Spiritual Words: The Problem with Selling Teaching - Session 2 - Conley Owens

So a lot of what this third message was supposed to be, spiritual words, the problem with selling teaching, was a re-presentation of what was presented last night in the debate. So that means that we will be able to kind of skip past a good bit of this and to make up time here.

Why Simony Still Exists

But let me start off with the point that many people think that the sin of Acts 8 simply does not exist anymore. Many of the writers in the past who wrote on Simonae started off with the observation that many people assume it doesn't exist when it does.

Henry Burton, the Puritan, said in the opinion of many, Simonae has lost its being, as being long ago and antiquated and out of date, dead and buried with Simon himself. And this is true today, too. People think that Simonae is just gone.

If Scripture at any point gives us a significant narrative describing some kind of sin, and we look at our world and we say, this doesn't really exist in our culture at all. That is failing to understand why Scripture was given to us.

It was given to us to address things that are common. If we don't understand how it applies to us, or we think it doesn't apply to us because it is such a narrow thing that is being addressed, and we do not fully understand Scripture, we have not plumbed its depths.

1 Corinthians 10 .6 says, these things took place as an example to keep us from craving evil things as they did. Speaking of the Israelites and their sins and their idolatry, 2 Timothy 3 .16 says, all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

All Scripture is useful. If you come across a part of Scripture and you say, this isn't useful for me, this is more for other people who might have to deal with this problem, you don't understand it. We must presume it exists because that is the point of the narrative of Scripture.

Secondly, we must presume it exists because it is too dangerous not to. Anybody here who's ever gone to a gun range, what's the first rule of gun safety? Every gun is loaded, right? And that's how you're supposed to treat dangerous sins.

You must presume that they exist because of the level of danger. Wycliffe said, on account of the contagion of this disease, the church must guard against it all the more warily. In treating simony, then, one must presuppose that it exists.

What Makes Something a Spiritual Thing

Alright, so just to recap from yesterday, Simon's sin was treating the spirit as saleable. It wasn't just about buying the spirit, but also about selling. It wasn't just about ordinations, but any kind of spiritual thing.

What is a spiritual thing? Once again, we're talking about something that is of the Holy Spirit. I'm not talking about spirits in general, the spirits of angels, the spirits of men. There are many kinds of spiritual things that men have.

They make judgments, people make inventions, ideas are, in a sense, a spiritual thing. But that's not what we're talking about. We are talking about things that are of the Holy Spirit. Things that are, by cause, spiritual.

So not in their own essence as the Spirit Himself or as a human being. As virtues themselves, these things cannot be sold. Rather, they are causes of the Spirit's work. As we would say in Reformed theology, means of grace.

The example I gave yesterday was that Simon can't say, I am just buying the laying on of hands. I'm not buying the spirit. That's a spiritual cause. Something that is by spiritual principle. So not just doing something for the good of the church, like building a church building, but rather by the special power of the Holy Spirit.

Why Selling Biblical Teaching Is Simony

Now, all this indicates that the sale of biblical instruction is simony. Because when one teaches the words of Scripture, doing so rightly, properly, with the authority of God, does so not teaching words of human wisdom, but teaching words taught by the Spirit.

According to 1 Corinthians 2 .13. 1 Corinthians 2 .12 says that these are things that are freely given to us by God. If they are freely given to us by God, then as Matthew 10 .8 says, they must be freely given.

Biblical teaching is of the uncreated Spirit, of the Holy Spirit. He is the author of Scripture. He is the one who teaches. He is the one who is given to us and He is the one who gives to others. Therefore, sale of biblical instruction is simony.

Freely Received, Freely Given

I want to walk through several passages that people in the Middle Ages used to address the sin of simony. These are just the ones that I find the most powerful. This is not the full set. But Matthew 10 .8 was, of course, the most important one.

Freely you have received, freely give. Like 1 Corinthians 2 .12 says, teaching the wisdom of God has been given freely. So doesn't that mean it must be given freely? What does it say about someone if they are not willing to give that which has been given to them freely?

What does it say, according to Jesus, if someone is not eager to forgive others? It demonstrates that they have not been forgiven. If someone does not freely give teaching, it shows that what's going on in their heart is not something that has been freely given by God.

That's the suggestion, the very grave suggestion. And we should not limit this to the gospel, as though the gospel could be deforced from other scriptural teaching. If you've not heard me talk about this before, we could walk through 1 Corinthians 2, where Paul says that he knew nothing among them except for Christ and Him crucified.

Colossians 1, Him we proclaim. Jesus' words in Luke 24, that he taught them about himself in all of scripture. All of scripture is about Jesus. If you end up divorcing these things, saying that, well, I'm going to teach scripture over here, and over here I'm giving the gospel.

