The Wages of God’s Servants Serving in His Sanctuary: The Business of Christian Education CX

⁸ Then the Lord spoke to Aaron, “Behold, I have given you charge of the contributions made to me, all the consecrated things of the people of Israel. I have given them to you as a portion and to your sons as a perpetual due. ⁹ This shall be yours of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every offering of theirs, every grain offering of theirs and every sin offering of theirs and every guilt offering of theirs, which they render to me, shall be most holy to you and to your sons. ¹⁰ In a most holy place shall you eat it. Every male may eat it; it is holy to you. ¹¹ This also is yours: the contribution of their gift, all the wave offerings of the people of Israel. I have given them to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. ¹² All the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the grain, the firstfruits of what they give to the Lord, I give to you. ¹³ The first ripe fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. ¹⁴ Every devoted thing in Israel shall be yours. ¹⁵ Everything that opens the womb of all flesh, whether man or beast, which they offer to the Lord, shall be yours. Nevertheless, the firstborn of man you shall redeem, and the firstborn of unclean animals you shall redeem. ¹⁶ And their redemption price (at a month old you shall redeem them) you shall fix at five shekels in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs. ¹⁷ But the firstborn of a cow, or the firstborn of a sheep, or the firstborn of a goat, you shall not redeem; they are holy. You shall sprinkle their blood on the altar and shall burn their fat as a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. ¹⁸ But their flesh shall be yours, as the breast that is waved and as the right thigh are yours. ¹⁹ All the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you.” ²⁰ And the Lord said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.

²¹ “To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting, ²² so that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting, lest they bear sin and die. ²³ But the Levites shall do the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, and among the people of Israel they shall have no inheritance. ²⁴ For the tithe of the people of Israel, which they present as a contribution to the Lord, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no inheritance among the people of Israel.”

²⁵ And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁶ “Moreover, you shall speak and say to the Levites, ‘When you take from the people of Israel the tithe that I have given you from them for your inheritance, then you shall present a contribution from it to the Lord, a tithe of the tithe. ²⁷ And your contribution shall be counted to you as though it were the grain of the threshing floor, and as the fullness of the winepress. ²⁸ So you shall also present a contribution to the Lord from all your tithes, which you receive from the people of Israel. And from it you shall give the Lord’s contribution to Aaron the priest. ²⁹ Out of all the gifts to you, you shall present every contribution due to the Lord; from each its best part is to be dedicated.’ ³⁰ Therefore you shall say to them, ‘When you have offered from it the best of it, then the rest shall be counted to the Levites as produce of the threshing floor, and as produce of the winepress. ³¹ And you may eat it in any place, you and your households, for it is your reward in return for your service in the tent of meeting. ³² And you shall bear no sin by reason of it, when you have contributed the best of it. But you shall not profane the holy things of the people of Israel, lest you die.’ ”

Numbers 18:8-32

Here in the passage we read above, the Lord orders how the life of his servants who work in His temple is to be preserved.  There are two groups in this passage that receive such special arrangement as described in the passage.  The first one is the Priests.  The second one is the Levites.  This passage begins with the Priests of the Lord.  The High Priest and his descendants.  For the priests, the Lord orders that they shall have no inheritance in the Promised Land.  While all the other tribes of Israel receive inheritance of land as divided by Moses and distributed by Joshua according to the command of the Lord, the children of Levi do not receive any land.  The Lord is their inheritance.  The priests of the Lord are from the tribe of Levi, and they are consecrated by the Lord to serve Him in His holy temple.  The priests in particular is chosen by God from Aaron down to his descendants.  So Aaron and his descendants, out of all sons of Levi, are specifically chosen to rule the life of the people of Israel through the religious Law as established by God.  And their inheritance is not a piece of land, but the Lord himself. 
The text says:

²⁰ And the Lord said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.

But God is not the God who oppresses his servants.  Without land it would be difficult for them to survive the daily need of life.  Without land, they would not be able to plant, to keep flocks, to trade, and without those things, in the agricultural era, it would be a death sentence.  So God provides them another means to support their life.  This special means is comparable to the special task God requires of them.  Their entire life is to be dedicated to the Lord.  From their childhood, they are to be trained to become priests of God.  Their knowledge and skills are all honed for the understanding of God’s Law, for serving God in the temple as prescribed in the Law of Moses.  Day and night they are to attend God’s temple.  They have no time to plant, no time to harvest, no time to sell, and no time to do anything else like all the other people.  So God, who is just, makes a different arrangement for them.  God, who is compassionate and full of love, designs a way to support their life.

