing taking place here. We witness what they have done (as we read Scripture or church history or Christian biography, etc), but they may also be witnessing us.
Perhaps the saints who have preceded us into eternity are sitting around and cheering us on. “Go Bill – you can do it! Keep going!” Knowing there are so many great champions of the faith who might be supporting us in this way should give us a renewed passion to keep on keeping on.
It is the same for everyone in this life. If you have practiced and worked hard at something – perhaps as a pianist or a golfer – there is real encouragement in knowing that there is a crowd of onlookers, wishing you well and cheering you on. And if you know that a great pianist or golfer is in the crowd while you do your thing, you will try even harder to impress that champion.
One expository commentator and pastor wrote in his remarks about these verses how in his first year of preaching, he was told that two famous and well-known English evangelical preachers were sitting in the church. That made him nervous, but it also made him want to do the very best he could. R. Kent Hughes said this about that Sunday morning:
Now, I always prepare as thoroughly as possible and have always tried to do my best regardless of the situation, but I do remember consciously crossing and dotting my homiletical “t’s” and “i’s” that morning – though it is to be feared that my sermon was eminently forgettable! But my point is, the presence of notable witnesses is motivating, whatever one’s activity may happen to be.
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Calvin understood the zeal of true religion can be patient, but the rage of unbelief acts hastily. Calvin’s demeanor and his patient plodding are instructive for our present moment in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). We should not expect the theological and practical deviations from our Standards to be dealt with speedily. But that should not upset the heart motivated by true religion, which alone can practice patient zeal.

This is the first of a two-part series.
In his comment on John 10:31, John Calvin makes a fascinating insight: true religion produces holy zeal and unbelief produces rage. Calvin observes a difference in how the holy zeal of true religion and the rage produced by unbelief are manifested: “unbelief is the mother of rage, and the devil hurries on the wicked.”
In that little comment we get a sense of Calvin’s pastoral heart. Despite ministering in a time of great spiritual and ecclesiastical dysfunction and in a city with grave moral depravities with staunch opposition, Calvin patiently and zealously preached and taught the truth.
Calvin understood the zeal of true religion can be patient, but the rage of unbelief acts hastily. Calvin’s demeanor and his patient plodding are instructive for our present moment in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
We should not expect the theological and practical deviations from our Standards to be dealt with speedily. But that should not upset the heart motivated by true religion, which alone can practice patient zeal.
Deviations in the PCA
There are grave theological and practical deviations from our Standards disturbing the purity and peace of this faith communion. For quite some time, the PCA has been troubled by those who not merely disagree with our Church constitution (the Book of Church Order and the Westminster Standards), but who also choose not to abide by the doctrine and requirements we have vowed together to uphold in the PCA Constitution.
PCA General Assemblies since 2018 seem to have been dominated largely by the flamboyant escapades of a certain minister in Saint Louis and the attempts to clarify our requirements for ordination. Facing increasing threat of judicial process, that minister and the congregation he serves have since left the PCA. While their repentance and restoration would have been preferred, their departure removes a blight upon the purity and peace of the PCA.
However, the inordinate focus on basic issues of sexual purity distracted the PCA from other issues that present challenges to our confessional integrity and biblical fidelity and therefore continue to hinder the peace of the Church.
A. Ordination & Church Office
We live in a moment of time in which the fundamental distinctions among mankind are not simply being ignored, but denied. The terms “man” and “woman” are confusing to many in post-modern America. While there doesn’t yet seem to be confusion in the PCA on the definition of “man” or “woman,” there does seem to be confusion on the definition of deacon in the PCA.
The PCA Constitution is clear on who may serve as a deacon: The “office of deacon” is an “ordinary and perpetual” office in the Church (BCO 9-1). Men shall be chosen to serve in that office (BCO 9-3). Deacons are among those who have been “inducted by the ordination of a court” (BCO 17-1).
Yet a number of congregations in the PCA seem unclear about this.

Some congregations list women as “Deacons” on their website, which is clearly at variance with our Book of Church Order (BCO), which limits the subjects of ordination to men only. Some congregations perhaps try to get around this by not ordaining any of those whom they call “deacons.”

But failing to ordain the ones they call “deacons” creates another issue. Since the BCO sets forth that people are admitted to church office by ordination, if a PCA congregation has no men ordained as deacons, then she has no deacons according to the BCO.
The PCA must sort this out. We can’t continue to have people impersonating church officers in the PCA. These impersonators lack the gift of ordination. Our BCO states regarding ordination:
Ordination is the authoritative admission of one duly called to an office in the Church of God, accompanied with prayer and the laying on of hands, to which it is proper to add the giving of the right hand of fellowship (BCO 17-2).
Why would congregations deprive themselves of the blessings of more ordained officers? Is it right for a church court to refuse to ordain one “duly called” to church office? Is it fair for a congregation’s leaders to confuse people by describing people as “deacons” who are in fact unordained persons and not, properly speaking, deacons according to the Constitution of the PCA?
B. Lady Preachers
There is a spectrum within the PCA regarding what role women may have in public worship. This stems from how one interprets 1 Corinthians 14 and whether silent means “silent” or “she can do anything an unordained man can do.”
God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1 Cor 14:33–35)
Despite some diversity of interpretation, until recently there was widespread agreement in the PCA that preaching as part of a public worship service was something only men were permitted to do.
For example, one PCA congregation described an address by a famous Episcopal clergywoman as a “bible study,” despite the fact that her presentation immediately preceded the Lord’s Supper and was the exposition of Scripture for that Lord’s Day worship service. This was not just any mainline minister, but one of the first women to be ordained by The Episcopal Church.
Other PCA churches simply invite women to give installments in their seasonal sermon series as part of their regular rotation.

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