Why Is This Wrong? Most Christians Don't Know - Selling Jesus Episode 2

Selling Jesus

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00:00

Hello! Welcome to our church. It'll be $10 please. Can you charge for baptism?

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These are the types of questions that we keep asking. People won't value the teaching and ministry they receive if they haven't paid anything for it.

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Evangelicals believe it's okay to sell Jesus, as long as it's indirectly. Commercializing the

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Lord's Supper seems too mean. Instead of being biblically rational, we rationalize.

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I hope we never stop marveling over the staggering generosity of our

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God. Every moment is an opportunity to be awake to the overpowering beauty of nature.

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Those are the words of John Muir, and I recently visited one of his favorite places on earth. Alaska. Alaska is a place of newborn scenery, where the glory and grandeur of God create a storm of almost infinite splendor.

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Where you can get lost in lands of embroidered silence, hear the first songs of the mountains, breathe pure air, and drink from turquoise rivers.

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All that is until this happens. So I want to show you something. This is unbelievable.

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This is how you open it. Wouldn't it be terrible if that were really how things worked?

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I hope we never stop marveling over the staggering generosity of our

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God. He gives us sun -spangled rivers, moonlight, majestic trees, blue skies, all for free.

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Even to the wicked and unjust. Romans 8 .32 says, He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

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We are called to reflect our Father's extraordinary generosity.

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But right now, our Christian culture is heading in the opposite direction. And if we're not careful, we'll end up creating a dystopia that looks like this.

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Hello, welcome to our church. It'll be ten dollars, please. Uh, what was that? The entry for Sunday mornings is ten dollars, unless of course you already have a paid membership.

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I guess it's just that I'm not used to paying to go to church. Sure, I understand.

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Let me just explain all the different options we provide. We've got something for everyone. Sure, why not?

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Okay, first of all, we have an option to pay by the month, which will save you 10%. And if you pay by the year, you'll save 20%.

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That's the best deal. And it also includes some premium benefits. Premium benefits? Yeah, such as access to a pastor's personal phone number if you ever need special prayer, access to our online catalog of sermons, and more.

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But if you'd rather do something else, we do have a free plan that allows you to stream the service online with ads.

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But you won't be able to participate in the Lord's Supper or be involved in a small group. Okay, so what if I can't afford any of this and I still want to participate fully in the services?

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No worries, I've got you covered. We sometimes have these kinds of cases, usually with immigrants, and we want to be radically generous with the resources

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God has given us. So we have a scholarship fund. All you have to do is apply online and our committee will review your case and hopefully prove you.

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Here, just scan this QR code here. It should only take about an hour to fill out the application.

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Again, we really want to serve the less fortunate in this way and not place any hindrances in the way of the gospel.

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Just out of curiosity, why don't you just have free services and cover your operating costs through tithes and offerings, and then wouldn't you reach more people that way?

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Oh, well, you see, people won't value the teaching and ministry they receive if they haven't paid anything for it.

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For example, when you've paid $10 to hear a sermon, you're more likely to listen closely, take notes, and apply it to your life, right?

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And God tells us to be wise, to be like the ant that stores up for the winter. So in order for us to be sustainable, we need to make sure we charge a fair fee for our services.

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I mean, who knows when people may stop giving enough for our operation costs, and then who will pay the bills?

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So we're just trying to be wise with the facility and ministry God has given us. It's all about sustainability.

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But also keep in mind that there are other institutions that charge twice as much as we do and offer less benefits.

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I mean, the church around the corner charges $18 for Sunday entry. We're trying to raise the bar and be more fair and charitable by offering such great discounts and scholarships.

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We believe we shine the light of Christ in this way and show the radically generous heart of God in contrast to the way of the world.

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Okay, I guess I'll just pay the $10 then. Great. Here's your receipt.

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Now let's figure out where you're going to sit. Here's a chart of the sanctuary. There are still a few seats in the back that are free at no extra cost.

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But if you want a better view, you can pay a little more to get these closer to the front. These green seats are the most comfortable, so that's why there's only one left.

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You can rent it for $99 a month. Then these middle seats you see in blue are $49 a month and have much better cushions and legroom than the free ones.

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Now for both of these options, if you rent them by the year, you'll get one month for free. Do any of those sound interesting to you or would you rather go with the free seats for now?

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Thanks, I'll just take the free seat. Oh, I almost forgot. Will you need to use the restroom during the service?

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If so, I can get you a restroom pass for only $0 .99. Okay, so that's never actually happened to me at the door of a church and hopefully it's never happened to you.

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But there's something that really feels wrong about it, isn't there? However, most people would struggle to point to something specific in Scripture that would show that this is wrong.

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Why it dishonors God. Why it seems to undermine the gospel. Can you charge for baptism?

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Um, no, I don't think so. No, I don't think so. Do you have any thoughts why? I guess the person being baptized probably is going to be part of that fellowship.

