Should a Minister be Paid?

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Well, if you would, take out your Bibles, if you have them, and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 9.
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1 Corinthians chapter 9, and we're going to look, in beginning, only at one verse, which will be the point, or the focal point, of our lesson this evening.
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1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 14.
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Does it say 7 on the sheet? Well, that's incorrect.
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I'm sorry.
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It should be 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 14.
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Yep.
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Is that what it is? I made a mistake, huh? Well, I tell you what, I apologize.
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First one's free.
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First one's free.
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Okay, well, if you would make a mark, it's 1 Corinthians 9, 14, and the passage is as such.
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It says this, In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.
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Again, it says, In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.
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Tonight, I am going to address a question that is rather sensitive, especially for me as the one who is asking the question.
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The question is, should a minister be paid? Now, before you answer either to the positive or to the negative, I want to kind of give a little bit of reasoning for why I am doing this, because I realize, again, that it is somewhat of an awkward question.
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I even went on to social media earlier, and I put out a poll, and I asked how many would think that a minister should be paid.
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That's what the numbers up here are.
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35 said yes, and two said no.
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I'm interested to know if that would have been a lot different if the demographics of my social circle were different, because most of the people that I am friends with on Facebook and what have you are at least similarly like-minded to myself.
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So it didn't surprise me that the vast majority of them, at least as of the last time I checked the poll, it'll be up for 24 hours, so it may change, but the last time I checked, it was 35 to 2.
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I saw a quote today.
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Tom Rayner.
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I don't know if you guys ever heard of Tom Rayner.
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Tom Rayner does a lot of things like polling churches and trying to find information out about churches, and he does a lot of research and writes books and things like that.
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If you ever go to Lifeway or something, you'll see Tom Rayner's books, and you always know it's him because he spells his name T-H-O-M rather than just T-O-M, so if you notice that, it's Tom with an H.
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And Tom Rayner said this.
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He said, quote, In many churches, the pastor's salary is a quiet issue.
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There is a sense of discomfort from both the pastor and the members when the topic is broached.
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And I would say that's probably pretty true.
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There is a sense of awkwardness in teaching this lesson, so some of you may be wondering, well, why am I doing it? Am I trying to be self-serving? Am I jockeying for a race? No.
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I'll tell you why I did this.
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In fact, if you want to blame anyone, blame my wife.
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No, no, no.
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The next two weeks, we're going to be here on Wednesday night.
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Then we have vacation Bible study or Bible school, and then we're going to be off for the month of August.
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We take some time off in August to give me a chance to go away and spend some time away.
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So I am starting a new series on theology when I come back.
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I did not want to start that new series tonight and then be off for a month.
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So I asked my wife, I said, well, what should we do? We prayed about it, talked about what would be a good thing to talk about, and then I began to talk about my sermon for Sunday.
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My sermon for Sunday is on 1 Corinthians 9.
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You guys know I've been preaching through 1 Corinthians verse by verse.
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And I said this, I said, well, in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, Paul uses ministers being paid as an example for the argument that he's making.
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It's not the argument.
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It's the example for the argument.
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It's the illustration of the argument.
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I said, that raises a question.
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I wonder how many people think ministers shouldn't be paid.
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And that's when we got to talking.
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Well, maybe that would make it a good lesson.
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So I began to think about it, sit down and write.
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And so you're getting the result of, this is what I call an excursus.
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An excursus simply means this is going a little bit veering off of the text, but it's not the focus of the text.
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Paul uses this subject as an example.
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I'm not going to preach this on Sunday morning because on Sunday morning, I'm following the flow of the argument of the text.
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But tonight we're going to go on this little excursion, if you will, to look at this topic.
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And here's the blessing.
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Those of you who are here are going to be so ready for Sunday morning.
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You're going to know everything I'm going to say before I say it, because we're going to talk tonight about the foundation of the argument Paul's making in 1 Corinthians chapter 9.
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So you guys are the blessed ones.
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You guys get the pre-sermon sermon.
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Now again, why would I speak on this? Well, I'm preaching on 1 Corinthians 9 on Sunday.
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1 Corinthians 9 uses the minister's wage as an illustration.
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The wage is not the point.
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It's the assumption.
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Paul makes the assumption that a minister will receive a wage.
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And he uses that assumption to make an argument, which we're going to look at in a moment.
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I also quickly learned, when I decided this was what I was going to teach on, I quickly learned that not everyone agrees that ministers should be paid.
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I decided to go and do a little research.
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And I used Google and all those other terrific ways of searching.
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And I found some folks that are very vociferous in their rebuffing of the ministers who are to be paid.
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In fact, one man, I hasten or I don't want to call him a gentleman, but one man suggested that the minister who is paid to serve as a pastor is disqualified because he takes a salary.
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In fact, he suggested that all preachers who are, he didn't suggest it, he said it, and it was big bold letters on the screen, all preachers who are paid by churches are hirelings.
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And we know what the Bible says about hirelings being bad.
