Debate: Is the Sale of Biblical Instruction Simony?

We are, of course, here for a debate, and a debate is, by its very nature, a contending for the faith. And at the same time, we acknowledge that we are men and women of God, brothers and sisters in the Lord, and that we must love each other even when we disagree.

So hopefully, once again, that spirit will come out of the debaters as it did last year. I want to introduce to you to my right here is Conley Owens, the pastor here at Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church, and the author of The Dorian Principle, a Biblical Response to the Commercialization of Christianity.

It's a free book that you can order a copy of, or you can read an electronic copy if you like. And we can show you ways to get all that stuff this week. He's also the father of 10 kids and the husband of Sarah.

And on my left is Tanner Cartwright. Tanner, you're an elder, right, at the church? Yeah. Oh, it says here, sorry. Should have read ahead better. Tanner, he pastors a Reformed Baptist Church in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

He builds fences for a living. He's married for 12 years, and he's the father of seven children. And I am very proud to say that Tanner's church's reputation precedes themselves, and I know them as a gospel preaching church, and not just a church that preaches the gospel inside the walls of the church, but they go out to the streets and they compel people to come in.

And I know that we're all very appreciative of those efforts. So tonight we're going to have a debate. Conley will take the affirmative stance in answering the question, is the sale of biblical instruction simony?

And I will trust the men to define their terms the best they can for you. We will have note cards available to you, so if somebody could actually pass those out now so people can have them. Oh, you already have them?

That's great. I'm the last to know all these things. This is how it happens when you fly in the same day. I won't do that again. If you have any questions for the speakers, go ahead and write them down.

Remember to try to be as neat as you can, because I'll be reading the questions, and that way I can make sure I properly ask them what you have. And so there will be a chance for all these questions to be asked, so jot them down.

You can also ask questions in the chat on YouTube. So if you're in here and you want to do that, or for those that are right now watching live stream at home, you can ask questions in the chat, and we will do our best to scrape all those out of there amidst the hundreds of other comments we're sure to get today and ask those questions during the Q &A.

So Conley will take the affirmative, the sale of biblical instruction is simony. Tanner will take the negative, and rather than explain the entire schedule to you, I'll note for you that it's in your bulletin if you open it up, and then I will be telling the men when it's time to stop and telling them when they start again and how much time they have.

And so with that, I am going to invite Conley up for his 10 minutes of an affirmative opening statement.

The Sale of Biblical Instruction as Simony

Well, thank you very much for coming out for this important debate, and thank you, Tanner. I asked for a long time for someone to be my debate opponent in this, and no one was willing, and Tanner was willing to do it, and so I'm very appreciative of that.

And as Michael said, I was already aware of Tanner and his church as being a very bold church that is known for standing for the gospel. The sale of biblical instruction is simony. Simony is named after the sin of Simon Magus in Acts 8.

My argument today is a simple syllogism. Syllogism has a major premise, a minor premise, and then a conclusion. The classic syllogism is all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.

So the syllogism for today is the sale of spiritual things is simony. Biblical instruction is a spiritual thing, therefore the sale of biblical instruction is simony. My definition of what simony is comes from history, but it also comes from the pages of Scripture.

Many people have pointed out that simony is the sale of any kind of spiritual thing, the selling and buying of any kind of spiritual thing, but just to look at Acts 8 briefly here, verse 18. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.

But Peter said to him, May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. Now the issue is not just buying. A lot of people think that, oh, it's only buying the Holy Spirit.

Selling wouldn't be a problem. No, the problem is that he considers the Spirit to be saleable at all. Grace is supposed to be a gift. Paul tells us in Romans 11, 6,. And if it is by grace, then it is no longer by works.

Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. Similarly, the Holy Spirit gives gifts, and so if you were to purchase them by money, they are no longer gifts. There are several things that I mean when I say a spiritual thing.

I mean there's something that is of the Holy Spirit. There are other spiritual things. There are angels. There are our own spirits. But I don't mean things of a human spirit, like the judgment of a judge or the invention of an engineer.

