The rights of the minister part 1 of 2

This is 1 message, cut in 2 for easier download/listening. From the pulpit of Island Community Church, in Merritt Island, Florida.

Taken from 1 Corinthians 9:1-15

1 Corinthians 9:1-15 Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? ² If I am not an apostle to others, yet indeed I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. ³ My defense to those who examine me is this: ⁴ Do we not have the right to eat and drink? ⁵ Do we not have the right to take along a wife who is a sister, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? ⁶ Or is it only Barnabas and I who must work for a living? ⁷ Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink from the milk of the flock? ⁸ Do I say these things as a mere man? Or does not the law say these things also? ⁹ For it is written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it threshes." Is it oxen God is concerned about? ¹⁰ Or does He say this altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, for it is written, that he that plows should plow in hope, and he that threshes, in hope should partake of his hope. ¹¹ If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? ¹² If others partake of this right over you, do not we even more? Nevertheless we did not use this right, but bear all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ. ¹³ Do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat from the temple, and those who serve at the altar have a share in the altar? ¹⁴ Thus also the Lord commanded those who proclaim the gospel to live from the gospel. ¹⁵ But I used none of these things, nor have I written these things that it should become thus for me; for it is better for me rather to die than that anyone should make my boasting void.