Paul is not asking whether he may eat ordinary meals. "We" means Paul and Barnabas (1 Corinthians 9:6), and the right in view is to be supported by the churches they served. Gill says Paul does not mean the common right everyone has to eat, nor freedom about foods, but "a comfortable livelihood at the public charge." Barnes puts the question in plain words: "Have we not a right to demand that they shall yield us a proper support?" Paul asks so the Corinthians will see that he truly had this right, and that his choice not to use it was a gift.

Paul answers with a string of examples: no soldier serves "at his own charges," the planter eats of the vineyard, and the shepherd drinks the milk of the flock (1 Corinthians 9:7). The law says, "Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox" (1 Corinthians 9:9), and "Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:14). Yet he adds, "Nevertheless we have not used this power" (1 Corinthians 9:12), and "I have used none of these things" (1 Corinthians 9:15).

In Corinth Paul supported himself by working with his hands as a tentmaker (Acts 18:3). He told the Ephesian elders that "these hands have ministered unto my necessities" (Acts 20:34), and he told the Thessalonians he worked night and day "Not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you" (2 Thessalonians 3:8-9). The word "power" in this chapter is exousia, meaning a right or privilege, not physical strength; the ESV renders it "the right."

Paul's question protects two truths at once. Those who preach the gospel have a God-given right to be supported by it, a right Paul grounds in common sense, in the law, and in the Lord's own command (1 Corinthians 9:7-14). Matthew Henry says Paul claims "a right to subsist by his ministry, and defends it by several arguments."

Yet the deeper point of the chapter is what Paul does with that right. He lays it down "lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ" (1 Corinthians 9:12). This is the same love he urged on the strong in 1 Corinthians 8: freedom used for the sake of others.