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Becoming All Things to All Men to Save Some
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FEBRUARY 18, 1996
 Becoming All
Things to All Men
to Save Some
Message by
John Piper

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 9:1923 Topic: Church Mission

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all,
that I might win the more. 20 And to the Jews I became as a Jew,
that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the
Law, though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those
who are under the Law; 21 to those who are without law, as without
law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of
Christ, that I might win those who are without law. 22 To the weak I
became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to
all men, that I may by all means save some. 23 And I do all things
for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

Should We Imitate Paul's Strategy?

The first question to ask is whether this remarkable testimony of
Paul is something we should imitate, or is this just something that
apostles didor that missionaries do who must adapt to other
cultures?

The answer comes from one of the clearest commentaries on these

words that Paul himself wrote in the next chapter. Look at 1
Corinthians 10:3111:1. Here the issue is exactly the same as in
9:19ff., namely, how to relate to Jews and Greeks so as to win them
for Christ. He says,
Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the
glory of God. 32) Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to
the church of God; [in other words, adapt as much as you can in
non-sinful ways] 33) just as I also please all men in all things, not
seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, that they may be
saved. [That's the same as 9:22, "I have become all things to all
men, that I may by all means save some." Then comes the
answer to our question, in 11:1.] Be imitators of me, just as I also
am of Christ.

So that answer is: No, this is not a specifically apostolic or

missionary way of life. It is something that he meant for all the
Corinthian believers to imitate. He was imitating Christ, and he
wants us to imitate him. So hear this message this morning a Word
from God for you particularly and not just for someone else. Ask how
you, in your sphere of life, can use your freedom the way Paul and
Jesus did, if by any means you might save some.

What Is Paul's Aim?

Now the second question to ask in this text is what Paul's aim is.
Why has he made himself a slave to all? Why is he becoming "as a
Jew" to the Jews? Why did he make himself as a "lawless one" to the
lawless, and weak to the weak? Which is the same now as asking,
Why should we?

It's a tremendously important question. Paul is telling us to live and

act in ways that are different from the way we would act if we didn't
share his aim in life. So it makes a big difference if we have the
same aim Paul does here. What was his aim?

To Win Others
Five times he says that his aim is to win people. Verse 19: "that I
might win the more." Verse 20: " that I might win the Jews . . . that I
might win those under the law." Verse 21: "That I might win those
who are without law." Verse 22: "That I might win the weak."

To Save Others
So five times he says that his aim in adapting to the way people live
is to win them. Then at the end of verse 22 in his summary
statement he says, "I have become all things to all men, that I may
by all means save some." So he says his aim differently here. Five
times it was "to win" people; and now it is "to save" people.

To Be a Partaker of the Benefits of the Gospel

Then in verse 23 he gives one last aim: "And I do all things for the
sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it." I
 believe this means exactly what R.H. Lenski says it means. Paul is
saying, "If I omit this concern of love for others, although through
my work, devoid of such love, many others may be saved, yet I
myself would not be saved." In other words, Paul knew that his faith
in Christ would be utterly inauthentic and false, if he abandoned the
pattern of life set by Jesus and no longer cared for other people.

So Paul tells us his aim in three ways:

1. to win others;
2. to save others;
3. to be partaker in the benefits of the gospel himself.
Now what does this mean? Win others for what? Save others from
what? Partake in what benefits of the gospel?

Saved from the Wrath of God

The most straightforward answer is given in Romans 5:9: "Having
now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath
[of God] through Him." Of all Paul's uses of the word "save" in his
letters this is the one place where he tells us explicitly what we are
saved from. When we put our trust in Christ, we are saved from "the
wrath of God."
So that is the aim of Paul in becoming all things to all people. Verse
22: "I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means
save some"from the wrath of God. The gospel is the good news
that God has made a way to save us from his own wrath. In 1
Thessalonians 1:10 Paul says that "Jesus delivers us [=saves us]
from the wrath to come."
Partaker of Eternal Life
That's what Paul seeks to save people from, when he adapts to their
way of life. But now what does he win them for? Or: what benefits of
the gospel does Paul hope to share in when he is saved from the
wrath of God?
Jesus tells us the alternative to the wrath of God. In John 3:36 he
says, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does
not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on
him." The alternative to the wrath of God abiding on us is eternal
life. This is what Paul wins people for. This is what he wants to be a
fellow partaker of.
So now we know our goal and aim. Our aim, like Paul's is to save
people from the wrath of God and to win them for eternal life; and in
loving people like this we prove the reality of our own faith and
confirm our participation in the gospel.

