Book of Common Prayer

The “rights” of an apostle

9 I’m a free man, aren’t I? I’m an apostle, aren’t I? I’ve seen Jesus our Lord, haven’t I? You are my work in the Lord, aren’t you? ² I may not be an apostle to other people, but I certainly am to you; in fact, you are the authorized stamp of my apostleship in the Lord.

³ This is the defense I make to anyone who wants to bring a charge against me. ⁴ Do we not have the right to eat and drink? ⁵ Do we not have the right to take a Christian wife with us on our travels, as the other apostles do, as the Lord’s brothers do, as Cephas does? ⁶ Or are Barnabas and I the only ones who don’t have the right to be set free from the need to work? ⁷ Who serves in the army at their own expense? Who plants a vineyard and doesn’t eat its fruit? Who looks after animals and doesn’t drink the milk?

⁸ I’m not just using human illustrations to make the point; the law says the same thing, doesn’t it? ⁹ This is what is written in Moses’s law: “You must not muzzle a threshing ox.” God isn’t concerned for oxen, is he? ¹⁰ Doesn’t it refer completely to us? Yes, it does—because it’s written that the one who ploughs should do so in hope of the produce, and the thresher should thresh in hope of a share in the crop. ¹¹ So if we have sown spiritual things among you, is it such a big thing that we should reap worldly things? ¹² If others have that kind of right over you, don’t we have it even more?

Giving up rights for the gospel

But we haven’t made use of this right. Instead, we put up with everything, so as to place no obstacle in the way of the Messiah’s gospel.

¹³ Don’t you know that those who work in the Temple eat the Temple food, and those who serve at the altar share in the food from the altar? ¹⁴ In the same way the Lord has laid it down that those who announce the gospel should get their living from the gospel.

¹⁵ But I haven’t made use of any of this. I’m not writing this in order to make it happen like this for me. It would be better for me to die than . . . Nobody’s going to deprive me of my boast!

The feeding of the five thousand

³⁰ The apostles came back to Jesus and told him all they had done and taught. ³¹ “All right,” he said, “it’s time for a break. Come away, just you, and we’ll go somewhere lonely and private.” (Crowds of people were coming and going and they didn’t even have time to eat.)

³² So they went off privately in the boat to a deserted spot. ³³ And . . . crowds saw them going, realized what was happening, hurried on foot from all the towns, and arrived there first. ³⁴ When Jesus got out of the boat he saw the huge crowd, and was deeply sorry for them, because they were like a flock without a shepherd. So he started to teach them many things.

³⁵ It was already getting late when his disciples came to him and said, “Look: there’s nothing here. It’s getting late. ³⁶ Send them away. They need to go off into the countryside and the villages and buy themselves some food.”

³⁷ “Why don’t you give them something?” Jesus replied.

“Are you suggesting,” they asked, “that we should go and spend two hundred dinars and get food for this lot?”

³⁸ “Well,” said Jesus, “how many loaves have you got? Go and see.”

They found out, and said, “Five, and a couple of fish.”

³⁹ Jesus told them to sit everyone down, group by group, on the green grass. ⁴⁰ So they sat down in companies, by hundreds and by fifties. ⁴¹ Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, looked up to heaven, blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples to give to the crowd. Then he divided the two fish for them all. ⁴² Everyone ate, and had plenty. ⁴³ They picked up the leftovers, and there were twelve baskets of broken pieces, and of the fish.

⁴⁴ The number of men who had eaten was five thousand.

Jesus walks on water

⁴⁵ At once Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and set sail across towards Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. ⁴⁶ He took his leave of them and went off up the mountain to pray.