The Command of Christ - Conversation 3

So, lately I've been a little unsettled by the commercialisation of Christianity all around me.

A friend of mine charges $5 ,000 for preaching at Christian conferences, and my brother charges even more than that for leading worship events with his band.

Then there's my uncle, he's a biblical counsellor, and he charges $200 an hour.

It also bothers me that the Christian publishing industry seems to be more and more about money these days, especially when they charge really high prices for the digital copies of their books.

Am I crazy, or is this just the way God wants his church to be? Couldn't all of this operate on donations instead?

Brother I feel the same way actually, yeah you're not crazy. Yeah, well if I ever bring this up, people just say the same thing over and over.

The Bible says that the labourer is worthy of his wages. And I get it, the Bible does say that, but that doesn't make me feel any less unsettled about monetising ministry this way.

Right, right, yeah, you're not alone. So okay, so what I usually do is take people to Matthew 10, 8 through 11, where Jesus says two important things that may seem contradictory on the surface, and we'll talk about that.

But number one, he says, give freely without pay. And number two, if someone is working, they deserve to be compensated for their labour.

Yeah, those two things do seem to clash. Right, yeah, most people completely miss this issue or they just ignore it.

But there's actually a fairly simple way to resolve these two seemingly contradictory notions of refusing pay and receiving pay.

Okay, cool, so how does that work? Well, simply that Jesus forbids the disciples from demanding or receiving payment, but allows them to receive food and lodging.

So the disciples are to rely on God to provide for them through the free generosity of others.

And this is the difference between buying ministry as a product and supporting ministry.

Right, so the disciples should trust the Lord of the harvest to provide their wages, rather than demand their wages from the harvest itself.

Exactly, yeah, that's what I was just about to say. Jesus is the Lord of the harvest, right?

It's certainly not you or me. And so he will pay a minister's wages through the means he chooses.

But he doesn't allow his servants to minister in his name in exchange for payment from those receiving ministry.

Hey, isn't this kind of how friendship works? Like as soon as someone starts treating your relationship to them as a way to manipulate you for money, it stops being a friendship, right?

Yep. Yeah, when we sell ministry, it stops being ministry and becomes a mercenary commercial transaction.

As soon as payment is demanded, there's no way to be sure that the ministry you're receiving is sincere or simply out of a desire for money, right?

So your example of friendship is spot on because if I tell you, oh, we can hang out, but it'll cost you $15 an hour, it strips the sincerity out of our time together.

And you'll never know whether I spend time with you because I like you or because I like the money.

It doesn't even matter how much I charge, right? Even at 15 cents an hour, it's no longer a real sincere friendship.

Wait, so let me think this through. If an author writes a book about suffering and the sovereignty of God in order to edify the body of Christ, but then denies anyone access to it unless they pay, he compromises the sincerity of his ministry.

By making it impossible to know whether he's just writing for money or for the edification of other believers and out of love for God.

So yeah, everyone knows that people throughout history have used

God to make money. We all know that. Even unbelievers do that. So when you introduce a paywall into the mix, you open up the real possibility that you're just covertly turning

God into a commodity. Yeah, that makes sense. And so you're saying that the Bible is clear that ministers of the gospel deserve to be able to eat and pay the bills, but that their compensation should come from God through the free giving of his people.

Exactly. And there's another verse that's really important in this discussion. And I think it's 1

Corinthians 9 .14, which says, Now, most people completely misinterpret this verse to mean that we have permission to sell the gospel as a commodity in order to get our living by the gospel.

But notice that it doesn't say that at all. It simply says that they should be able to get their living by the gospel.

That requires us to go back to Matthew 10 .8 and listen to Jesus in order to understand how we should be compensated for our work of gospel proclamation.

And it's pretty clear that Jesus forbids selling our work and instructs us to receive support from God's people.

So maybe a way I would rephrase that verse in 1 Corinthians would be, I mean, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should be supported to proclaim the gospel by the free generosity of God's people.

Yeah, it's helpful. And shouldn't it be obvious that charging someone to hear the gospel is wrong?

I mean, it doesn't seem like it should even be a question in people's minds. It doesn't make sense to me.

Oh, yeah, you're right. But most people compartmentalize these things in their hearts and then copy the way the world does things.

What do you mean they compartmentalize things? Here's an example. Someone might read

Paul and Jesus and say, OK, maybe it's not a good idea to demand payment from someone on the street before I share the gospel with them.