I mean something of the Holy Spirit. In addition, I don't mean the Holy Spirit himself. He cannot be bought or sold in any way. I rather mean a cause of the Holy Spirit. So, for example, if I were to sell you the Lord's Supper, that would not be selling the Holy Spirit himself, but it would be selling the means of grace by which the Holy Spirit works.

Simon can't say, Well, I'm not really buying the Holy Spirit. I'm just buying the laying on of hands. It doesn't work that way. And also, I mean something that is spiritual by principle. By principle, meaning the power at work is the Holy Spirit's power at work.

One might build a church for spiritual purposes of edifying the body of Christ, but that doesn't mean he has to work for free. Rather, it is the one who is operating by the Spirit's special power to do the work that the Spirit especially does that is at issue here.

And so the minor premise, biblical instruction is a spiritual thing. 1 Corinthians 2 spells this out very plainly. In verse 10 it says,. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

For who knows a person's thoughts except the Spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Here's the important part. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. What is the subject of biblical instruction? Well, it's the Bible.

It's Scripture. It's that which has been inspired and given by the Holy Spirit. It's not something that man discovers on his own in nature. Rather, it is something from the Spirit. And then who is it that teaches?

I don't mean to deny that someone could understand biblical things just by reading Scripture themselves. But what this passage speaks of is one who has been especially revealed, has had God's truth especially revealed to him.

And then how is it that that has effect in the hearer? Well, it's not by words of human wisdom. It's words that are taught by the Spirit. And so you can put all those categories together. When I say spiritual thing, I mean of the uncreated Spirit, not created spirits.

I mean of the Holy Spirit. Biblical teaching is of the Holy Spirit. Biblical teaching is also a spiritual cause. The words that I speak are not words of human wisdom. They are human words. English is a human language.

But it is something that is empowered by the Spirit as he teaches those words. And it is also spiritual by principle. As the one who communicates does not trust that it is by his own natural powers that one will receive the work of the Spirit within him, but that by communicating these words, the Spirit will work.

It is by all those things. So this simply means that the sale of biblical instruction is simony. That implies things for the content of books, for seminary tuition, for gospel conferences, all kinds of things.

Now, on one hand, just imagine the world if all those things were offered freely, if there were not paywalls in front of the gospel. We live in such a wealthy nation, but even we understand the difficulties of having paywalls in front of everything that keep biblical instruction from being easily accessible.

How much worse is it in other places where people have greater needs? It's hard to explain all the ways that this impacts the advancement of the gospel, hindering it, keeping it from going forward. And if you understand biblical teaching rightly, you will understand that all of it is related to the gospel.

You cannot distinguish biblical instruction from the gospel. Paul told the Ephesians that he would not have blood on his hands because he preached the whole counsel of God. And as he told the Corinthians, he knew nothing among them except Christ and Him crucified.

Did he have blood on his hands while he was in Corinth? No, the whole counsel of God is Christ and Him crucified. We cannot divorce these things. Now, it would be easy for someone to look at this and shudder at the implications because what I'm saying is so serious.

It has such great implications. Those are not reasons to reject it. Those are reasons to take the charge all the more seriously that the sale of biblical instruction is simony. Now, if you have ever heard the term simony before, it is likely that you've heard it in the term of selling ordinations.

Simon had Peter lay hands on him or wanted Peter to lay hands on him. And that seems most analogous to ordinations where a man would have hands laid on him and he would become a pastor of a church. But that's not exactly what was going on with Simon.

Simon wanted something different. So what is the closer kind of simony? Is it really the selling of ordinations or is it instead the sale of the Word of God? I would argue that the sale of the Word of God is a worse kind of simony and a more direct kind of simony than even selling ordinations.

To quote John Wycliffe on this point, he said, to sell the Word of God is a nearer and more hateful simony than to buy or sell an ecclesiastical dignity. I yield the remainder of my time.

Cross-Examination of the Affirmative

Thank you, Conley. In Acts 8, 19 and 20, what exactly did Simon try to buy?

The laying on of hands by Peter in order that he would have the power of the Spirit in order to, and this is not expressed in the text, but I believe in order that he could sell it himself, sell that work of the Spirit.

