Daniel, I am defending paid ministers as being biblical. But I am not invalidating a plurality of leadership who receive no pay. I am simply stating that the Bible allows for paid ministers. I do think it is important to have well-trained believers in church history, exegetical theology (biblical languages), and practical theology (counseling skills). Unfortunately, most believers don’t think it is important to have this knowledge in the Body of Christ, and history has demonstrated that this creates many problems when people remain ignorant of their past/history and biblical interpretation. Many modern-day denominations base faulty doctrine on a misapplication of the English text of the Bible, more and more believers have no knowledge of the original texts and languages.

I don’t think that the folks trained in these disciplines have to be “pastors,” but it certainly makes sense since most of us don’t have the time nor money to go to seminary and learn these things, which often require years of intensive training (especially biblical language instruction). The modern-day pastor certainly seems to be in the best position to receive this training. Unfortunately, pastors today often keep this information to themselves, rather than train other believers. At the same time, there are pastors who want to share this knowledge but many believers do not find it important. Most have no discipline nor desire to learn Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, church history, etc.

But it is important to note that church history (which includes the biblical events themselves) repeatedly demonstrates that ignorance of scripture leads God’s people into false teachings and deception, idolatry and apostasy. It is not necessary that all people learn these things, but some knowledge of these disciplines is helpful for all. And I have yet to see churches with no official leadership structure adequately train people in these disciplines. It simply seems that seminary is one of the best places to gain this information.

What I see today is many organic church movements moving into some of the heresies of the Anabaptist and Quaker movements (Viola even recently spoke at a Quaker seminary in Portland, Oregon). A lot of this has to do with a lack of understanding these movements in their historical context, plus I personally believe this is just another way for charismatic teachings to find inroads into the church.

I chose deception as a tag for the post because I believe it is deception to say that the Bible does not support a paid minister, when this text in 1 Corinthians 9 makes it very clear that a minister of the gospel has a right to receiving a living from that Gospel, however that looks – room & board or a paycheck.

Paul did not exercise this “right,” nor do ministers have to do so today. But this doesn’t mean that others cannot. We must also consider the context. Paul was a missionary to those who had never heard the Gospel. When we send missionaries to unreached people today, we often have them work among them, and they don’t collect an offering. But once a church is established, leaders are identified and trained, and these individuals are supported. In early church history, the direct disciples of the apostles were appointed as bishops over entire cities (Polycarp was a disciple of John, he was placed over Smyrna, also Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, Irenaueus of Lyon, etc.). Granted, there were some groups that opposed this practice, the Montanists being a classic example, lead by Montanus and later Tertullian. This group quickly devolved into heresy, however. Tertullian lead them into a field to find the New Jerusalem (and to avoid the persecution that has befallen all Christians), they believed in the Trinitarian heresy of modalism, they practiced “ecstatic prophecy” often appearing to be speaking in tongues, Montanus spoke in first person as God in many instances, followers claimed to have received visions of Christ in female form, etc. Unfortunately history demonstrated that most of these “splinter” groups were heretical. Yet modern organic church “scholars” (who often have little to no scholarly instruction) like to present these groups as examples of organic church movements. If the only examples are groups that end up moving into rapid heresy, and we know history tends to repeat itself….

Once again, I am trying to show that the Bible does indeed support a minister who receives their living from preaching the gospel. Please reread 1 Corinthians 9. It seems very clear. But the Bible doesn’t exclude other forms of leadership, such as Paul’s bi-vocational approach, or other forms of leadership. My main point is that we should not reject a paid minister, even if that is not one’s preferential leadership structure. I’m not asking anyone to fall under a pastor, I’m simply asking that they are not denounced as unscriptural – this does not seem to be the case.

I think I’m being called out! But I can’t figure out what I’m being called out on…

I agree Dan, I think Scripturally, pastors (and other workers in the ministry) can earn their livings from the Bible. The Scripture you’ve been citing shows that fairly well, I think.

“If Paul considered a sum of $ to be one of the “rights” of an Apostle, then of all places we should expect to see it listed right here! But mysteriously, he forgets to mention it. It is clear here that he is talking about being supported (in practical ways…) by the local congregations which an apostle travels to.”

I disagree here. The fact that “$” is not being specifically said doesn’t mean that it is being forbidden. The fact of the matter is that the society many pastors are in right now is such that giving money is quite similar to giving food, drink, board, etc.

“Scripture does seem to support a minister of the gospel who makes his living off of preaching the gospel. It’s very clear in scripture – call him whatever you will.”

I agree. We could argue about what exactly this person is or what his/her position is called, etc., but that’s not what the argument is here. I agree with you Dan.