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And in fact, he said that a person who is a hireling is like a mercenary or a prostitute.
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So he compared a minister who received a salary to a mercenary or a prostitute.
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I took a little issue with that, I got to say.
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That's a little harsh.
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But he was very, I almost brought, I almost showed, there's only a short video.
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I was going to show it tonight.
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And I said, well, it's enough for me to explain it.
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I don't have to expose you to everything.
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But like I said, the idea that the minister should be paid is not a universal belief.
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In fact, I imagine if I were to do a swath of a much larger, broader social network than what I have on my particular one, I imagine I'd probably get a lot higher percentage of people who thinks ministers shouldn't be paid.
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Wouldn't you imagine that? People, especially folks who are not associated with the church would probably say, no, the minister shouldn't be paid.
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It should be a work or a voluntary job.
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And what I've done tonight is I've put together four objections to a minister receiving pay that I want to talk about, and then I want to address it from the text.
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So I've given you a handout.
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I've got four objections.
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And then we're, like I said, I'm going to give you the objections.
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I'm going to explain them.
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Then we're going to look at the text.
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Then we're going to go back to the objections and sort of answer them.
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So that's the outline for tonight's lesson.
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The most common objection that I've heard, number one, is that the minister who is paid for preaching is afraid to preach the truth, afraid to preach the truth.
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What does that mean? Well, here's how it goes.
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If a man is convicted that something is wrong, but his congregation would be offended by him saying that it was wrong, he might be afraid to preach it because if he preaches it, he would be afraid of losing his job.
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Now, is that a possibility? Have there been ministers who have lost their jobs because they offended the church? I know a minister that the whole church was taken away.
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I don't know him personally, but I know of a minister who this church was founded by a very wealthy man.
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And the wealthy man put the church together, paid for the building, paid for everything that the church had, got the group together, and he got the minister out of a nice seminary to come in and preach at the church.
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And he only attended the church maybe two or three times a year.
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He was a CEO, you know, Christmas, Easter only type guy, you know, and he considered himself more of a CEO.
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You know, he was there as a figurehead.
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He was the one who was the benefactor of the church.
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Well, at a certain point, he attended on a Sunday where the pastor just happened to be preaching on something with which he viciously disagreed.
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I don't know the subject or the topic, so don't ask.
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I don't know what it was.
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Afterward, he went to the minister and he said, look, you got a decision to make.
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You got to quit saying what you're saying about this or I'm going to get rid of you.
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The guy lost his job.
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Thankfully, he was willing to take a stand and he took a stand for truth.
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And ultimately, the church ended up collapsing because a lot of the people just left with the minister and they started another church and, you know, it created a divide.
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But that's not a unique situation.
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I'm thinking of one person in particular, but that's not unique.
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It does happen.
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How many of you guys remember Joe Jones? Remember Joe Jones? Joe Jones was a pastor when I first came here.
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I was seven years old.
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And years later, he came by during a barbecue.
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We were having a barbecue out here and Joe came down and I was the minister then.
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And Joe sat down with me.
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And like I said, I hadn't seen Joe since I was a kid.
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And we sat down and we started trading war stories.
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You know, I'd only been a minister for a couple years, so I didn't have as many stories to share as he did.
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But one of the stories he told me, which I thought was really interesting, he said that he was preaching at a church.
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He was the pastor of a small church and there was an executive committee meeting, finance committee, whatever they had, you know, their board got together and they didn't like something he was saying.
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And the lady told him, lady who was in charge of the board, she said, you got to know we pay you to say what we want to hear.
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He said, they told him, we pay you, you're going to say what we want you to say.
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I've told this story before, early, early in my ministry here, there was a lady in this church who's no longer here.
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She cornered me in my office one day and told me, you need to keep your givers happy.
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I was too young to know any better because I said, one, I don't know who they are because the only person in this church who knows who gives what is the treasurer and the assistant treasurer.
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I said, I don't know who the givers are.
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I imagine if I took a guess, I'd be wrong.
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I said, I don't know who they are.
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I said, and my job is to make God happy.
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That's it.
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But again, the objection makes sense, doesn't it? That if a minister's salary is his family's livelihood, it provides for his family's needs, then there would be a fear of losing that.
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And I've heard of churches again, where ministers fall out of favor, leadership holds back their check.
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So is that objection founded on some type of reality? Yes.
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So, so I'm not saying the objections are 100% wrong.
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I'm saying this is the objection to a minister being paid.
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The first objection is, well, if he's paid, he might be afraid to speak the truth because he might be afraid of offending.
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And if he's afraid of offending, then we ought to just not pay him that way.
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We know he's doing it for the right reasons.
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That's objection one.
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All right.
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The objection is afraid to preach the truth.
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Number two, another common objection is that paying the minister creates an improper model for the body.
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It creates ministry as a profession.
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That's what the objection is.
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Ministry becomes a profession.
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If you pay the minister, ministry itself becomes a profession.
