Why does Paul describe support power yet its nonuse?

Paul asks whether he is free and an apostle, whether he has seen Jesus Christ, and whether the Corinthians are his work in the Lord. Even if he is not an apostle to others, he is to them: they are the seal of his apostleship. Defending himself before those examining him, he asks about the right to eat and drink, and to carry about a woman, a sister, as the other apostles, the Lord’s brethren and Cephas do. The annotation rejects the translation sister wife, cites Paul’s being unmarried, and explains the Jewish custom of devout women attending preachers and supplying necessities. Are Paul and Barnabas alone without this power? A soldier does not serve at his own charges; a vineyard planter eats its fruit; a shepherd partakes of the flock’s milk. Moses’s law forbids muzzling the ox that treads corn, and Paul applies it to those who plough and thresh in hope. If they sow spiritual things, reaping the readers’ carnal things is not a great matter.

Others share this power over the readers, so why not the apostles? Yet Paul and his companions have not used it and bear all things to avoid hindering Christ’s gospel. Those serving in the holy place eat its food, and those serving the altar share with it. The Lord likewise ordained that gospel preachers live by the gospel. Paul has used none of these things and is not writing to request them. He would rather die than have anyone make his glory void. Preaching gives him nothing to glory in, as the annotation explains: necessity is laid on him, and woe to him if he does not preach. If willing, he has a reward; if unwilling, a dispensation is still committed to him. His reward is to offer the gospel without charge and not abuse his power in it.

Though free of all, he has made himself everyone’s servant to gain more. To Jews he became as a Jew; to those under the law, as under it though himself not under it; to those outside the law, as outside it, while not without God’s law but in Christ’s law. To the weak he became weak. He became all things to all people so that he might save all, doing all for the gospel’s sake to share in it. These are his stated aims, not a report of conversions achieved.

All runners run, though one receives the prize; they should run to obtain it. Those striving for mastery refrain from all things for a corruptible crown, while the readers seek an incorruptible one. Paul runs without uncertainty and fights without beating the air. He chastises his body and brings it into subjection lest perhaps, after preaching to others, he become a castaway. The annotation explains the necessity of self-denial and mortification to subdue the flesh and its inordinate desires.