Okay… I can’t stop grinning there… What? No… The world is going to hell because it is full of lost, sinful people…. It’s no secret I’m not an advocate of the clergy, but dude, that’s definitely overboard!

Dan… How can you say you’re not advocating here that paid ministers are both the most biblical and the best approach? You just spent all this time trying to show that it is totally biblical (and you are in fact defending it as an “office”), and not only that, you went to quite some length to make the point that without official, academically trained ministers, we’d be opening up the gates to all kinds of false teaching due to the inevitable biblical and historical ignorance that would follow.

Not to mention the fact that you chose “deception” as one of your subject tags for this post…

Well, there’s no such animal in the NT as ‘The Pastor,’ so there is really nothing in the NT, therefore, about supporting such a person. In Acts 20, the words/concepts of Elders/Pastors/Bishops are used with reference to the same group of men who came from Ephesus to see Paul on Miletus. Paul seems to assume that these elders/pastors/bishops are all working men, as he calls them to follow his example in the same. 1 Cor.9 has nothing to do with the
support of elders/pastors/bishops. It has to do with itinerant people like Paul, Barnabas, Titus, Timothy, Silas, Junia, Priscilla, who evangelize in
new places, plant & encourage assemblies. This passage says nothing about
resident elders. The only passage that talks about elder-support is 1 Tim.5:17-20. Notice the amount of space given to helping widows that
precedes the few verses on helping elders! There is nothing about ‘the pastor’ in this text. The assembly has a body of elders, and Paul says any
of these are potentially worthy of support, “especially” — not “only” — those who work hard at teaching. So to talk meaningfully about support of
church leaders we have to first jettison the unbiblical tradition that isolates one person as ‘the pastor,’ and focuses on their support, and see
that the NT knows only of elders/bishops/pastors as a body of men, any of whom might be helped, especially those that labor hard in Word-ministry.
Tradition has created the office of ‘the pastor,’ and developed a whole theology and support system around it. The NT knows only of elders/pastors/bishops. If an assembly has 3 elders, then it has 3 pastors,
and it has 3 bishops. The assembly is free to evaluate — if they are financially able — as to how they can best maximize the elders’ gifts,
which can then be used to equip the saints for many other ministries. The NT assumes that elders are working men until they are freed in some way as the congregation discerns how to best use their resources. When you think about it, there is actually very little in the NT about elders — that is, compared to the inordinate emphasis people place on the
importance of traditional categories of church leadership. Consider the following brief thoughts: *the epistles were written to the bodies of saints
in a town or region, not to the leaders; *when discipline takes place in the body, leaders are never specifically addressed, but the ekklesia
(congregation) is — “take it to the ekklesia” (Mt.18), “when you are assembled in the Name…hand this man over to satan” (1 Cor.5), “if any one
is overtaken in a fault, you you are spiritual restore such a one” (Gal.6); *elders are not mentioned at all in Romans, 1 & 2 Cor., Gal., Col., 2
Thess., Philemon, 2 Tim., 2 Pet., and 1 Jn.; *in Hebrews 13:24, “Greet the leaders,” it sounds like they are not present, perhaps they were imprisoned; *in 1 Tim.5 the few verses on the support of elders are preceded by 13
verses about supporting widows; *in the NT Epistles the writers always address the assembly as a whole and never address the elders separately
about issues that must be dealt with (the sections about the qualifications and support of elders are given to apostolic assistants; Peter addresses the
elders directly about their responsibilities); *viewing the ekklesia as spiritual ‘family’ seems to be a springboard perspective for everything — elders (Greek, ‘presbuteroi’) are simply older, mature men of wisdom in the family of Christ who are viewed as ‘fathers,’ and there are also older women (Greek, ‘presbidas’) who are viewed as ‘mothers’; *you don’t have ‘offices’ that are filled in a family, instead you have loving functions worked out among the members. Thus, the following sentiment expressed by David McKenna — which reflects the common practice of American churches — is opposed to everything taught in the NT about the ekklesia:
“[The pastor] is like the cerebellum, the center for communicating messages, coordinating functions, and conducting responses between the head and
body….The pastor is not only the authoritative communicator of the truth from the Head to the body, but he is also the accurate communicator of the needs from the Body to the Head” (“The Ministry’s Gordian Knot,” Leadership,
Winter, 1980, pp.50-51).
This sounds more like a Roman Catholic view, and it certainly reflects no concern for what God’s Word teaches about how the Body of Christ is to
function. With such a view you would think that the NT should have been written to ‘the pastor’ of each church, but it wasn’t — it was written to
the saints who as a family were responsible to administer the keys of the kingdom and carry out the will of Christ. Much more could be said, but the above communicates a number of important,
basic concepts.
Jon