1 Corinthians 9:13-18: in context

Paul lays out, carefully, that he has every right to be financially supported for his ministry. Those who serve in the temple eat from the temple; those who serve at the altar share in the offerings; and in the same way, he says, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living from the gospel. The right is real, God-given, and beyond dispute. And then Paul says something startling: but I have made no use of any of these rights. He has chosen to support himself, to preach free of charge, and he feels so strongly about it that he says he would rather die than have anyone empty this ground of his boasting. He holds a genuine right, and he deliberately lays it down.

Why would he? Paul explains that he wants to offer the gospel free of charge, so that no one can ever say he preached for money, so that nothing about his own compensation could become an obstacle between people and the message. He is willing to forgo something he is fully entitled to, not because the right is wrong, but because giving it up serves others and the gospel better than insisting on it would. This is a kind of freedom most of us rarely exercise: the freedom to hold a legitimate right loosely enough to set it down when love or mission calls for it. Paul does not ask whether he deserves the support; he clearly does. He asks what serves the gospel, and lets that decide.

That confronts how tightly I grip my own rights, even the legitimate ones. So much of my energy goes into insisting on what I am owed, what I have a right to, what is fair to me, and it rarely occurs to me that I could freely lay a real right down for someone else's sake. Paul had a clear right to be paid and gave it up so nothing would obstruct the gospel. Is there a legitimate right I am clinging to, something I am genuinely entitled to, that I might freely set down for the sake of others or of Christ, and what keeps my grip on it so tight?