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If the pastor, listen to this, if the pastor is seen as a professional, jobs which would ordinarily belong to the body are often assumed by the one who is paid to do the work.
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Visiting the sick, ministering to the needy, counseling, teaching, etc., become the role of the professional rather than the role of the body.
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You see? I don't think that's a wrong objection.
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I think that the conclusion is wrong, but I think the objection is true because so much of what the body is supposed to do in a small church does end up falling to the minister.
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And again, I'm not coming tonight complaining about my job.
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I'm telling you that this is how it works, because I'll tell you the person I wish was here and I knew he was going to be out tonight.
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Andy Montoro was a minister for 25 years, and we're looking at him now.
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He's going to be one of our elders.
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Lord wills it, he's going to be one of our elders hopefully by the end of the year.
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He is 25 years in the ministry.
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He always served as, as far as I know, I think he always served as bivocational.
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So he had a regular job that he had to do to put food on the table, but he ministered in the church.
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And he told me, even as a bivocational minister in a small church, there were times when he was plunging toilets and sweeping floors and fixing broken glass.
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And I, and I was joking with him about things that I've done here.
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We had pipes bust that I've been down, you know, fixing busted pipes and, and, and I am not too good for that.
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I'm not saying in any way that I would ever be too good.
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I'm glad I've learned a lot from Jack and Paul and others who've taught me things about electricity and stuff, you know, keeping me from getting killed, trying to fix things around here, you know, but the reality is when you pay a minister sometimes the attitude is, well, he gets paid for that.
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So he ought to do that.
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You see what I'm saying? So let's say the objection is if you, if you pay a minister, then he's going to become the catchall for everything that has to be done.
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And it eliminates the church from doing what it should do.
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I'm not saying I agree with the objection.
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I'm saying there is some merit to some of the issues that the objections raise, because honestly, we should have a shared ministry.
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It shouldn't just be the minister doing all the ministry.
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And I'm not saying it is here.
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I'm saying it can happen that way.
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It can, it can roll that way.
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And so some people say, well, if that's the case, just don't pay him.
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Right? A third objection, objection number three is that paying a minister.
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Well, this, this is going to sound funny.
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Y'all writing this might be hard.
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Let me say it.
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And then I'll go back and you can figure out how you want to write this down.
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Paying a minister can cause him to live lavishly in a congregation that suffers in poverty.
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Pastors up here, congregations down here financially.
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That's what some people argue is a problem.
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The ministers up here financially, the people are down here, they're scraping by, and he's eating at the Longhorn every night.
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You know, there's a big divide.
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All their money's going to put him up and, and, and, and pay for him.
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And there's a caricature of ministers who do line their pockets with ill-gotten gains.
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We know they're there.
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The problem is you've got your television preachers who do that.
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And there is a trickle down effect where that lands on, on, on your regular run of the mill rank and file minister, because we're associated, you know, sort of like a, what is it called? A sin by association, you know, they're doing it.
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So everybody's doing it.
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Like R.C.
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Sproul tells that story of his uncle and him going to the baseball game when he was a little boy.
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And he saw a man in a preacher's collar, never seen that before.
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And he said, uncle, what does that collar mean? He said, it means watch your wallet.
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So that's what his uncle thought of ministers, was that they were people who bilked people for their money.
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Now, again, I told you I was going to deal with some of these objections later, but I do want to address this one sort of right now, because here's the reality.
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The vast majority of local churches barely are able to pay the ministers at all.
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So the idea that there's always a huge discrepancy of the minister being up here and the people being down here, it does and can happen, but it's rare.
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It's a rarer issue than people realize.
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Yes, there's your, Freddie Prices and your Creflo Dollars who are asking people for new jets because they don't want to take a layover in Dallas.
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They want a jet that'll take them all the way to Siberia in one shot.
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I think that was Duplantis who wanted that.
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One of them was asking for a jet that didn't have to stop.
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It could go anywhere in the world in one shot.
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Yeah, I mean, they're out there.
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I want to quote Tom Rainer again.
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I read an article by him.
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I thought it was good.
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He said, We all know of the extremes, examples of pastors living lavishly or mismanaging money.
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Those stories, though true, represent a small minority.
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Most pastors are not overpaid, and most pastors manage their limited finances well.
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I would agree with that.
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I don't know all pastors, but certainly the ones I do know don't seem to be living well above their means.
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In fact, as far as ministry goes, and again, this is going to sound weird coming from me.
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There is not another, and I hate to call it a job.
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I don't even like to use that word job, but if you want to call it that just for the sake of not having a better word, there is no other job with such a high expectation of education where the pay is where it is.
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In fact, investopedia.com, I thought you might get a kick out of that.
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I've never been there before today, but investopedia, y'all who don't know it, Dale does investments and stuff, lists careers to avoid.
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The number one as far as what is expected and what you will be paid was minister.
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The second one was a journalist, social worker, and teacher.
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That was the in line.
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It was minister, journalist, social worker, and teacher based on what you are expected to know versus what you will ultimately be paid.