            All contributions that they Lord requires of all other Israelites, all offerings, all firstfruits of everything, are given by God to the priests.  The Lord himself says:

“Behold, I have given you charge of the contributions made to me, all the consecrated things of the people of Israel. I have given them to you as a portion and to your sons as a perpetual due. ⁹ This shall be yours of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every offering of theirs, every grain offering of theirs and every sin offering of theirs and every guilt offering of theirs, which they render to me, shall be most holy to you and to your sons. ¹⁰ In a most holy place shall you eat it. Every male may eat it; it is holy to you. ¹¹ This also is yours: the contribution of their gift, all the wave offerings of the people of Israel. I have given them to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. ¹² All the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the grain, the firstfruits of what they give to the Lord, I give to you. ¹³ The first ripe fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. ¹⁴ Every devoted thing in Israel shall be yours. ¹⁵ Everything that opens the womb of all flesh, whether man or beast, which they offer to the Lord, shall be yours. Nevertheless, the firstborn of man you shall redeem, and the firstborn of unclean animals you shall redeem. ¹⁶ And their redemption price (at a month old you shall redeem them) you shall fix at five shekels in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.

Those offerings belong to God in the first place.  It is God who requires them from all people.  And God decides to give it to his chosen servant, the priests.  In this way, God, the King, the Lord, the Master, sustains the life of his servants.  He requires them to focus serving Him day and night.  So He also provides comparable means to sustain their life.  God is not a cruel God.  He doesn’t then say to the priests that they ought to find their own way to sustain their own life while they are working so hard to serve Him in the temple.  No, that’s not what God arranges.  He knows the limitation of man, so he provides them abundantly.  God knows the fragility of man, so he gracefully supports his servants with a creative arrangement.  The kind of king that is cruel is Pharaoh.  Pharaoh enslaves people who owe him nothing.  When he forces Israel to work, he gives them nothing in return.  Pharaoh cares not for the wellbeing of the people of Israel.  Pharaoh doesn’t bother to sustain the life of his slaves.  But God plans every detail so that He may care for his servants.

            God orders for all the best kind to be offered to him.  No contaminated thing may be offered to the Lord.  No second grade thing may be given to the Lord.  No blemished thing may be brought to the presence of the Lord.  Bringing stained thing or broken thing to be offered to God is an insult, an act of dishonor, a disgrace.  No!  Everything must be pristine.  All that is offered to God must be the best of the best.  And these best of things God gives to the priests who work in His temple.  These best of things are meant to sustain the life of His servants.  His gifts to the priests are his creative arrangement so the priests may live, and may live in dignity.  In early Israel, it was the High Priest that wears a crown, not king.  Exodus 28:36 records:

³⁶ “You shall make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it, like the engraving of a signet, ‘Holy to the Lord.’ ³⁷ And you shall fasten it on the turban by a cord of blue. It shall be on the front of the turban. ³⁸ It shall be on Aaron’s forehead, and Aaron shall bear any guilt from the holy things that the people of Israel consecrate as their holy gifts. It shall regularly be on his forehead, that they may be accepted before the Lord.

And Exodus 39:30 says:

³⁰ They made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote on it an inscription, like the engraving of a signet, “Holy to the Lord.” ³¹ And they tied to it a cord of blue to fasten it on the turban above, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Leviticus 8:5-9 points out:

⁵ And Moses said to the congregation, “This is the thing that the Lord has commanded to be done.” ⁶ And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water. ⁷ And he put the coat on him and tied the sash around his waist and clothed him with the robe and put the ephod on him and tied the skillfully woven band of the ephod around him, binding it to him with the band. ⁸ And he placed the breastpiece on him, and in the breastpiece he put the Urim and the Thummim. ⁹ And he set the turban on his head, and on the turban, in front, he set the golden plate, the holy crown, as the Lord commanded Moses.