OK, but if I write a book called The Gospel Explained, I can charge money for it and profit from it like every other author does.

You see how that compartmentalization happened? OK, I see. Yeah. Although regarding Jesus' command to freely give in Matthew 10, what if that was just something for his disciples?

How do we know that still applies to us today? Good question. So let's look at this passage more closely.

The specific actions Jesus directs his disciples to perform are preach, heal or cleanse, raise the dead and drive out demons.

These are all spiritual activities that are broader than just evangelism. So if this were a command only for those disciples,

Paul wouldn't have applied it to his own ministry as he does in two places. So we've got the first place in 1

Corinthians 9, 18, where he says, what then is my reward? That in my preaching,

I may present the gospel free of charge. And then he says in 2

Corinthians 11, 7, or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached

God's gospel to you free of charge? So in this last verse, Paul uses the exact same

Greek word for free that Jesus uses in Matthew. I don't think it's an accident.

Yeah, I guess I can see that now. Though still, can we really be sure that it still applies to us today?

I mean, most people have told me it was just for the first century apostles. Well, okay.

First of all, it's not a command that's intrinsically bound by culture and time.

It can be applied in all cultures in every century, right? And number two, if we look at church history, it was applied beyond the time of the apostles.

And number three, this command is perhaps the only guardrail we have that prevents us all from becoming like the prosperity preachers who monetize the sacred and treat spiritual things as commodities.

So in other words, if the command no longer applies, then it would open the door to selling prayer, baptism, communion, entry to church, you name it.

And I doubt many people would be excited about a world where nothing is too sacred to be monetized.

Yeah, that would be terrible. And it sounds like something in a dystopian movie. I might even add another thought to your argument.

It seems to me that being a follower of Jesus means at the most basic level, seeking to be like him.

So if he was teaching for free and training his disciples for free for long periods of time, then shouldn't we imitate him by offering spiritual instruction for free?

Amen. I couldn't agree more. And here's the thing, a key underlying issue

I forgot to mention here is that of obligation. So the question we

Christians should be asking is, am I giving under obligation to man or obligation to God?

We don't reflect the biblical model until we support a minister or a ministry in a spirit of partnership out of a sense of obligation to God.

So the giver should feel indebted to God rather than man. Right.

So you're saying that when we charge people money for ministry, we're forcing them to out of an indebtedness to man, not to God.

Yep. That takes God out of the picture. Like when you buy a book of Christian teaching, which

I would classify as ministry, is your heart directed to feel grateful to God and indebted to him when you look at the price tag?

Nope. And do you feel like it's distinct in any way from how the world operates?

Does it feel like something beautiful and sacred is being preserved from mercenary motives?

Nope. It's kind of sad. So what I call co -labor is when the giver feels duty bound to give to a minister as part of serving

God. In other words, in the body of Christ, we labor together side by side to advance his kingdom.

But our current problem is that the spiritual advancement of the kingdom is hindered by all of us charging each other money for the very gifts

God has given us to serve him and spread a passion for his supremacy. Yeah, I see that.

But how do we really know that the support Jesus is describing is co -labor and not some kind of transaction?

Let me give you a few reasons. First, the disciples are instructed to receive support from only one person in each city instead of collecting support from everyone they minister to.

Second, those who support the disciples are described as sharing the same master, who is

God. Jesus tells the disciples to find someone worthy and a son of peace, indicating that that person is already qualified to co -labor for the kingdom of God.

Yeah, but what about when Jesus tells his disciples to carry money bags in Luke 20 to 36?

Isn't that contradictory? No, not at all. Jesus was preparing the disciples for their imminent journey into a hostile environment.

You know, previously, they could expect to find fellow servants of God to co -labor with them, but now they would be facing opposition and the expectation of support would change.

So, Jesus' instructions to Matthew and Luke follow the pattern of co -labor. They should receive help from those who serve a common master and not request a commercial exchange from the masses.

So, of course, at the end of Luke, they're going out into a different environment, and so that's why they had to take money with them as they set out.

Yep, that makes sense. And, you know, the more I study the teachings of Jesus, the more it's apparent just how seriously he took the issue of money and ministry.

Absolutely. Yeah, in all four Gospels, Jesus is recorded chasing money changers out of the temple.

All four Gospels. And what was he doing? He was objecting to the misuse of God's things for personal gain.

And he also rejected Satan's offers of material gain and said, you cannot serve both

God and money. Yeah, this is challenging. Well, thanks for your time. And I hope we can talk about this again soon.