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R.C.
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Sproul said that many years ago.
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He says, think about it.
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If a church is looking for somebody, they're looking for somebody with at least a bachelor's, probably a master's of divinity or a doctorate and experience, and these are expected.
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Aaron Bell just finished his MDiv.
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A master of divinity is so much more than a normal master's degree as far as the amount of work involved.
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It is very comparable to a doctorate as far as the amount of work that he had to do.
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Three years and so many writings and readings and things that go into getting a master of divinity, which is a prerequisite in most churches before you can even be expected to come in and minister as a pastor.
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I got to speak at his ordination.
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I was the ordination guest speaker.
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I was blessed to get to go up there, blessed to get to do that.
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Afterwards, we had a little reception at the house.
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His mother was giving him a gift.
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Everybody was saying a little something.
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Of course, me, I always say the wrong thing at the wrong time.
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I did.
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I said, brother, just know that all of this education that you have gotten is a blessing.
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I said, and you're never going to get paid for what it's worth.
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And that's okay.
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I said, but honestly, it's true.
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Other people who spend that much would expect so much more, but we go into the ministry knowing that that's not what we're going to get because that's not why we're going in the first place.
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We go into the ministry knowing that it's never going to be a compensated, like somebody who goes for a business degree or something like that, who knows they're expected to get six figures or whatever.
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We're not in it for that.
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And I knew he wasn't in it for that.
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And he laughed and we laughed together.
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His mom kind of made a face at me, but we both laughed together because we knew what I meant.
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It's not about the money.
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The retirement package is great when we die.
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Okay.
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It's a bad joke.
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I looked at Jack, but you understand this job isn't about that for most ministers.
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Are there some who make it that way? Yeah.
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Does the objection hold up for some people? Certainly.
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And honestly, and those of you who've been here for years, how many times have I talked about money? You can count them on your hand.
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Yeah.
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The few times I've preached on giving or whatever, it's because it was in the text because it's where we were.
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All right.
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So that's number three, number four, the fourth objection.
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Huh? Oh, that last one.
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I would say, um, pastor lives lavishly.
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That would just say that that would be the easiest way to write that.
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And maybe if you want to add, the people are in poverty.
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And I would say that if you've got a pastor that's up here in the people.
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Yeah.
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If anybody thinks we're, yeah.
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Yeah.
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You're welcome to come to the house.
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Uh, oh, that is so funny.
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I don't know if you remember this.
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You behind my Rolls Royce.
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Yeah.
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I don't know if you remember this Jack and you, do you remember my uncle, Jimmy, Pat's brother who died? He, we got his house when he died.
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We, we bought the house from Pat.
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The house that we live in now has been in our house.
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We've been our family since 64.
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That's when the house was built.
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And, um, he, when he passed away, he also had a Cadillac and my, and my dad and mom, I don't remember if they gave it to us, sold it to us, whatever, but it was, it was an old Cadillac, but we called it the Deacon mobile because it was great.
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But it really was.
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I felt kind of bad driving around in a Cadillac.
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It was an old one, but I did.
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I felt kind of like I was highfalutin, you know, is that, you remember that? So you mentioned the Cadillac.
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I had a Cadillac once.
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It was older than me, but I had it.
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It did.
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Objection number four.
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Yeah.
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Objection number four.
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Paul was a tent maker.
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Paul was a tent maker.
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That's the objection because here's how the objection rolls.
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They say, Paul was a tent maker.
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Ipso facto, you should have a real job too.
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Do you understand how that works? Paul worked for his money.
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You should work for your money.
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It shouldn't just be that you work as a minister.
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You should have another job.
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In fact, in Acts 20, 34, Paul does say, you yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who serve with me.
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Paul was expressing to the elders there that he was speaking to, I did work with my hands.
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And we know he did.
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He was in Corinth and he was working as a tent maker.
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So we know that that did happen.
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But we also know this.
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He didn't do that all the time.
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In fact, there were many times where he was waiting for the churches to send the support that he needed so that he could stop doing that and that he could focus on the ministry of the gospel.
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So those who argue that he was a tent maker, yes.
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But show me how many verses he was making tents.
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It's very few in comparison to what all was going on.
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But again, I'm going to deal with objections later.
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The objection though is every minister should have a second job.
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And some people do believe that.
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All right.
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So now that we've kind of gone over at least four of the objections, can you guys think of any extra, any others that you might have heard? Objections to a minister being paid? It's okay if you can.
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I just, I, yes sir.
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Oh, that last one, Paul was a tent maker.
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That, that was it.
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And the argument is, if Paul was a tent maker, you ought to be, you ought to have a second job.
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You ought to do something.
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Huh? Well, you know what? I do have a, I have what's called a tent making degree.
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Did you know that? No, I do that.
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It's true.
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I have a degree in social science.
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I have a degree that's not related to my ministry degree at all.
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I mean, I have my doctorate of ministry, but I have a secular degree in social science, which means that if the church could not pay me for whatever reason, and I had to get a job, I have a degree that would allow me to work in a very limited field.
