1Cor 9:17

“Up to now I am so far restored in that glory that I confess I am ignorant not only how near I come to it but even whether I shall come to it at all. It is true I am a dispenser of eternal salvation along with my other innumerable fellow servants. "For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward." To be a dispenser of that salvation by word and sacrament is not at all the same as to be a partaker of it. Letter , To Audax.”

“What is my reward then?.... None at all, I have none to expect, hope for, or claim, in a way of debt; I am a servant intrusted by my Lord with the Gospel, and an unprofitable one I am; I do, at most and best, but what is my duty, and for that I can claim no reward: all the reward that remains is only this, verily, that when I preach the Gospel, which I am obliged to do, I may make the Gospel of Christ without charge; to them that hear it, as he did to the Corinthians, which was his glorying in Co1 9:15 and is the same with his reward here; for this means not any reward from God, but his glorying among men, and against the false teachers; that when he preached the word at Corinth, he was not chargeable to any, nor would he ever be: his reason for it is, that I abuse not my power in the Gospel; his right of having a maintenance, whilst he was preaching the Gospel; to have made use of which would have been an abuse of it, since it would have given occasion to the false apostles to reproach and calumniate, and might have been an hinderance to the Gospel of Christ, and a stumbling to some weak minds.”

“For if I do this thing willingly - If I be a cordial co-operator with God, I have a reward, an incorruptible crown, Co1 9:25. Or, if I freely preach this Gospel without being burthensome to any, I have a special reward; but if I do not, I have simply an office to fulfill, into which God has put me, and may fulfill it conscientiously, and claim my privileges at the same time; but then I lose that special reward which I have in view by preaching the Gospel without charge to any. This and the 18th verse have been variously translated: Sir Norton Knatchbull and, after him, Mr. Wakefield translate the two passages thus: For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if I am intrusted with an office without my consent? what is my reward then? to make the Gospel of Christ, whilst I preach it, without charge, in not using to the utmost my privileges in the Gospel. Others render the passage thus: But if I do it merely because I am obliged to it, I only discharge an office that is committed to me, Co1 9:18. For what then shall I be rewarded? It is for this, that, preaching the Gospel of Christ, I preach it freely, and do not insist on a claim which the Gospel itself gives me.”

“But if against my will. That is, if I do not do it with alacrity and zeal, but instigated by the sole motive of punishment, woe unto me, as he says in the preceding verse, if I am instigated by this motive alone; still the dispensation of the gospel is entrusted to me, and I must comply with that obligation, either with the zeal and alacrity of a son, or for fear of punishment, as a slave. (Estius)”

“Translate, "If I be doing this (that is, preaching) of my own accord (which I am not, for the 'necessity' is laid on me which binds a servant to obey his master), I have a reward; but if (as is the case) involuntarily (Act 9:15; Act 22:15; Act 26:16); not of my own natural will, but by the constraining grace of God; (Rom 9:16; Ti1 1:13-16), I have had a dispensation (of the Gospel) entrusted to me" (and so can claim no "reward," seeing that I only "have done that which was my duty to do," Luk 17:10, but incur the "woe," Co1 9:16, if I fail in it).”