“Charging for the Gospel”

Beloved, oh how we love our counterproductive extremes!  Rather than find the truth that lies most often in the middle, we seesaw back and forth from one excess to another, missing out entirely on the balance the Spirit is ever-faithful to reveal.  Perhaps this is nowhere so obvious as it relates to ‘charging’ for anything in connection to ministry services.  

Side A: 
Insists that a professional clergy class, separate and distinct from the common/lay practitioner, is a God-ordained necessity for the functioning of the church.  To justify their wage, they typically require advanced education, special anointing or spiritual powers, and a veneer of selflessness that makes those same laymen count their lucky stars that they aren’t called upon to suffer as a vicar of Christ.  

Side B: 
Its adherents are equally insistent in their belief — that the ministry of the gospel should never have a price tag.  To expect compensation or fiscal participation from others is seen as greed and tantamount to the ‘buying and selling of doves’ detailed in Mark 11.  

I respectfully submit that both of the views presented above miss the point entirely as to what the gospel — the Good News — actually is and how it is demonstrated.  ALL BELIEVERS are ministers (agents) of reconciliation, which is the Gospel!  If you’re a plumber, you minister the Gospel while repairing someone’s sink.  If you’re an attorney, you minister that same Good News when advocating the interests of your client.  

If we accept scripture and embrace the teaching it espouses that the new covenant is a priesthood of ALL believers, not just a special few, then all that we do is a form of ministry.  It’s our very identity.  We are incapable of separating ourselves from it! 

With this in mind, if compensation is deemed perfectly acceptable in one form of ‘ministry’, why then should it not equally apply to all?  If the store clerk, awakened to her in-Christ identity, accepts a wage amidst the love of God pouring out of her heart to all she meets in the course of her day, should that not be permissible to the conference speaker, author, teacher, publisher, or any other person using their skill sets in vocations suited to their unique strengths?  Why is it just to receive resources for your labor but greed for another to have that same expectation?

To be clear, as the apostle lays out in 1 Corinthians 9:16-18, there is no obligation of the one ‘ministering’ to expect compensation.  He or she is well within their rights to refuse payment; in the same way that you could turn down renumeration when you provide goods or services to another.  Charity and benevolence are always permissible!  Indeed, one of life’s greatest joys is giving of one’s time and talents freely to another.  

But it is this same Paul who tells us in Galatians 6:6 that the one who is taught should share all they have (or ‘are’) with the one who teaches.  

Let’s find the middle road of common sense found in some form of universal application: one who labors and defers support is well within their rights to do so…and so is the one who does not so defer.  


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1 Corinthians 9:16–18 (NRSV): 16 If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! 17 For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. 18 What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.  

Galatians 6:6 (NRSV): 6 Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. 

1 Timothy 5:17–18 (NRSV): 17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching; 18 for the scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves to be paid.”  

2 Corinthians 9:7 (NRSV): 7 Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  

Hebrews 13:16 (NRSV): 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

1 Peter 2:9 (NRSV): 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  

2 Corinthians 5:18–20 (NRSV): 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

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