I'm not charging for the gospel when I'm teaching this scripture. That was one of the more interesting things of last night's debate, is, on one hand, Tanner agreed with me that, one, the gospel shouldn't be sold.

Two, all scriptural teaching is teaching of the gospel. But then seemed to want to hang on to the idea that you could teach scripture at a price without charging for the gospel. It just doesn't seem consistent to me.

And, moreover, 1 John 2 .27 tells us that the Spirit teaches us all things. Now, all things I don't believe is referring to all kinds of natural things. Yes, we need the Spirit's work at all times just to uphold creation.

But I believe what 1 John 2 .27 is talking about is all things that are taught in scripture are ultimately taught to us by the Spirit. This is not just in this one passage in 1 Corinthians 2. This is in 1 John 2 as well.

He teaches all things. If He gives these things freely, we must give them freely. Then 1 Corinthians 4 .1 says,. This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Stewards of the Mysteries of God

This was one of the other very common verses that the medievals used to describe the problem with the doctrine of simony or with the sin of simony. If someone is a steward of something, they don't have the authority to sell it unless the master has authorized that sale.

One who is a steward can only do what the master says. The owner of the thing is permitted to sell it. But we are just stewards of the mysteries of God. We do not have the authority to sell. Adam was given dominion over the earth in a way where he had the kind of authority by which he can take something and sell it.

You, having property, can sell it to others. But that is different than the way that we steward spiritual things which are not given to us with the same kind of dominion. In 1 Corinthians 9 .17, Paul says,.

If I do this willingly, I have a reward, but if unwillingly, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. This is the same word, oikonomia, talking about stewardship, steward of the mystery of God in 1 Corinthians 4 .1.

He is still a steward, even if he does it unwillingly. If you think about what's going on here, Paul is saying that he gets a reward because he stewards well. And so if he sells it, he would get a reward from selling it.

But then he is not willingly being a steward, and so he does not receive a reward from God. Instead, it's basically what Jesus described in Matthew 6. You already have your reward. If you're praying just for public attention out in the street corner, etc., you are bypassing the great reward that you would get if you try to get a reward from man and not from God.

You forfeit the reward of stewardship. And it's very clear what Paul was doing in 1 Corinthians 9 .18,. What then is my reward? That in preaching the gospel, I may offer it free of charge, and so not use up my rights in preaching it.

It's just very plain in this passage that he is not authorizing selling anything. His whole point of not receiving money is because it would be some kind of sale. And so he does not teach at a charge.

Some people might try to distinguish preaching from teaching. I don't know why people are so intent on finding all these distinctions. You know, there was a point in the debate where we were talking about that too.

All the different distinctions, does it matter how much work you put into it? Does it matter whether it happened in the church, outside the church, etc.? Are these meaningful distinctions in this context?

A lot of people would say, well, preaching is one thing, but teaching is another. If it's the Word of God and you're trusting the Holy Spirit, is it really different? Aren't you still a steward? Stewardship is not so much about the activity that you're doing.

It is about the thing that is being stewarded. Is it not the same wisdom of God from the same word of God, whether you're giving it in a seminary lecture or you're preaching it from the pulpit? Is it not the same treasure that's being stewarded?

The next verse here is Romans 11, 6,. And if it is by grace, then it is no longer by works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. The way this was framed in the Middle Ages was, if the nature of something is repugnant to the nature of the contract, then that makes it an unlawful contract.

How can you sell something that is by nature supposed to be free? Right? If you work for grace, and that's what, you know, in Roman Catholic theology, there's so much conflation there that you end up working for grace.

Right? It's not really grace at that point. Well, if you purchase something that's free, it's not really free at that point, is it? And that is the word of God. It is grace. It is the word of His grace, not just about the grace of God, but it is something that has been graciously given by God.

Selling Biblical Counseling, Conference Teaching, and Seminary Education

This applies to many things. It applies to biblical counseling. You know, I have found, I've been thinking a lot about 2 Timothy 4, 2, which is a common biblical counseling verse. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all patience and doctrine.

Okay, the Bible commands us, and if the biblical counselor is going to use this for his practice, that he is supposed to do it with all patience. Can you really call it patience if you're charging by the hour?

If you're saying, I don't know if I want to give you any more time. You've got to pay me to give me more time. That's not patience. That's not patience at all. Conferences that sell the teaching of the word of God, what is the essence of them?

If it is the biblical teaching, how can you charge for that? How can you charge for these things? You can see the articles that I've written on conferences to understand that better. Seminary education, same thing.

