I know a pastor who took his teenage son to Mardi Gras in New Orleans every year. They went to pass out gospel tracts on Bourbon Street.
It sounds zealous. Go where the lost are. Meet them on their turf. Become all things to all men.
But anyone who knows Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras knows it’s no place for a teenage boy, much less a grown man. And that father’s choice raises a question every serious Christian eventually faces: how far is too far when we’re trying to reach people for Christ?
Paul answered that question in 1 Corinthians 9. His answer is more freeing than we expect, and more demanding.
So far in this chapter, we’ve looked at a Pastor’s Pay and a Pastor’s Passion. Now Paul shows us a Pastor’s Process, the way a man called to preach goes about reaching people. And as we’ll see, it’s a process every believer is called to share.
Free to Serve
“For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.”
1 Corinthians 9:19
This verse grows straight out of chapter 8. There the Holy Spirit addressed meat offered to idols. Mature believers knew an idol was nothing, so the meat meant nothing, and they were free to eat it. But a new believer, just out of idolatry, might watch them and conclude the old ways still held some truth. So the warning was plain: be careful. Don’t let your freedom trip up a weaker brother.
Now Paul applies that same principle to himself. He was free from all men. He owed no one his conformity. His only obligation was to obey God and be conformed to Christ.
Yet he chose to become everyone’s servant.
That’s what Christian liberty really looks like. It isn’t the freedom to do whatever I want. It’s the freedom to lay down what I could rightly claim, so someone else can be helped.
Paul didn’t invent that servant’s heart. He learned it from his Lord.
“Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:28
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
Philippians 2:5–8
If the King of glory stooped to serve, none of us is too important to do the same. A man who claims God’s call but has no servant’s heart should examine his motives, because he may be in it for something other than Christ. That same searching question belongs to every one of us who wears His name.
Why did Paul serve? “That I might gain the more.” He wanted more souls won for Christ. His rights simply mattered less to him than their salvation.
All Things to All Men, But Not All the Way
Serving people, though, raises a fair question: how far does that service go?
“And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”
1 Corinthians 9:20–22
Among Jews, Paul lived as they lived. He ate what they ate and took care not to give needless offense. Among Gentiles, he set aside Jewish customs that would have built a wall between them and the gospel.
But look closely at the words tucked inside those parentheses: “being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ.”
That small phrase changes everything. Paul flexed on customs, never on obedience. He’d change his menu, but never his morals. He never crossed into lawlessness or immorality to win anyone. Even at his most adaptable, he stayed under the law to Christ.
Today verse 22 often gets quoted as a blank check: we have to act like the world to reach the world. Hold the Bible study in a bar. Go where the crowd goes and do what the crowd does. Careful Bible teachers across many traditions have pushed back on that reading. Read in its chapter 8 setting, the passage is about surrendering our rights so we don’t cause offense. It isn’t about imitating the culture around us.
Sitting in a bar drinking beer isn’t living “under the law to Christ.” Neither is walking a teenager down Bourbon Street. Paul was willing to be all things to all people, but only to a point. He drew his line where God’s Word draws it.
Then notice the last group: “To the weak became I as weak.” Paul bent low to reach the struggling, the fragile, the young in faith. A servant doesn’t stand over people. He kneels beside them.
My Job Is Your Job
So what drove a man to give up so much? Paul tells us.
“And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.”
1 Corinthians 9:23
The word “this” points back to everything Paul just described. Many translations simply render it “all things.” All of it was for the gospel’s sake. His rights, his comforts, his preferences all took a back seat to one consuming passion: the gospel of Christ.
Then he adds a phrase we can’t afford to skip: “that I might be partaker thereof with you.”
Paul never saw the gospel as his job alone. He saw it as shared work.
Here’s how the whole Christian life fits together. Your journey begins with the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. From the moment you’re saved until the day you see Him, that gospel stays at the center. Personally, you grow closer to Christ so you can proclaim Christ. Publicly, through your local church, you worship Christ, serve Christ, and build others up in Christ. Every part points to the same goal: making Him known.
“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:15
That command wasn’t given only to pastors. Yet the picture in our churches has drifted. Since 1993, the share of U.S. Christians who say converting people is the local church’s job has nearly tripled, from 10 percent to 29 percent. Over the same span, the share who say every Christian is responsible to share their faith dropped from 89 percent to 64 percent. Barna’s 2025 numbers are sobering: only about three in ten Christians strongly agree that sharing their faith is their personal responsibility.
Without meaning to, many of us have handed the Great Commission to the professionals. Paul wouldn’t let the Corinthians do that. God’s Word won’t let us do it either.
My job is your job. Your responsibility is my responsibility. We’re partakers together.
“And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Matthew 4:19
Becoming a Servant Who Reaches
Paul’s process comes down to this: serve people, stay under the law to Christ, and do it all for the gospel’s sake. Here’s how to start living that out this week.
- Ask God for a servant’s heart. Make it a daily request. He delights to answer when the goal is reaching others for Him.
- Name one right you could lay down. It might be a preference, a habit, or a comfort that stands between you and someone who needs Christ.
- Measure your methods by Scripture. Flex on customs. Never flex on obedience.
- Get behind your church’s outreach. Pray for it, give to it, and show up. Those events exist so the whole church can become all things to all men together.
- Pick one person. Pray for them by name this week, and look for a way to serve them.
The gospel was never meant to rest on one man’s shoulders. It’s a joy we carry together. Let’s be partakers.
For many of us, the real barrier to reaching people isn’t strategy. It’s fear: fear of rejection, of saying the wrong thing, of what it will cost. If that’s where you are, Standing in the Dark walks through what Scripture says about releasing fear and trusting God when the path ahead isn’t clear. Get Standing in the Dark →