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What social science? Teaching.
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Teaching, essentially that's the, social studies, psychology, high school, you know, those types of areas.
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I have a limited amount of, you know, ability that I could teach in those areas.
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I have that degree for that reason, because the church may not always be able to support me.
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There may come a time where this church falls under a different tax status, and we lose money, and you guys couldn't pay me as a minister.
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Does that mean I'm not going to preach the gospel? No, but I got to feed my family, so I have a, and when I talk about the tax thing, don't get nervous.
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I'm not saying we're, you know, but if something were to happen, and they were to come out and say, you can't preach the gospel, or you're going to lose your tax status, we're going to preach the gospel and pay our taxes.
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We have to, right? And if that changes my ability to be paid, so be it, but I got to feed the family, got to do something, right? So I have that degree, and that's what a lot of ministers have, what they call a tent making degree.
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They mean it's something that they are able to do that will sustain them.
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A pastor that I was very fond of, he died, Vernon Johns, he was the president of the seminary I attended before his death.
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Vernon got called to a small church in Georgia.
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Now he was here, he was at St.
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John's Park Baptist Church, pretty big Baptist Church, and he was a pastor here, well taken care of.
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Well, he got called to a small church that could not afford to pay him a full-time salary, but he felt God was calling him to go to this small church to help build that church up.
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So he told him, he said, the only thing I know how to do is sell furniture.
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So get me a job, and they got him a job at a furniture store, and he went up to that small church in Georgia, and while he was building the church, he was selling furniture at the furniture store.
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That was what he knew how to do, and he did it.
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So what I'm saying is there's a lot of ministers have what they call their tent making skill or their tent making degree, something that they can do in those moments like Paul had.
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So now that we've gone over that, I want to look back at 1 Corinthians 9.
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Now I've already told you, Sunday morning we're going to go, and we're going to go verse by verse, but I do want to explain to you the context, because 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 14 says, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.
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That should end the question of whether or not a person should be allowed to be paid.
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In fact, it says here, the Lord commanded that that's the way it should be.
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So as far as the debate goes, that should put an end to the debate.
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Yes, absolutely.
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The ministers of the Old Testament, the priests of the Old Testament were able to get their living from what they did.
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Absolutely.
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And I think, and that example is used here.
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In fact, let's read verses 1 to 18.
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We're not going to, I'm not going to exegete it.
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I just want to read it.
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And remember, this is in the context, Paul is saying in the context that he's giving up a right on behalf of the Corinthians.
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What's his right? His right is to be paid, but he's not taking that right.
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Now listen, am I not free? Verse 1.
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Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? If to others, I am not an apostle, but at least I am to you, for you are my seal or the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
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This is my defense to you who would examine me.
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Do you, do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife as do the other apostles and the brother of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? Now real quick, I just want to stop very quickly.
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He's making an argument here.
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I'm going to talk about this more on Sunday.
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He's making the argument.
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He's saying, can you imagine if we sent our soldiers overseas and said, okay, you got to buy your own bullets.
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You got to get your own plane ticket.
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You got to buy your own helmets, but we're sending you to war.
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That ain't the way it works.
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And it doesn't work that way with a farmer either.
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A farmer doesn't pay for corn.
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He keeps back the corn for himself that he needs and he sells the rest.
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A man who has a cow that's giving milk or an animal that's giving milk, he keeps back what he needs and he sells the rest.
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And that's the point Paul is making here.
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He's saying he has a right to something.
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And he goes on to say, do I say these things on human authority? Does not the law say the same? For if it is written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.
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Is it for the oxen that God is concerned? This gets animal rights activists kind of angry because he says, does God really care about oxen? The answer, not really.
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He does, but he doesn't care about them the same way he cares about us.
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And the point Paul is making is the whole idea of the muzzling the ox was you didn't muzzle the ox while he was working because while he was working, he could get a little bit while he's working.
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Right? And the same way for the minister, he says, this isn't about oxen.
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This is about ministers.
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Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop.
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If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much that we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do we not even more? So Paul's making a very simple argument.
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It is right that I should be paid.
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It is right that you should share with me material things because I have invested in you spiritual things.
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But verse 12 goes on to say, nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.
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See, here's the issue.
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Paul says, I could be receiving financial gain from you, but I'm not, I'm not taking that.
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Verse 13, do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings in the same way the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.
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But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision.
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For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.
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For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting.
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For necessity is laid on me.
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Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.
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For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward.
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But if not of my own will, I'm still entrusted with a stewardship.
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What then is my reward? That is my preaching.
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I may present the gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
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What is Paul's argument here? It's very simple.
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I have a right to receive a benefit from doing this, but I'm not taking that right.
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Why? So that no one could ever say, no one could ever claim that Paul is doing it for his own gain.
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Now here's the point.
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What is the context of 1 Corinthians 9? 1 Corinthians 8.