We just talked about that. I'm going to skip over a lot of this stuff. Books, you know, I've distinguished here between selling printed things, selling physical things, and selling the spiritual thing.

Books, Copyright, and Selling Spiritual Content

Just to give you a few examples, Puritans were intent in explaining that selling biblical things... There are a couple examples I can find. I'm not saying this was a very frequently repeated theme or anything like that.

But there are a few Puritans who explain that when you sell a Bible, you're not selling a spiritual thing. Because at that time, they weren't. So Jeremiah Burroughs said that it was like man-appointed holidays.

You know, the Puritans were opposed to man-appointed holidays. So you could, by virtue of how you treat the day, engage in some activities that are holy. But no man can just make a day holy. Only God can make a day holy.

And so the same thing with paper. You can use paper in a holy way, you know, reading the Bible and studying it. But man can't actually make the paper holy. Yet, what happens through copyright is that when you purchase the physical thing, you are purchasing the right to it.

That is the nature of how copyright works. So that you are purchasing the content. It's not like it was before, where you are purchasing paper that is directed to the use of that spiritual teaching. Instead, you are purchasing the content, the spiritual teaching itself.

The definition of simony is that it's an eager will to sell or buy any spiritual thing or anything annexed to a spiritual thing. That word annexed refers to connecting of the two together such that you can only get the one by the other.

There are two kinds of annexes. There's an annex that's directed to a spiritual thing and an annex that's dependent upon a spiritual thing. So directed to a spiritual thing. The example given in the Middle Ages often was the different vessels that would be used for the Lord's Supper.

So, for example, the chalice for the wine or the plate for the bread, that kind of thing. And they would say that, OK, these things are annexed to spiritual things in that they've been blessed and sanctified.

Now, I as a Protestant would not say that kind of thing, but just work with that premise for a minute. And so you can't sell that by virtue of its holiness. Rather, if you ever were to sell it in order to give the proceeds to the poor or something like that, it would be best even to desecrate it, basically to destroy the material.

So it's clear that when you're selling it, you're not selling it for its holy status, for its spiritual status. But then there are dependent annexes where the spiritual thing precedes the material thing, such that the two are so defined by each other that really it is you are buying one by virtue of buying the other.

So, for example, the benefice, a pastor's salary, if you were to purchase that, you're purchasing the office of pastor and to purchase the office of pastor, you are purchasing the subsequent income. So that would be a dependent annex because that's just the definition of a benefice.

This is what happens with copyright. Beforehand, before copyright, books were just directed to the holy use of reading theology, that kind of thing. Now, they have been set up to be dependent annexes so that you are purchasing the spiritual thing.

So I have no problem with the sale of any kind of physical book, but the way it happens today is that frequently, by virtue of copyright, someone is selling the content by selling the book. And it's interesting, I've seen a number of publishers who don't even make available digital resources for sale because they are concerned about those being redistributed because they want to make sure that the content is locked down in such a way that it won't be redistributed.

Freely. So this then becomes simony. I have a quote. Let's see. This quote is from Luther. I believe I told the story before about how Luther was offered twice his yearly salary by a publisher just to get first access to his book.

Exclusive rights didn't exist back then because they didn't have copyright, but he was offered twice his yearly salary. So this would triple his salary just to get access to his works for a first print and then anybody else would be able to copy afterward.

He said this, I have quite enough and more, God be praised, who has given me a wife and children, the loveliest blessing, and an elector, that's his governor, his civil ruler, who of his own accord offered me 200 golden a year.

Otherwise, once I had married, I had resolved to lecture for a fee. But since God got there ahead of me by way of the elector, I have in all my life never sold a single copy nor held a lecture for a fee.

And I mean to take that boast God willing with me into the grave. Having food and clothing, I shall be content. How different is Luther's attitude from the attitude of people today, who just for very little are willing to give away far more rights than Luther was unwilling to for to triple his salary.

Can you imagine that? Just hand us this book first, everyone else is going to be able to copy it afterward. We just want the guarantee that we get this first. It'll be out in a, you know, a month's time after that, whatever the case may be.

The ethic is completely different now, the whole ethos is completely different. Proper biblical teaching is words taught by the Spirit. How can we sell these things unless we are going to concede that our words are merely the wisdom of man?

The word of God is manna from heaven. Do not be surprised if you hoard it and you find out that your surplus is rot. With this, we will take a brief break after I pray. Dear Heavenly Father, please use the speech of your servant.

I'm a weak man. I know that my ability to explain these things is limited, but I believe that these truths are so important. And I ask that you would use my words and that you would use us as hearers to express these truths to those who so desperately need it.

In Jesus' name, amen.