So you agree that that is not in the text. Him expressly, his desire, you're assuming he had the desire to... Yes, yeah, that's right.

I agree that's not expressly in the text. Okay, yeah, that was the question.

So Peter condemns thinking the gift of God is obtained with money. Where does the text also condemn every wage for religious teaching?

I don't believe that Acts 8 says all the ways that someone could commit simony. Acts 8 tells us, as all of scripture does when it gives these narratives, examples of sins. And so our job is to understand what the heart of that sin is in order that we might apply it in different cases.

And so it requires inference. Yes. Would you say that a fallible lecture is identical with the gift that Simon named or only connected to it?

A fallible lecture. It is, obviously it's not identical to the laying on of hands that one might receive the Spirit. But it is, as I mentioned, a cause of the Spirit's work. And I use the word cause because that is the historical term that's used.

We Reformed folk would use the term means of grace. Sure. You know, those words are the means by which the Spirit works. So I would say that that is categorically identical. The laying on of hands is a means.

The teaching of words is a means. The cause, not the object.

Right. So, all right. So in 1 Corinthians 2, 12, what are, quote, the things freely given us by God in the argument of chapters one and two? So Paul's making an argument in chapters one and two. What are those things, then, that he says are freely given us by God?

The wisdom of God that has been described in the first chapter and then the beginning of the second chapter that does not match with the wisdom of the world. That I would, typically when I teach on this, I describe it as not propositions, but experience that can only be known as the Spirit communicates the truth to the heart.

Okay.

When Paul says in Corinthians 9, 11 that he sowed spiritual things and may reap material things, is that simony? No. Okay. I knew what your answer would be on that. So, here's a hypothetical. Same church, same teacher, same course, same dollars.

What substantive fact makes a budget contribution lawful and an enrollment contribution a purchase of a spiritual good? I'm not sure I understand the question. Okay, so you've got the same church, same teacher, same course, same dollars.

Everything's identical. But in one situation, you've got someone is giving the money directly to the church versus there's an enrollment, there's a price attached to whatever is being taught.

Right. So, okay. So, if I were to spell out the scenario differently, let's say you have a situation where there's some finance involved and I don't know if it's like a travel thing or something. See, some of these things I consider to be necessarily simony by outward things.

And then others are simply matters of the heart. You can't necessarily discern them from the outside except by pieces of evidence. So, there is something called mental simony, which is only, you can only know it by just seeing the evidence out of the heart, the mouth speaks, that kind of thing.

Sure, okay. But there are other things that are definitionally simony just by outwardly what they are. Okay. So, for example, I could give to my church, that's a good thing to do, but I could do it thinking that what I'm doing is purchasing the gospel each week, right?

And that's just a misunderstanding that I'd have in my mind that would be mental simony, even though everybody else is innocent.

Sure, so you're not necessarily teaching improperly, but you are thinking improperly. Right. Okay, but that would be something very difficult to condemn. Yes, yeah. So, do you have a problem with requiring attribution of a freely given resource?

I do, yes. Okay. Yeah, to require attribution is to engage in a reciprocity that God has not authorized us to require. Even though it's a free resource. Is it free if it requires something of you in order to use it the way that you would decide to use it?

Yeah, you're saying if it requires permission, you're saying it's not free. Right, if it requires attribution,.

That was what you described, yes. Okay, so which... In order to share this with another person, you have to also mention my name. Okay.

That's, yes. So, you would say that if someone, you know, there's a quote by them or something and they, in order to, you know, use that, you have to attribute that, you would say that's simony. Yes.

Okay. That's the short answer. There's lots of nuances I could add to that.

Would you have a single text showing where the word forbids requiring truth or attribution of a freely given resource?

That is just simply implied from these principles that we're looking at, that we can't require anything, that it has to be freely given, and so it's just the logical implication of what freely means, that you can't require something in return.

And one of the most common things throughout history that was identified as a simoniacal exchange included what is known as munasalingua, which means gift of the tongue, so requiring, so in exchange for praise.