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What did Paul say in 1 Corinthians 8? He said that we ought to be willing, 1 Corinthians chapter 8 tells us that we ought to be willing to give up our rights if it's for the benefit of our brother.
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Remember we talked about eating meat, sacrifice to idols, that was the whole subject of the last chapter.
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And he said if eating meat, sacrifice to idols causes your brother to stumble, then you ought not to do it.
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Right? Because if causing your brother to stumble is worth more to you than your liberty, then you got your priorities out of whack.
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You need to set aside your liberty for the sake of your brother.
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Well that's the same point in chapter 9.
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He hasn't changed the subject, he's just changed the example.
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Because now he's gone from eating meat offered to idols to his own self as the example.
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He says I'm an example of a man who has every right to receive from you a wage.
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I have every right to receive from you a financial blessing, but I'm not taking a dime because I don't want anybody to say I did it for the money.
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So what does Paul tell us here? There is a sense in which that first objection could be true.
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Some people could claim that we're just for the money.
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So Paul says I'm not taking the money.
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But he also says this, it is right if a man does.
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Go ahead brother.
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He's not making that the standard, absolutely.
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For him, he's a target.
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He is a target and to add to that, I think there are some people in Corinth, I'm talking about this Sunday, I think there are some people in Corinth who are questioning his legitimacy as an apostle.
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Which is why he says I'm making my apologia, that word defense is in the text.
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He says I'm defending myself as an apostle.
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Here's my defense, I could take from you, but I'm not doing it.
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To prove to you that there is nothing here that's keeping me here except for the gospel itself.
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You understand Paul's argument there.
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So that's the whole context.
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But that's why I don't think this is the point and why I didn't want to preach this as a sermon on Sunday.
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Because the point is not the minister should be paid, that's the assumption.
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Paul says in light of the assumption, I'm not getting what I should get for the sake of no one ever claiming that I'm doing this for the money and the fact that no one could ever take away what I'm boasting.
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I'm not boasting in what I'm getting, I'm boasting in what I've been given.
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Which is this ability to preach.
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Now some people say, some people say, well Paul in 1 Corinthians 9 is only talking about missionaries.
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And certainly we should support missionaries because they're uprooting themselves from their homes, they're going to faraway lands, and certainly we can't expect them to be making tents or teaching sociology.
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Certainly we need them to be paid, but this doesn't count for local preachers.
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This only counts for missionaries.
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For one, you can't make that argument from the text.
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Even though Paul is a missionary in this context, he doesn't say that.
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He said those who preach the gospel should make their living by the gospel.
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He doesn't distinguish between a and a local preacher.
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But I want to, by virtue of the fact that the Bible does give us more information on this topic, I want to point you to one other text that I think eliminates that as a possibility.
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If you would turn to 2 Timothy and then go back to 1 Timothy, because I was wrong, go to 1 Timothy chapter 5 and verse 17.
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1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 17.
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He says this, let the elders, who's he talking about? The elders, right? Just making sure we're there, because remember the last argument was, well he's only talking about missionaries.
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Elders and missionaries are different, obviously, but elders specifically speak to local church leaders, right? He says, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.
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For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his what? Wages.
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If 1 Corinthians 9 was limited to missionaries, I don't believe it is, but even if it was limited to missionaries, 1 Timothy 5 is not.
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1 Timothy 5 gives us a very specific group that it's speaking of, the elders, and it says it is the specific elders who labor, that word labor is important because he uses it again in verse 18, when he says the laborer deserves his wages, he says those who labor in what? Teaching and preaching.
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Now in some churches, particularly Presbyterian church, there's a distinction made between elders who rule and those who preach or teach.
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You have the ruling elders and the teaching elders, and I do think this is one of the passages that's used to distinguish that argument.
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I don't think it's a necessary distinction, I think it could be a useful distinction, I don't think it's absolutely necessary though, because I do think that all elders do have the responsibility to be able to teach from God's word, not necessarily preach, but I think all elders should know the word of God and be able to, you know, we've talked about this before, Jack, you know, that's, you've taught Sunday school for years and Richard, you taught for years, and we all have that ability, but we're not all called to get up there and preach from the pulpit, right? And so in a Presbyterian church, you would be like a ruling elder because you're not up there preaching, right? But in the same sense though, that ability to teach is still there, that knowing the word is still there.
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Any elder who is an elder should know the word, but particularly this passage talks about the laborer, the one who labors in preaching and in teaching.
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And I want to tell you something that people, a lot of people don't realize, there is labor in preaching.
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And again, I'm not here tonight to talk about my job, but it's true.
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I've heard the joke, yeah, you pastors, you only work one day a week.
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The time and mental effort that it takes to prepare a message is obvious when the man gets up there to preach.
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And when it's not there, it's obvious too.
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When the labor has not gone into the study, it shows forth in the sermon.
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Years ago, there was a man who was sort of disgruntled with me, who demanded that I provide a detailed list of what I did.
