1 Corinthians 9-11

The rights of an apostle....what are the rights of those that preach the Gospel?   We are to take care of them...Paul said that his team put up with anything rather than to hinder the gospel of Christ....The Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel...Paul had used none of those rights...How are we taking care of our staff?  Are we giving enough so that they can live comfortably as they deserve?  Paul preaches and comes to people where they are in order that they may receive the gospel...He does not believe he is better than anyone else and does what it takes to meet them where they need it.

Warnings from Israel's History....Paul uses Israel as an example of Spiritual immaturity....the people were overly confident in their heritage and completely lacked self discipline.  Do you think any of this applies today?  God wants us to learn lessons from the past so we don't have to recreate the wheel...he doesn't want us to have to learn from the same mistakes on our own when the examples are right there.

Look at how many times Paul uses the ward "participation" in the latter half of chapter 10.    Idol feasts and the Lord's supper do not go together..   God wants us to participate with him and not demons.   He does not want us to make another brother stumble in our Christian freedom.

Paul had to give instruction on public worship because the rich were using this as a feast and stuffing themselves and getting drunk while the poor had nothing.   Paul then address the equality of women.  Women should cover their heads because in that culture, the female temple prostitutes had short hair.   Men should not have long hair because the male temple prostitutes did.   We are to submit to the Lord. God created lines of authority in order for his created world to function smoothly.  God created man, woman came from man....believers should look and behave in ways that are honorable within their own culture.  We are not to distract from our goal of being believable witnesses for Jesus Christ.
Submission between equals is submission by choice, not by force.