And what is attribution but praise? This is the earliest works on simony address this, Gregory the Great in particular.

Okay. But Joe, this is a logical conclusion of this doctrine. There's not a text that you would point to for that. No. No.

Yeah. Psalm 119 tells us that the psalmist has seen the limit of all perfection, but God's law is extremely broad. It has a great breadth to it. And so, yes, it often gives us principles that will apply far more vastly than could be recorded in this relatively small book.

Thank you, Conley, for inviting me out. It's pretty cool. I've never been to California before. Thank you for Silicon Valley Baptist Church for putting up this event and for having me out. Brothers, the question before us tonight is, is the sale of biblical instruction necessarily simony?

The Negative Case: Payment for Labor Is Not Selling the Spirit

Now, I don't believe this is a complicated question, but it is easy to stretch out of all proportion, and I believe that it has been. I want to start by telling you what I'm not here to do. I'm not here to defend the selling of the gospel.

I'm not here to defend selling forgiveness or spiritual power or access to God or a pastor's favor. I'm not here to baptize the evangelical marketplace. If a man withholds the care of Christ, the care of Christ has already required of him until the money hits the plate, he is in sin.

If a church makes the poor outsiders within the church, then that church is in sin. On this, I think we can all agree. What I am here to do is to refuse a leap. Conley has made a serious, but I would argue, convoluted case in his book that the selling of any and all biblical instruction is the damnable sin of simony.

This is a serious accusation that every book ever written containing biblical teaching of any kind that is sold for a profit, no matter how small, is the sin which the apostle Peter condemns in the strongest terms.

Acts 8 is a real warning. 1 Corinthians 2 is glorious. The church has been right for a long time to treat simony as more than buying a bishopric, as my brother pointed out. None of that is the fight tonight.

The fight is whether these texts are clear that every reciprocal arrangement for religious instruction, every course, contribution, every fallible book, every condition on a free resource is the sin of Simon Magnus.

That additional claim needs proof, and the proof has to come from the object the text actually names, not from a definition forced upon the text. So in Acts 8, Simon saw that the spirit was given through the apostles' hands.

He offered them money, and he said, Give me this authority as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Ghost. Peter answered him, May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.

So what did Simon try to buy? Simply this. He tried to buy the power to confer the Holy Spirit. That is the gift that Peter names. His heart was not right before God, and as Scripture tells us, he was in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity.

And he tried to buy what cannot be bought. You cannot buy the Spirit. Conley and I would agree on this. You cannot buy the power to give the Spirit, and you cannot treat the Spirit of God as if it were stock to be traded.

But notice what has happened. But notice rather what has to happen next for the affirmative case to work. We have to move from the specified gift to the idea that treating Peter as a minister who can receive payment is the essence of the crime, to the conclusion that every wage attached to biblical teaching is the same act.

The first step is in the text. The last step is in the system. Peter rebukes a man who thought he could buy the Holy Spirit. That's enough. That is weighty. Now what is not weighty is a second sentence that says any and all payment attached to any type of biblical teaching is that same purchase or that same attempted purchase.

If that second sentence is going to bind us, it has to be in the text, and it is not. And if the answer is that all ministry imparts the Spirit's blessings, then the system has proved too much. A supported elder imparts blessing.

A translator checking a verb may be used by the Spirit. A man unlocking the doors on the Lord's Day may be an occasion of grace. Conley does not treat all of those as simony. So the Spirit uses this, cannot be the rule that does the work.

The question remains, what is being purchased? Now if we look at 1 Corinthians 2, 12 and 13, Paul says, Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

What is Paul doing in this chapter? He's putting the cross up against the wisdom of this world. He resolved to know nothing among them except Christ and Him crucified. The Spirit is given so that we might understand the gift.

The words are Spirit-taught, not worldly insight, so that their faith would rest in the power of God and not the wisdom of men. I do not deny any of that. I deny the next leap, that a teacher's time or his outline or his fallible, unnecessary book is therefore the unsellable gift itself.