The dignity of priests is maintained by God.  The honor and splendor of priests are reflected in the priestly garment.  The gifts from the Lord, all the offerings God requires from all Israel, follow the status of the priests.  So, the gifts of God is not just utilitarian in nature, it is also endowed with honor and respect.  God’s priests are to be supported properly.  The arrangement God makes does not allow for them to live in poverty and beg for a living.  God is not Pharaoh.  He is not cruel.

            To the Levites, a similar arrangement is made by God to sustain their lives too.  All other people in the tribe of Levi are consecrated to the Lord to help the line of priests to serve the Lord in the temple.  They are not the priests.  They are the helpers of the priests.  But yet that doesn’t mean that God then doesn’t care about them.  God cares about them too.  And similar to the priests, the Levites too have no inheritance in Israel.  They own no piece of land.  The text says:

²¹ “To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting, ²² so that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting, lest they bear sin and die. ²³ But the Levites shall do the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, and among the people of Israel they shall have no inheritance. ²⁴ For the tithe of the people of Israel, which they present as a contribution to the Lord, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no inheritance among the people of Israel.”

Here for the Levites, God arranges yet another creative arrangement.  This time it is not the offerings of all Israel, but it is the tithe of all Israel.  As we know, tithe is 10% of all gain.  The most often quoted reference is when Abraham came back from defeating the kings that took Lot and his family captive, and then he met Melchizedek the King of Salem and Priest of God who blessed him.  Genesis 14:17-20:

¹⁷ After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). ¹⁸ And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) ¹⁹ And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; ²⁰ and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

Tithe serves as a sign of honor, a sign of respect, a tribute acknowledging the receiver’s worth that is above the giver.  God commands Moses that tithe belongs to the Lord.  Leviticus 27:30-33 is where it is recorded:

³⁰ “Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord.  ³¹ If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it. ³² And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord. ³³ One shall not differentiate between good or bad, neither shall he make a substitute for it; and if he does substitute for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.”

And this tithe is what is given by the Lord to the Levites for the purpose of sustaining their lives.  The Lord says that this tithe is the inheritance of the Levites.  It is given by God to be theirs.  Again, God is not Pharaoh.  Pharaoh is cruel.  He gives nothing in return of the service of Israel to Egypt.  Instead, Pharaoh oppresses Israel and destroys their life by depriving them of proper wages and dignity.  God, on the other hand, is merciful.  He is gracious.  He requires the Levites to work in the temple day and night, assisting the priests.  He requires the Levites to focus and dedicate their lives for serving God alone.  So they could not plant, could not trade, and they have no lands.  From the morning they wake up until the night they sleep, they work for the Lord.  Yet the Lord gives abundantly to them.  He recognizes their work.  He gives them abundant provision.  The same as with the priests, this arrangement is not only to sustain their daily life, but also to keep them dignified.

            To the Levites God orders that tithe of the tithe must be given as a contribution offering to the Lord.  This contribution offering The Lord also gives to the High Priest.  And so even the Levites must honor the priests of God.  Just like when Abraham gives a tenth to Melchizedek, so the Levites gives a tenth to the High Priest.  The text says:

‘When you take from the people of Israel the tithe that I have given you from them for your inheritance, then you shall present a contribution from it to the Lord, a tithe of the tithe. ²⁷ And your contribution shall be counted to you as though it were the grain of the threshing floor, and as the fullness of the winepress. ²⁸ So you shall also present a contribution to the Lord from all your tithes, which you receive from the people of Israel. And from it you shall give the Lord’s contribution to Aaron the priest. ²⁹ Out of all the gifts to you, you shall present every contribution due to the Lord; from each its best part is to be dedicated.’ ³⁰ Therefore you shall say to them, ‘When you have offered from it the best of it, then the rest shall be counted to the Levites as produce of the threshing floor, and as produce of the winepress. ³¹ And you may eat it in any place, you and your households, for it is your reward in return for your service in the tent of meeting.

            All Israel know where the best gifts go.  They go to the Lord.  And the Lord has distributed them to the priests and to the Levites.  This is how God honors his servants who work day and night in his house.  As the entire Israel honors God by their offerings and tithes, God honors the priests and the Levites by giving them the offerings and the tithes.  The God of all the world cares for the tiny detail like this.  A just and righteous God takes care of His servants who work in His house.