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He said, I want a list of what you do, when do you come into the office? How long are you here? Who did you visit? Where did you go? And all of those things, because he wanted to ensure I was doing my job.
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I declined.
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I said, here's the thing.
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I said, if my preaching is suffering or it is incorrect, then you'll know I'm not doing my job.
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Is it? And he said, no.
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I said, my preaching is correct? Yes.
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My preaching has not suffered? No.
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I said, then you know I'm doing my job.
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Because that's my job.
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Everything else is secondary to preaching and teaching.
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My primary job here is a preacher and a teacher.
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I am not an administrator, a counselor, a supervisor, a hospital chaplain, or a musician.
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Now I do all those things, but my primary job is to preach and to teach.
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My primary time during the week is devoted to prepare for that.
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Even if it's 20 of you, or if it's 80 or 85 on Sunday morning, this is what I'm here for.
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Everything else is secondary.
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And here's the thing that kills me.
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Some pastors neglect that thoroughly.
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They spend all their time counseling.
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They spend all their time visiting.
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Yes, those things can have value.
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But I tell you, John MacArthur, I don't remember how exactly he said it.
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I can't remember the quote exactly, but he said a lot of pastors miss the mark because they don't have their under their desk.
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Because they're running everywhere else to do everything else.
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They won't sit and study the Word of God.
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So when they get up to the pulpit, they don't have anything to say.
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That's the calling.
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To labor in preaching and teaching.
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Yeah, and it's subject-based, which is something they already know about.
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They didn't have to study that text.
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Yeah, I get scared to death every time I choose a new book to go through verse by verse, because I know there's going to be some passages that are really hard.
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They're going to keep me up at night, because I don't know what they are.
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I got to spend hours and hours digging and mining to try to figure out what it means.
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Yes, sir.
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Yeah.
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Every week studying it, how many times did I call you to help me understand some verses? Absolutely, absolutely.
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A lot of ministers run to the internet and just will download a message just to read, because they know Sunday's coming, right? They got to have something to say.
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A year ago, I heard one minister say, he said, Lord, give me a message for the hour, not just because it's the hour for the message.
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Give me something to say.
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That was the prayer of the preacher.
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Give me the message for the hour, not just because it's the hour for the message.
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And I've always kind of taken that to heart.
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I don't want to get up and talk just because it's my turn.
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I want to have something to say.
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And years ago, I don't know how many of you, some of you heard this.
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There have been at least twice that I have been called by other churches where ministers have stolen my notes and use them as their own.
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Absolutely.
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It happened at least twice.
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I used to put my notes on sermonnotes.com.
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It's an online repository.
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And I use it sometimes.
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I'll go on and get illustrations and stuff.
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It's a great place for a minister to sort of share ideas.
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If we're all preaching out of the same text, we'll kind of share outlines and stuff.
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It's a great place to go.
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But this guy had literally twice, two different people had literally downloaded the message and preached same title and everything.
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And I got a call one day.
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I was in my office.
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My office used to be down the other end of the hallway.
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I got a call one day and I said, yes, it's Keith Foskey.
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They said, Keith Foskey, did you write so-and-so message? There's a message on forgiveness.
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First one was anyway.
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I said, yeah, because I thought they were questioning me like I had plagiarized something.
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I don't.
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But when you steal from more than one person, it's called research.
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But I really did.
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I was like, why are they calling and asking if I wrote this message? I said, yes, I wrote that message and I remember preaching it.
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And they said, well, our preacher preached it two weeks ago and preached it as his own.
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And he's been doing this for several months.
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And we suspected that he was doing this.
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So we went online and searched and found your name.
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And at first I was a little flattered.
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I ain't gonna lie.
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That's shameful and sinful.
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But I was like, wow, he took one of my messages.
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But then I thought, he's robbing the people of God because they are paying for his time to have his knees under that desk and they are not there.
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So, yeah, that is.
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Well, praise God for that.
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We say he had taste.
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No, no.
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But honestly, the payment to the minister in this sense, the ministers do double honor.
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And some people say, well, honor doesn't mean money.
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No, but wages does.
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And that's what he says.
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He says the labor is worth his wages.
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All right.
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So let me just I know we're out of time.
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Let me just very quickly.
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I want to address the objections.
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Number one, afraid to preach hard truth.
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How would I respond if somebody said that to me? You shouldn't be paid because if you're paid, you're afraid to preach hard truth.
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I would say this.
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Only a man knows his heart on this issue.
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But if any man is unwilling to preach the truth, he is unworthy of the pulpit, no matter if he's paid or not.
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And I know just as many men who are weak spined, who don't get a dime.
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Money doesn't buy a spine.
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So the reality is the labor is worth his wage.
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And I know some men who don't get paid and they act like it.
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You know what I mean by that? They don't get paid, so they don't take it seriously.
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So that's my answer to the objection.
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It doesn't take payment to buy somebody's spine.
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It's just yes.
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Yes.
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Have there been times in my life where I thought I was going to lose my job? Yeah.
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Said it anyway.