Do We Really Believe the Wrath of God Is

Coming?
A question that presses itself on me here is this: is one of the
reasons that we make as little effort as we do in winning others the
fact that we don't believe the wrath of God is coming? For many
today the good news of Jesus Christ is conceived almost entirely as
another strategy to handle psychological needsdepression, grief,
abandonment, loneliness, anger, low self-esteem, fear, etc. And the
gospel does have an impact on all those things. But that is not what
makes it the gospel. If the gospel did not touch any of those things
in this life (which is conceivable), it would still be unspeakably good
news. Do you believe that?

What makes the gospel good news is that I am already acquitted in

the courtroom of heaven. There is no condemnation to those in
Christ Jesus. The sentence of infinite, holy wrath has been revoked
in my case. Jesus absorbed it for me. Therefore, as 1 Thessalonians
5:9 says, "God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining
salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ."
But O what a difference there is for those who do not embrace the
gospel! Romans 2:5 says, "Because of your stubbornness and
unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the
day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." I
wonder if we believe this. Very little in our culture helps us believe
this. It is a massive worldview change from what most people think.
There is coming a day of wrath and righteous judgment of God.
Everyone, Paul says, will give an account of himself to God (Romans
14:12). And there are only two verdicts and two sentences: guilty or
not guilty; and eternal life or eternal wrath and punishment
(Matthew 25:46).
If this is a minor part of your thought world, if you don't think about
this very much, then it will be hard for you to feel the sense of
sorrow and urgency that Paul felt for the lost people around him.
What we need to do is ponder the wrath of God that is comingto
meditate, think about, reflect on, mull over, turn over in our minds,
and dwell onthe reality of the wrath of God. Until this figures as
largely in our worldview as it did for Paul, we will not have the
passion for evangelism that he had.

To help us do this I have written the STAR article this week about the
wrath of God and included numerous texts about it. We need to
memorize some of these and expose our minds to them as often as
we are exposed to the messages of the media that the big things in
life are money and position and coolness. One of the biggest
realities in the universe is the wrath of God, and it is coming on all
those who do not trust in Jesus, "who delivers us from the wrath to
come."

What Is Paul's Strategy for Winning Others?

We have time for one last question in this text: What is Paul's
strategy for winning and saving others? The answer is: his strategy
was to use his Christian freedom to become the slave of all. 1
Corinthians 9:19, "For though I am free from all, I have made myself
a slave to all, that I might win the more." I use my freedom to
become a servant.
The Strategy of Love
In 1520 Martin Luther, the great Reformer in Germany, wrote a
treatise called "The Freedom of the Christian." He began it with this
paradox:
A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian
is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

Then he explained:

These two theses seem to contradict each other . . . [But] both are
Paul's own statements, who says in 1 Corinthians 9:19, "For though I
am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all," and
in Romans 13:8, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another."
Love, by its very nature, is ready to serve and be subject to him who
is loved.

So Paul's strategy is love. It's exactly what he said in Galatians 5:13,

"You were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your
freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve
one another." Use your liberty to love by serving. That's what Paul
says he is doing here in verse 19: "Though I am free from all men, I
have made myself a slave [or servant] to all." That's what Pauland
Jesusmean by love.
His Relation to the Law
You can see this even more clearly in the three things Paul says
about his relation to the law in these verses. Notice: First, verse 20b:
"To those who are under the Law, [I became] as under the
Law, though not being myself under the Law." So he says he is
NOT under law. Second, verse 21: "To those who are without law, [I
became] as without law, though not being without the law of
God." So he says, in the second place, that he is not without the law
of God. First, he is not under the law, but, secondly, he is not without
 the law of God. Third, verse 21b: "But [I am] under the law of
Christ."
So there are three statements about his relation to the law:

1. I am not under law;

2. I am not without the law of God;
3. I am under the law of Christ.
You might say, "That sure sounds involved." But life is involved. This
is the sort of careful thinking you must do if you are going to take
the risks involved in adapting to all kinds of people so that you
might save some. As soon as you say, "I have made myself slave to
all" (v. 19), and "I have become all things to all men" (v. 23), you are
on the brink of idolatry and compromise and worldliness and sin. You
are walking the razor's edge between fruitless separatism and
unprincipled expediency. If you fall one way, you are of no use
because you have no connection with the world; if you fall the other
way, you are of no use because you are just like the world.