            Unfortunately, dear friends, our modern church today do not honor pastors and church workers the way God honors his priests and assistant priests.  Today a lot of churches all over the world do not take care of their pastors and church workers properly.  They work them day and night but supplying them with the lowest possible salaries.  Pastors and church workers work so hard.  They have abandoned all other possible venues they could take in order to serve the Lord in His house.  They understand their calling.  Not few of them were successful business people, talented artists, famous orators, important scientists, great scholars, but once they got the call from the Lord, they abandon all that for the sake of serving in God’s house.  Many of them were so talented in disciplines that would bring in fame and wealth.  But they consider those as not as important as serving in the house of the Lord.  No, they do not expect to be billionaires from being pastors or church workers.  All they ask for is for their daily lives to be taken care of.  They have resolved in their heart of hearts that they would devote their entire lives to the Lord, to the preaching and teaching of the word of God, to the working of the house of the Lord, to the running of the ministry of the kingdom of heaven.  They have no time to trade, to plant, to raise cattle, to open stores, to do anything else.  All they want to do and all they do is to dedicate their mind for the study of the word of God, the care of the parish, the running of the ministry, the working of the church, and all that.  But how can they dedicate their lives for the ministry in the house of the Lord if they have to worry about what to eat, how to pay the tuition of their kids, how to save for the future – for their retirement period or for their kids’ future etc.

            Yet they are still expected to give fresh insights in their preaching and teaching.  They are expected to upgrade and update themselves and to keep up with the development of technology, culture, and so on.  How can they do all that if they cannot even be secure of their basic needs?  Pastors often work like directors in big companies.  They even work harder than regular directors.  Yet if anything goes wrong, the pastors are the ones to blame.  The parish do not have any hesitation to curse down the pastor.  They won’t feel any remorse for humiliating the pastor in public.  In regular companies, who dares to insult the director?  Try it, and you would be laid off.  But pastors are often insulted.  They do the planning down to the detail and even the implementation.  And not rare they have to be the janitor of the church as well.  With such heavy job description, their salary is among the lowest.  It is not a rare sight to find pastors wearing the same shirt over and over.  It is not a rare sight to find pastors driving the worst of vehicles.  It is not a rare sight to find pastors wearing their 20 year old glasses that is broken on the frame here and there.  The question I want to give to you today: “How much do you provide support for your pastors and church workers?”  If you give low wage to your pastors, you must have given lower wage to your church workers.  Then the next question is: “Do you think the way you provide for your pastors and church workers is the way God wants you to do?”  You have just read and learned about the arrangement God makes for his priests and assistant priests.  What are you now going to do?  Ignore it or put it into practice?

            God has so ordered that the servants in His house be taken care of properly and with dignity.  They do not get the worst of the worst.  They ought not to get the leftover.  No, they ought to get the best of the best.  Now, if you have a factory, and you have a CEO, how much are you paying your CEO?  In average, CEOs got paid about 1 Million dollars a year.  This is ranging from small companies to big companies.  In big companies, CEOs may get 100 Million a year.  This is not to mention the bonuses they get.  The bonuses could be huge depending on the profit.  Now, would you pay your CEO with the pay of your pastors?  Why not?  Why do you value your CEO more than your pastor?  Because you think pastors only need to open their mouth and get paid?  Because you think that pastors work is easy so they should be paid minimum?  Think again!  If you think pastor’s work is easy, why don’t you try it in a month or so?  Try to do all you expect your pastor to do.  Then come back and say whether it is easy or not.