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And that's what you got to do.
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It's hard sometimes, but you say it anyway.
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Number two, view ministry as a profession.
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I've got a long quote.
49:58
I'm not going to read it just for sake of time, but I want to recommend to you, there's a book.
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You can look it up online.
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It's free, but just the blurb of the book is by John Piper.
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You guys know John Piper, Desiring God.
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He has a book called Brothers, We Are Not Professionals.
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And it's written to ministers, but it's good for anybody to read because it talks about the fact that the minister is really not a professional.
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He's a priest and a prophet and a preacher, but not a professional in the sense that we shouldn't take ourselves in the sense of like a CEO.
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There's a good video of him online because he talked about the fact that he capped his personal salary at a certain height.
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He said, I don't need any more than this.
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I don't want you to give me more raises.
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This is, you know, thank you.
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But he told the church he didn't want any more money and they got upset with him because they said, well, there's all these other people down here, other ministers, you know, associate pastors and whatever.
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They can't get any more because you've capped yourself and that puts us in a bad position.
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He says, what makes you think I should get paid the most? What makes you think you can't raise them up just because I'm not going any higher? See, that's the attitude of a prophet, not a professional.
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Because a professional would say, I need to be up here and everybody else needs to be down here.
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He said, why? What makes you think I'm worthy to be more paid than him just because I'm the guy preaching? That's the attitude of a prophet.
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And that's the difference.
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Number three, pastors living above their congregations.
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Let me, I want to say this.
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There's an old quote, God, you keep him humble and we'll keep him poor.
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That, uh, I've never experienced that here.
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I've always been very, I, I never have experienced that in this church.
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I've always felt very grateful.
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I've always felt like the church has done its very best to help me have what I need.
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And I'm thankful for that.
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But I've also never felt like I was above or below anyone here either.
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And I do think that's good.
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If I'm speaking now for more of a terms of, of, of just practicality, I think if a minister is being held below the standard of his congregation, I think that's unfair.
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And I think if he's being paid well above the standard of his congregation, I think that's unfair too.
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I think demographics would play a part in this.
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I think if I went to California tomorrow and took over a church and we're getting paid what I paid here, it probably would be below the standard because the price of living is so much different.
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I'd be in poverty there where here I live decently.
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You know what I'm saying? So I do think that this, there is a reality of demographic that comes into that.
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And that's why you need wise men and women who are responsible financiers and people who help with decision-making and the elders need to be men of integrity to ensure that the pastor is being treated fairly.
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That's, that's, that's all it takes.
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You know, and that's, that's part of how that situation is answered.
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Yes.
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Are there some ministers who are living up here? Yes.
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Are there some who are living down here? And neither is right.
52:51
Lastly, Paul was a tent maker.
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Yes, he was.
52:55
Yes, he was.
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But as I said earlier, his tent making was not his primary occupation.
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It's what he did to ease the burden on the churches that were supporting him and to support himself in times of need.
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And I, I say, I want to end with this because this draws everything together.
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Years ago, the same man who wanted that report from me had a, I had a conversation with him and, and, and the conversation went like this.
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I said, probably because I was young and not really thinking, but I said it's something about just wishing I didn't need money.
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And I guess it's not young and dumb.
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It's just, I still wish I didn't need money.
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I said, I said, it'd be great if I didn't need money.
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I said, because I'd love to just be able to preach for free.
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I'd love to just be able to preach and not have to take anything, not need to take anything.
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I wish I really do wish I could preach and take nothing.
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And he said, you wouldn't preach for free.
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I said, you don't know me and I'm not lifting myself up.
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I'm not.
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But I, most of the ministers I know would be in the pulpit tomorrow, even if they didn't have a paycheck, because they love the word and they love to preach.
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And I told him, I said, I, I would preach whether I got paid or not.
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I said, it's up to the church what I get paid, but ultimately the preaching, as long as they'll stand and listen, as long as they'll sit and listen, I'll stand and preach.
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And that was the whole idea with Paul and the tent making thing.
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Yeah, sometimes we got to make tents to get by, but God didn't put me on this earth to make tents.
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He didn't put me on this earth to teach sociology.
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He didn't put me on this earth to print t-shirts, but it does help me go on vacation every once in a while.
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But at the end of the day, God put me on earth to preach.
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Whether I get paid for it or not is up to the church, but I'm going to preach regardless.
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And that's the attitude that the minister should have.
55:08
Trust the church to take care of him.
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And if he preaches the word, the church ought to take care of him.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth.
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I pray Lord that we've been fair with the text tonight, fair with the objections and ultimately Lord, fair with what you've told us.
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Your word tells us that the minister ought to take care of the church and the church ought to take care of him.
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And I thank you for this church.
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I thank you that for so many years this church has been faithful in taking care of my family and I.
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I thank you for the men and women who have been responsible for seeing that that's done.
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And I just thank you again, Lord, for a church that we love and we trust and continue to belong to.
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We thank you for all of it in Jesus name.
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Amen.