How do you keep your faith and your freedom and your radical zeal
to win people and not just copy people? The answer is that you think
hard about your relation to the law of Godthe way Paul did. And
what you come to is this:

1. As a Christian, I am not "under law" (v. 20)that is, I am not

bound to earn my salvation by the law, nor am I bound to live by the
ceremonial, dietary, separation laws of the Old Testament (for
example, circumcision, holy days, no ham and catfish, no mixed
 fibers, no meat offered to idols, and so on). I am free to go to the
home of an animist and humanist and eat whatever they put before
me in order to win them for Christ (1 Corinthians 10:27).
2. As a Christian I am nevertheless not without God's law (v. 21).
In 1 Corinthians 7:19 Paul says, "Circumcision is nothing, and
uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the
commandments of God." This is a remarkable verse! It says that
circumcision, which was a commandment of God in the Old
Testament is negligible for Christians, but the commandments of
God are not negligible. This is why we distinguish between the
ceremonial law and the moral law. As Christians we submit to the
moral law of God. We are not without the law of God, as Paul says.
3. Which is defined for us in verse 21 as "the law of Christ." We
are under the law of Christ. This is the law of love. In Galatians
6:2 Paul says, "Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law
of Christ." The law of Christ is the law that fulfills all laws: Galatians
5:14, "The whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, 'You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" This is called in James 2:8 the
"royal law" and "the law of liberty" (1:25; 2:12). It's the law that free
people submit to gladly because they are led by the Holy Spirit.
That's what Paul means when he says in Galatians 5:18, "If you are
led by the Spirit, you are not under law." Instead, you bear the fruit
of love, and so submit gladly to the law of Christ, the law of love.
And What Does It Look Like?
In freedom, for love's sake, you try to overcome unnecessary,
alienating differences that cut you off from unbelievers. In freedom,
 for love's sake, you learn the Maninka language and translate the
Bible. In freedom, for love's sake, you eat dinner together the way
they eat dinner. In freedom, for love's sake, you dress pretty much
like the middle class American natives. In freedom, for love's sake,
you get into their politics and their sports and their businesses.

And all the while you keep a vigilant watch over your heart to see if
you are in the law of Christ. Here are two tests of how you are doing
in this delicate balancing act. I close with these:

1. Are you becoming more worldly minded than they are

becoming spiritually minded? If so, you have probably crossed the
line of the law of Christ. Christ does not call you to lose your
holiness, but to gain theirs.
2. Is your passion for winning your friends and family growing, or
is it shrinking as you become all things to them? If it is shrinking,
then you are not in the law of Christ at that point.
Here is the sum of the matter: Christ died to set us free. Free from
the wrath of God, and free from the loveless limits of the law. Free
for love and eternal life. Are we using our freedom to make this good
news plain? Or are we so separatistic that we have no connection
with unbelievers; or are we so worldly they don't know we have
anything radically different to offer?

O may the Lord grant us to use our freedom to become the servants
of all, that we might by all means save some!
John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and
chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor
of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more
than 50 books , including A Peculiar Glory .
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GOD HAS THE FINAL SAY

PROVERBS 16:1-9

16 We may make our plans, but God has the last word. [a]

2
You may think everything you do is right, but the LORD judges your motives.

3
Ask the LORD to bless your plans, and you will be successful in carrying
them out.

4
Everything the LORD has made has its destiny; and the destiny of the wicked
is destruction.

5
The LORD hates everyone who is arrogant; he will never let them escape
punishment.

6
Be loyal and faithful, and God will forgive your sin. Obey the LORD and
nothing evil will happen to you.

7
When you please the LORD, you can make your enemies into friends.
[b]
8
It is better to have a little, honestly earned, than to have a large income,
dishonestly gained.

9
You may make your plans, but God directs your actions.

a. Proverbs 16:1 God word; or God inspires our words.

b. Proverbs 16:7 you can make; or he will make.

c. Proverbs 16:12 Kings evil; or It is intolerable for kings to do evil.