FBC Morning Light – March 29, 2022

A good Tuesday morning to you. Trust your week has already gotten off to a good start and here we are in the second day already. Did you get a chance to read in 1 Corinthians 9 today? I hope you did. If not, let me just share a few thoughts from this passage.

I hope nobody takes what I share today as an opportunity for some kind of self-aggrandizement or some kind of appeal for selfish motives. That's certainly not the case. I'm just going to simply share today what God's Word has to say.

Paul’s Integrity and Rights in 1 Corinthians 9

Paul is addressing this church at Corinth. He's addressing people who don't really have an appreciation for him, for who he is. As the apostle who was instrumental in bringing many of these folks to Christ, to faith in Christ, and building them up early on in their Christian experience, they have since been sort of seduced by other so-called spiritual leaders, some not-so-noble characters.

They have succumbed to all kinds of problems in the church. One of the things Paul addresses is he's trying to defend himself as to his integrity and his love for and desire for God's people, for the Corinthian church.

One of the ways he does this is address the fact that when he went to the church at Corinth, went to the city of Corinth, and started to plant this church, he didn't do so out of any kind of selfish motives whatsoever.

He had certain rights that he could have demanded or expected, but he didn't do so. The reason he didn't do so, and he tells us in this passage, is that he didn't want anything that was his right to claim.

He didn't want that to be a barrier or a hindrance to these people coming to faith in Jesus. After all, there was no church, so he was establishing a church. One of the things that he says he had the right to do was to marry a wife and to have his wife go along with her, but he didn't marry.

He never married. He remained single. Another thing he brings up is the whole matter of remuneration. He argues that he had the right to ask for remuneration for his work, for his labors. Look at the way he does this.

The Right of Ministers to Receive Support

He first of all says in verse 7, whoever goes to war at his own expense. You think about that. Right now, there's a war going on in Ukraine as the Russian soldiers have attacked, and Putin has thrown all of this arsenal and weaponry and troops toward Ukraine and into Ukraine and so forth.

Then you've got Ukrainian people just trying to defend their country, and Paul's argument here is, who goes to war at his own expense? None of those Russian soldiers are doing what they're doing just for the fun of it.

They're not hobby soldiers who are just out to have a good time for a weekend. These are soldiers who are being paid by the Russian government to do the dirty work that they're doing. On the other hand, there are plenty of Ukrainians, I'm sure, who are just taking up arms to try to defend their country.

Normally speaking, an army, and they're not the regular army either. They're just citizens who are trying to do what they can to protect their homes, their families, and their communities and so forth.

Normally, a country raises a military by paying those who serve in the military. That's just the normal way of operation. Soldiers don't just go and serve in the military at their own expense. Then he asked the question, who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit?

Well, nobody. They don't eat all of the fruit. They sell some of it, but we live in an agricultural community in Sterling, Illinois, and all around us are farms, mostly soybean and corn fields all around us, some other things too, but those are the big commodities.

Those farmers, they're not just going to all the expense of raising the crops, and then harvesting the crops, and taking the crops to a granary, and saying, here you go. Thanks for the privilege of giving you all this grain and these beans.

No, they expect to be paid for it. After all, they've invested time, and energy, and work, and money into growing that crop. They expect to be able to eat from the proceeds of that crop. Then he asked the question, who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock?

We have some dairy farms around here, not too many, but we lived in Vermont for eight years. Vermont, of course, is one of the main products of Vermont. It's dairy products, all kinds of dairy farms. We used to enjoy the fruit of those dairy farms with a lot of good cheese, and so forth.

Those dairy farmers, again, they don't have all these cows that they milk, and they process the milk, and send it off to the processors, and so forth. They don't do that just for the fun of it, and try to find a way to earn income some other way.

No, they expect that. They're going to milk their cows, and sell that milk so that they can put food on their tables. That's just the way things work. Those are all rhetorical questions. But then Paul says this, he says, it's written in the Law of Moses, you should not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.

Is it oxen that God is concerned about? No, he says. He says this, God says this, for our sake it is written that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.

And then he makes the application, if we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? If others are partakers of this right over you, are not we even more? Paul goes on to say, even though, yes, the answer to that rhetorical question is yes, we do have that right.

Paul says, I didn't exercise that right, because I didn't want that to hinder the gospel. I came to plant a church, and I didn't come to preach the gospel, and then get done preaching the gospel, and pass the hat, so that I could get paid for what I was doing.

And so Paul had that unique responsibility and opportunity of preaching the gospel and planting a church. But the principle that he's laying down here is that those who sow spiritual things should reap material things from those who benefit from their sowing.

That principle serves as a basis for having a salary for pastoral ministers, because they labor week after week in preparing messages from God's Word and lessons and so forth to teach the spiritual things to God's people.

And in order for them to be able to do that, they've got to put time and energy and effort into that. And it's only right that they should plow in hope, as Paul puts it. I mention that because I've been in the ministry for lands, how many years now?

42 years. And along the way, I've heard some attitudes that have been anything but generous toward those who are working in the ministry. In fact, I just read a list of things the other day of men who were candidating or interviewing for pastoral positions, and some of the things that the interviewers said regarding remuneration were just deplorable.

You know, like, yeah, you can get a couple of weeks vacation, but you're not going to get paid for that. You're not going to get paid vacation, because we have to pay the person who takes your place. So we're using your salary during those two weeks to pay.

And just those kinds of attitudes. Thankfully, I don't face that attitude where I'm serving, and I thank the Lord for that. But why do good godly people have an attitude that says, no, pastors and preachers of the Word need to be remunerated because of this principle?

We sow in hope. I don't know a decent pastor or preacher of the Word who's out to get the money for that. He's not in it for that. But it's surely appreciated when God's people recognize the value of what they do, and the benefit that comes to them personally, and see the importance and the blessing of providing for those who serve them well.

Stewarding Material Support for Gospel Workers

All right, well, I hope this is some of some help to you today. Our Father and our God, we thank you for the principles of your Word that should guide us in our care for those who feed us with your Word.

And we pray that we would be faithful. We who serve and the preaching and teaching of your Word, we'd be faithful to feed, and that God's people would be faithful to provide. And we thank you for these things in Jesus' name.

Amen. All right, well, have a good rest of your Tuesday, and I hope God will bless you in it. Have a good day.