And I deny it from the same letter. In chapter 3, Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. The man's work is not the growth. In chapter 9, Paul says, If we sowed spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?

And again, the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel. Church history and tradition is on Conley's side in this much. Simony is broader than office trafficking.

Selling sacraments, selling ordinations, selling the keys, holding a deceased body until the family pays, that is wicked. And the church was right to name it. I'm not going to pretend that he is inventing a distinction here.

But the tradition also distinguishes objects. The church can pay a man who prints the psalter without selling the psalm. A family can pay for a hall without selling the vow. The question is not whether money moved near a holy thing.

The question is whether the holy thing was the product being bought. Material support is not treated as selling the spirit. Shared hatred of selling grace is not the same thing as shared hatred for every enrollment contribution.

So here's the test, as I asked in my cross-exam. Same church, same teachers, same hours, same dollars. In one arrangement, the men being trained give to the church's budget. In the other, the church allocates that cost by enrollment and makes provision for the cost and needs of the church.

No forgiveness is for sale. No spiritual status is for sale. What spiritual object changed? If the answer is, tuition is reciprocity, that is a label derived from conjecture and the system. It's not from the text.

So, brothers, a semi-coherent system is not yet a binding prohibition. Passages that fit a theory do not automatically exclude every other faithful reading. It is one thing to say we must not sell grace.

It is another thing to say that paying a man for the work of teaching is selling grace, the first I grant, the second I would argue he has yet to prove. Acts 8 forbids buying the spirit. 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, rather, forbids, I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians 2, forbids replacing the spirit with human wisdom.

It reminds us that the cross is the gift. Neither text proves that every reciprocal arrangement for biblical instruction is the same as Simon's offer. That is the additional claim. It needs additional proof.

I am arguing today that instead of granting the text weight and seriousness it deserves, what Conley has done is strip the text of its weight by making a complicated argument built on stacked assumptions that the text does not, doesn't, with no, let's see, with no clear lines as to what constitutes simony and what does not.

It is clear that the sin of simony was a damnable offense and worthy of a harsh rebuke. And the argument of my opponent is that a man making 25 cents per book he sells on marriage counseling is that identical sin.

This is not helpful or beneficial to the church and in fact is harmful by seeking to bind the conscience of godly men who should not be muzzled as they tread the grain for the benefit of Christ's church.

Thank you.

Cross-Examination on Ministerial Support and Selling Teaching

1 Corinthians 9 .14 says, In the same way the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. Are you saying that that verse authorizes selling things? Forgive me.

1 Corinthians 9. Yes. 1 Corinthians 9 .14. The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. Do you believe that authorizes sales in the work of ministry? Authorizes or commands?

No, authorizes. Yeah, because you're appealing to 1 Corinthians 9 to say that that means that it's right for him to be able to sell things. Do you believe that that verse authorizes sales? You know, if we sow material things, spiritual things among you, shouldn't we be able to reap material things?

This whole passage. Yeah, I wouldn't say that that alone does, but I would say that it doesn't, it does not forbid him from it. Do you believe that it reinforces the passage that you appealed to earlier regarding sowing and reaping?

So here Paul is specifically making an argument that those who are receiving the gospel owe to the one giving it. They owe to their shepherd something for his work. So he's not talking to the shepherd here.

He's talking to those that are being shepherded. So I would argue that contextually he's making a different point to those that are being, they are being blessed.

They should therefore bless the one that is teaching them. Right? Did you not earlier quote verse 11, if we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? Yes.

So you believe, and you were using that to defend the idea.

That it would be acceptable to charge for a book. Yes. And the content of the book. Yes, I'm using that to argue that there can be obligation to men alongside obligation to God.

Is it not the same truth that Paul is saying in verse 14? That in the same way the Lord commands that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. Is that not reinforcing verse 11?

Or do you think it's saying it's something entirely different? No, it's not saying something entirely different.

It's all part of one argument. But I believe that in 14 he's specifically saying that just as the Levites in the Old Testament were to receive, you know, they were to receive from the fruits of the people, therefore the same principle applies to pastors.