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And so in terms of supporting the functioning of that church, they're probably going to contribute to that either previously or later on in their life.

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No, I don't think baptism is something that you can charge for because I think it's more of a spiritual kind of thing.

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How about prayer? I think the same thing. Not at all.

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I think prayer is free. It's actually communicating between us and God and it's quite a sacred thing. Because anybody can pray and I can do that at any time.

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So I would like to think that that is just something that I could ask from someone and I don't have to pay them to be able to pray for me.

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So do you think the Bible says anything about this topic, about what can be charged for and what can't be? That's a very good question.

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I think there are passages in the Bible that talk about don't lend money to your brothers and sisters in Christ with interest and also talks about being generous with your money.

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Why? I just don't think it's right. I mean, yes, sort of commercializing the

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Lord's Supper seems to me to be not good. Not a good idea at all.

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Do you think there's anything in the Bible that would speak into these issues as to what you can charge for? There probably is.

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I can't think of anything straight off the top of my head. So these are the types of questions that we keep asking biblical scholars and church leaders and so far we haven't heard a good solid scriptural answer as to why it's wrong to charge for things like the

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Lord's Supper or baptism or prayer. Even though to most of us we feel instinctively that to require payment for these types of things would be wrong.

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If you think the idea of charging rent for seats in church is laughable or cringeworthy, it definitely was not to most people a couple centuries back.

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It used to be common practice in the English -speaking world to rent out pews in churches in order to pay the bills.

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The belief was that you couldn't really depend on people to give offerings freely in order to cover church expenses.

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So the pew rent system became the standard for a long time.

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Entire books were written to argue that it was unbiblical to give people seats in church based on payment, but it still hung on for at least two centuries.

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We'll link to some of those books over at sellingjesus .org if you're interested to read all the discussions and arguments that went on back then about this.

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You might have heard about the free Methodist churches and wondered what was free about them.

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Well, it was because these were the first Methodist churches to offer their seats to everyone for free.

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A man named Benjamin Titus Roberts opposed the idea of pew rents as unbiblical.

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And guess what happened to him? He was expelled from the Methodist church because of it. And so free

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Methodism was born in 1860. One of the churches that held on to this system the longest was

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St. Matthew's Anglican Church in Australia, which didn't stop charging for seats until 1956.

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Wow. So this was a serious blind spot that the church had for a couple centuries that we think is absolutely bizarre and embarrassing today.

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Not acceptable. And if you read the arguments for renting out pews, you'll see that many of them are the same as the arguments people use today to defend the

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Jesus trade, charging for Bibles, Christian teaching, worship, biblical counseling, seminary training, and more.

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The blind spot has just shifted to a new set of things that are justified in the same way.

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Instead of being biblically rational, we rationalize.

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This is a classic example of turning direct association into indirect association in order to justify something we normally would think is wrong.

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For example, some researchers did an interesting experiment where they put a six -pack of cokes in a communal fridge and waited to see if people would steal them.

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Within 72 hours, all the cokes were gone. But when they put a plate of six $1 bills in the same communal fridge, after 72 hours, no one had touched the money.

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They did other similar experiments and concluded that people are much more likely to steal indirectly than directly.

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The cokes were each worth a dollar, but people were able to justify taking them more easily because they were an indirect representation of monetary value.

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So what does this have to do with the Jesus trade? Well, evangelicals believe it's okay to sell

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Jesus as long as it's indirectly. In other words, as long as most Jesus sales take place outside the local church, we feel like they're okay.

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Most of the commercialization of Christianity happens in para -church ministries, so it's a lot easier to swallow when it's not on Sunday or not within a local gathering of the church.

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It tricks our conscience into feeling that it's not as inappropriate to charge for entry to a worship event when it takes place in a stadium, right?

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Or when it's not directly connected to a local congregation, right?

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We don't recoil as much when someone charges us for biblical counsel in an office that looks nothing like a church building and that feels more like a doctor's office.

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The point is, the more steps removed the Jesus trade is from things we still consider sacred, like the local church, the more we're prone to overlook the true reality of what we're dealing with.

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Sin. That's one of the reasons why so many Christians are completely comfortable with somebody selling a book about the gospel, but simultaneously find the idea of charging someone before sharing the gospel with them utterly revolting.

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We might be horrified to hear Jesus accused of charging an entry fee to hear him preach the Sermon on the

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Mount and turning away those who couldn't pay. But when it comes to selling a commentary on the

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Sermon on the Mount and locking it down by copyright restrictions so that it's illegal to share it with those who can't afford it, well, that's perfectly fine.

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The heart has such ingenious ways of deceiving itself and sugarcoating sin by making it more indirect or giving it nice sounding labels.

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You see, this is one of the hallmarks of a dystopia. Everyone slavishly, even robotically, follows the status quo, refusing to think critically for themselves.

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They accept a hellish world around them as normal. And even defend its legitimacy.

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So going back to the beginning of this video, why? Why is it wrong to charge people to attend a church?

