The Foundation of Discipleship

“Teaching needs to address the inward; otherwise discipleship becomes a school of acting.  Discipleship should give a heart that has been cleansed from sin, an internal conscience that is useful in doing what is good, and a faith that is not the result of role playing. Love is to come from a changed person, not a well-acted part”.  Greg Whitten

Ministry

My friend Jon was discussing people who have left family to go into the ministry. The idea was that these men and women, who have led multitudes to Christ, are more worthy of the Kingdom. We often see this with pastors and missionaries and excuse their failures with their children because of the work they do, neglecting them to do "God's work".  Many missionaries send their children to schools in another country, not seeing them for months at a time.  Billy Graham did this and it caused a childhood of great pain, rebellion and grief in his son Franklin. The typical response of the children is to rebel.  Jon quipped, "but look at Franklin now, he has taken over his father's ministry".  My question, "At what cost?"

There is no other success that can compensate for failures in the family.

 

An Argument for Paying the Pastor

Concerning the blog on Paying Pastors, my friend Ken writes:

1 Cor. 9 seems to speak to this question, particularly verse 14: "In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel."
Now, I recognize that sometimes someone who actually is gifted as a "pastor" may be doing the preaching that should be being done by a "teacher," and vice versa. But, as a general principle, this verse would support someone who felt that it was appropriate to pay someone for full-time service in teaching the Bible.
And personally, I see no reason why not to generalize this principle to anyone who works full time in spiritual things, whether in their gifting (pastor, teacher, prophet, mercy, servant, whatever...) or by role (elder, deacon). For this principle, look at 1 Cor. 9:11: "If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?"  The principle I see here is that spiritual things are at least as valuable as material things, so that if someone works full-time in the spiritual realm, it is appropriate to pay them.

This was a section that I considered when looking into "paying a pastor" and heard arguments using these verses in the past. The conclusion that I had come to was this: Paul begins by calling himself an apostle. The gift is unique and one that is not often seen today. It was identified, from my perspective, as one who had all the gifts (2 Cor. 12:12). These were men who traveled to different countries to bring the gospel.

Paul continues that he and the other apostles had a right to eat and drink and take along a believing wife.

He then explains from the Old Testament his argument. "Those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share with the altar? So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel". I concur with Paul's claim and believe this to be the case with the apostle (but we don't see this with any other gift once the church is established) and that it is specifically room and board only, not a stipend or wage. If one wants to travel to establish churches, he would be free, if he so desired, to live with someone and take their food but would not plan for a savings account and not save for his retirement. He would be required to trust God to supply his future needs and not the church.

Circumcision

In Gen. 17, God prescribes an odd procedure in establishing his covenant with Abraham. God said, "Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations". "This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised". "And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you".

Why did God choose this part of the anatomy to establish a covenant?

He chose something that was sensitive, something private, something that they never exposed, something that would be painful.

"And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin".

Ishmael was the 13 year old son of Abraham. They never exposed their bodies in those days. It was condemned by God. The conversation between Abraham and Ishmael may have sounded something like this, "Guess what I have to do to you, son, in order to establish our covenant with God". Ishmael, who was going through puberty, probably said, "You want to do what to my what"? "I don’t think so".

The mode of circumcision was with a flint knife. The procedure lent to cleanliness and prevented infections later in life. It was a sign of belief. It was to establish a covenant and whoever was not circumcised was cut off from God’s people.

We read in 1Cor 10:11, Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

Circumcision was an example for our instruction today.

Our application is circumcision of the flesh of our heart. "Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart, Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Lest My wrath go forth like fire And burn with none to quench it, Because of the evil of your deeds." Jer. 4:4 It is to expose our heart. God wants us to expose the sensitive parts of our life. Open up. It is painful, sensitive, it is private, and it hurts. To circumcise the flesh of our heart is to establish a covenant with God.

The process of circumcising our heart is to "confess our sins to one another and pray for one another…" this is exposing those private, sensitive, painful hidden areas of our life.

This leads to cleanliness and prevents infection. Confessing our sins to one another is cathartic and prevents the infection of sin from consuming our life.

We do this to establish covenant. If we don’t, we become cut off from God’s people.

During the original Olympic Games, there was a process of restoring the foreskin once circumcised. One sought a surgical procedure to assimilate themselves to the heathen around them so that they not be known as Jews while in the games.

Have you circumcised your heart but now cover it up to look like the rest of the world?

Should the Pastor be a paid gift?

A dangerous error is that we have made this gift a paid position. There is not a Scripture in the New Testament that requires or recommends this. If that were the case, then why shouldn’t we pay those with the other gifts? When one Exhorts or uses the gift of Mercy, shouldn’t we also pay them? Or better yet, when those with the gift of Giving use their gifting, should they also not be paid? This would be ludicrous.

The church has put too much emphasis on this gift to the exclusion of the others. We have elevated it to a position of authority, although there is no indication in the New Testament that a pastor has authority. We have made it a paid position, although there is no New Testament verse that authorizes this. In doing so, we have promoted failure. The failure comes due to haughtiness, a feeling of authority and superiority.

A Scripture that is most often used to justify the pay is:

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, "You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing," and "The laborer is worthy of his wages." 1Tim 5:17-18

At first glance, this appears to say that they are to be paid double, using the example of the ox being fed and the laborer worthy of his wage. We make a connection that the pastor, should get a wage, since his is “laboring”.

However, when one looks intently at the verse, it is actually an analogy, showing similarity by making a comparison.

As an ox is worthy of grain, while he works, so one who labors is worthy of a wage. By analogy, the elder is worthy of, “double honor”.

What is honor? Is it money? No. It is defined in chapter 6, we see that the slave is to give his master the same; honor. Would we see a slave paying his master money or paying his master respect?