They are, they do deserve to be taken care of because of their work. Right. Yeah. If reaping material things authorizes sale, then why would it not authorize the selling of the gospel, given that verse 14 says the Lord commanded those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

Those would seem to go hand in hand to me. Say the first part of that question again. If this passage, if 11 and 14 are connected, and you're saying it authorizes a man to sell things in the context of his ministry, right, would that not authorize selling the gospel, given that the passage says that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel?

Is that not saying the same thing as if we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things? If the one is talking about sale,.

Then the other seems to be talking about sale. I mean that as a question. Do you not agree with that? Sure, I'm not arguing that the, I'm not saying that the, how do I phrase this, so you don't get me.

So what I'm not saying that, I do not concede that the selling of the gospel is the same thing as spiritual teaching.

Like spiritual teaching, receiving money for that is the same thing as selling the gospel. Right. But I am asking you, if this does authorize selling, then why not selling the gospel, given that it says.

Those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel? Well, because the specific argument is, is that those who proclaim the gospel, those who do that work, they deserve to be taken care of.

Paul says in another place, or not Paul, but they are worthy of double honor. Right. And so they are, because of their work, they should be taken care of. I don't, my argument, and when I'm saying verse seven, is that if we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?

The argument being that there can be spiritual things that are then, should be returned by material things. Right. Because that a spiritual thing is being taught, it can receive material payment for that.

That's my argument. Not that it's demanding that someone is selling the gospel must demand payment for it. There are different ways that a man might get a return.

But the return that you're talking about is a price, right, that would happen in a sale transaction. Material, yes. Well, not just the thing that would be getting begotten. I'm asking whether or not it would be in a transaction that would be a sale, like commerce.

It could be. Okay, then why not? Well, why not the gospel.

From verse 14, if that's what it's talking about? So, so also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel. And so, to, but here's the, the switcheroo, I think this being that we, it's causing the difficulty is if I proclaim the gospel and I am receiving money for that from what I'm doing, that's not selling the gospel.

Like if I am demanding that someone pay me before I will tell them the gospel is totally different than a pastor being taken care of because he's proclaiming the gospel. And so if I am, if I am, if I am writing out something, this is why I'm distinguishing between a pastor's work just as a shepherd of the people, of his flock versus writing a book, I believe there's a distinction.

Real quick question, I know I'm over time. Is, is selling a sacrament simony?

Like the Lord's Supper? Yes. Okay. Hopefully my line of questioning there was clear. This is the most frequent passage that is appealed to by those who would say that in the context of ministry it is right for a man to sell his teaching.

It says in verse 11, if we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? Now if you believe that this authorize selling things, why not selling spiritual things?

Otherwise, what would the passage even be talking about? If we have sown spiritual things, is it too much if we reap material things? And then in verse 14, in the same way the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

If this passage in any way authorizes sales, doesn't it necessarily authorize the sale of the gospel? And perhaps you're tired of hearing my questions at this point. I'll give you the answer. It would.

It would authorize the sale of the gospel if it in any way authorized sales. But it's not authorizing sales. It's authorizing reception of money in the context of gospel ministry, but not as a price of the ministry itself.

Look at the various analogies in 1 Corinthians 9. There's the soldier. There's the ox. There's a number of analogies here. Are any of those sales? None of them are sales. The analogy that's used in scripture repeatedly to talk about a minister's wages is not one of a client and a, sorry, a vendor and a customer.

It is of an employer and an employee. The wages that are received are received from the Lord and not as a price on any aspect of the ministry, whether it be teaching or whatever. Instead, if we were to consider the most important analogy here, where he speaks of, let me just go ahead and read some of these.

Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? You know, the soldier receives taxes that are coming from the king, and he might be the one to even collect those things, right? But they're really coming from the king.

They're not coming directly from the people as a price for the soldier doing his work. The same thing goes with the ox, right? He is receiving from the farmer who is employing him. And then when it speaks of the temple service, it says in 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 those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

There was no sale that was happening in the temple. People would voluntarily bring their offerings to the Lord, and then the priests would receive of those offerings. It was not an exchange that was being authorized in any way.