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Well, before we get to that, there are three types of arguments that we're going to be referring to as we build the case against the

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Jesus trade on this channel. Scriptural arguments, logical or practical arguments, and emotional arguments.

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Number one, scriptural arguments is the most important by far.

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So we're going to make it our starting point. Although it's easy to begin with emotional arguments and make people feel sad over the devastating effects the

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Jesus trade has had on the marginalized cultures of the world, we don't think that's where Bible -believing

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Christians should begin. Scripture must always come first and form our foundation and scriptural principles should be supremely more important than practical concerns.

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In other words, let's figure out what God requires of us and then work out the practical details later rather than squeezing

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God and the Bible into a mold of our own opinions. So let's start with what we see clearly in scripture as the reason we believe

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Christian ministry and spiritual things should be supported but never sold.

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Conley Owens has written about this at length in his book, The Dorian Principle, which is completely free and in the public domain.

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So if we summarize something here in the video and it makes you want to see further biblical arguments, please read the whole book and check out the other useful articles that we continue to post on sellingjesus .org.

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In Matthew 10, Jesus sends out his disciples on a ministry assignment and he gives them some instructions.

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Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse those who have leprosy.

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Drive out demons. Freely you have received. Freely give.

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Don't get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts. No bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff.

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For the worker deserves his food. Now it's important to read

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Matthew 10 along with the parallel passage in Luke 10 in order to get the full picture of what's going on here.

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In Luke 10, Jesus describes the disciples' mission as the work of harvesting.

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The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the

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Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. So the question is, how can we obey

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Jesus' command to freely give and still pay the bills? If the worker deserves to eat, how can he eat if Jesus instructs him to give freely?

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It's not really hard to answer, but it's hard for people to accept and apply.

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The simple answer is that when ministry is supported by the free generosity of God's people, the servant of God can give freely and still have money to live on.

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In other words, he doesn't have to sell Jesus to make ends meet. Instead, Jesus himself will faithfully provide for him through the people of God.

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So in Luke 10, 5 through 7, Jesus makes it clear that there will be people of peace along the way who will give shelter and food to the disciples as they do ministry.

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In other words, God will provide people to support them as they freely give the spiritual blessings they have freely received.

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One of the key issues many miss here is that the worker is worthy to receive wages from the

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Lord of the harvest. That's totally different from charging the harvest itself for our labor.

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So the biblical principle is that our living should be provided for by God through his people freely supporting ministry.

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And they should give out of obligation and gratitude to God, not out of a sense of obligation to us.

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Our job is to trust the Lord of the harvest to provide for us and do the work our master has set before us.

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Can you see how it would be wrong to say, well, maybe the Lord of the harvest won't provide my wages, so I'll charge people for the ministry

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I do for him. Or the Lord of the harvest isn't giving me a high enough paycheck, so let's take the money he gives me and also require payment of the people he sent me to bless.

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At this point, I want to make it crystal clear that the issue is not whether a worker is worthy of his food.

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We're all in agreement that you should not muzzle an ox when he treads the grain.

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Of course, ministers of the gospel should have enough to feed their families. The question here is whether people who labor for Christ will rely on him to provide for their needs, or whether they will rely on their own understanding and put a price tag on the grace, truth, and blessing they're called to impart.

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The impulse to make God's work sustainable and see it funded well is a good impulse, and we should let it drive us to follow

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Christ's command to reflect the free nature of the gospel by giving generously so that ministries can flourish and give everything away.

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It should drive us to trust God to provide in the way he wants to provide.

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But if we take this good impulse and let it incite us to invent unbiblical ways of funding ministry, we end up undermining the ministries themselves and reflecting the world's commercial mentality rather than God's radically generous heart.

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At this point, you might be saying, Jesus' command to freely give doesn't apply to us today.

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It was only for those first disciples, and it has no bearing on those involved in ministry now. So, if that's you, we've provided a comprehensive response to that objection over at SellingJesus .org.

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And Christ's command is not an isolated verse that addresses the biblical way in which ministry should be funded.

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Paul spends entire chapters on this issue. The prophet Micah condemns the sale of spiritual things and much more.

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And what do we have to lose if we who claim to be followers of Jesus take this command at face value and reflect the free nature of the gospel and the generosity of God that knows no bounds?

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Proverbs gives us an idea of what might happen. One gives freely, yet grows all the richer.

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Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want. Many people who sell

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Jesus try to make you feel sorry for them by saying that they barely have enough to live on and then argue that the only way for them to survive is by selling

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Jesus more. But we're here to offer a better solution. Stop selling spiritual and sacred things.

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Obey what Jesus says. Embrace what the church has done for centuries already and see if God doesn't bless you beyond what you can ask or imagine.

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Sadly, many people aren't willing to step out in faith and see if God will reward obedience.

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Will you be one of them? Or will you take God at his word and experience the incredible, liberating, and rewarding joy of giving ministry freely?