            Let me tell you something.  Pastor’s work is the most difficult of any leadership job any human being can take.  Business owners, try to assume the work as pastor.  Leave all the comfort of your home.  Leave all the comfort of your wealth and perks.  Just live like your poor pastor live.  Live in a small house of 100 m2, with standard electricity, with standard tap water, with standard everything.  Not enough money in your pocket.  And you still have to worry about providing healthy food for your family.  Imagine you have two young kids, one is an infant.  They need good nutritious food.  They need good pediatrician.  They need good clothes.  They need good schools too.  Perhaps one is in school now, and the other will need it in a few years.  Yet you look at your bank account, you find $500 in the savings.  And that’s about it.  You receive the average of $500 a month wage.  Your grocery bill is about $300 a month (the average middle class family with 2 kids would need around $1,000 a month for groceries), that’s with extremely tight budgeting method such as you buy only those reduced for quick sale.  Then you still have to buy gas.  Gas that you use to visit church members, when they are sick in the hospital, when they are sick at home, when they need your counseling, and so forth.  And that’s probably about $150 a month.  Oh, you wish you have reimbursement of the gas spent for work.  But no you won’t.  Remember that that’s how you pay your pastor.  Then you are expected to prepare sermons for the Sunday, for the Saturday in the fellowship group, Bible study on a different day, prayer meeting yet in a different day.  Now, you are looking for resources.  All you have is your old Bible, and old commentaries that you have had ever since you are in the seminary.  That’s all you can afford.  Oh you hope you have more commentaries, but they are expensive.  You only have $50 in your pocket.  A new commentary series is about $500.  You will have to save 10 months for it, yeah just for that.  Oh you wish your church gives book allowance, but only in your dream.  In the meantime, people start talking behind your back saying that your sermon is boring.  That you quote from the same commentaries all the time.  All the more stressful you are.  With that $50 in your pocket, you wonder whether you would survive the month.  You don’t dare to drive anymore because the car might stop in the middle of nowhere without gas.  Or should you buy gas with the $50 you have left?  You begin to think.  Of you remember that you still have to buy milk for your infant child.  But milk is not cheap either, isn’t it?  $3 a gallon.  How about family time?  Going out once in a while for anniversaries or birthdays.  Presents for your kids’ birthdays?  What presents?  With what money?  Oh the world starts spinning.  Can’t buy books to upgrade.  Can’t buy presents for birthdays.  Can’t save for vacation either.  $50 left for the month.  And by the end of the month, it might be gone already.  Or it might be the case that you would have to borrow money.  Perhaps from the wealthiest people in your church?  How can you pay back?  If you can’t pay back, people will talk behind your back saying that you are a thief.  You then talk to your wife that she needs to work in order to keep up with the need.  But when she works, people in the church gossip around and scorns your wife for working outside of church and not supporting her husband.  This is just a fraction of the craziness of the life of pastor, now, have you decided whether you want to be pastor?

            Of course not!  No wonder you would tell your children and grandchildren right away to stay away from that profession.  Brothers and sisters, you demand that your pastor must be excellent, must deliver the top notch sermon every Sunday, to give the best counseling ever, to provide the best leadership in the church, to supervise and oversee all ministries in the church, but why do you treat them as slave?  You do not provide them with what is proper.  You do not treat them with dignity.  Are you, council of the church, acting like God or like Pharaoh?  God is merciful.  He is gracious.  He takes care of his servants who work in His house.  He gives them the best of the best.  Do you not fear God?  If you demand top notch service from you pastor, now calculate.  How much do you pay your surgeon to operate on your heart?  Will you give him $6,000 operating you one time?  I suppose you won’t.  Good surgeon will charge you around $50,000 to operate your heart one time.  And yet you give your pastor $6,000 a year.  So if you don’t get excellent service from your pastor, why do you complain?  If you go to counselor, how much do you pay an hour?  In average, an hour you would have to pay $250 for a counseling session.  The more famous the counselor is, the more you will have to pay.  How much do you pay for bringing in a motivational speaker to motivate your workers in your companies?  In average you pay $1,000 for an hour of a motivational session for your company workers.  And for sure, the more famous the speaker, the more money you would spend.  Hillary Clinton charges $50,000 a session.  Bill Clinton charges $500,000 a session.  How much do you pay a pastor to preach a sermon in your church?  $100?  How much money do you give to your top director?  To supervise and oversee the running of your company?  In average, not fortune 500 companies, you probably would give $10,000 a month.  Yet for your pastor, you require him to do most of the things we list, except operating on your heart, but perhaps operating on your heart of hearts, and you pay them in average of $500 a month?  Some wealthier churches might pay $5,000 a month.  But even with that it is still quite low compared to the standard you would give to those professionals to do for you services you demand.  Because you want your pastor to do all those services, yet you pay them for just one service.  Now, compare that wage you set for your pastor with what is prescribed in the Holy Scripture, how much do you think you are lacking?  And no, I’m not writing this so you would give your pastors and church workers too much either.  It would weaken them.  But I’m writing this so you would consider very carefully what you would decide for them.  Lest you sin or perpetuate sin through this matter.  Give them their rights accordingly.  I believe they too pray what is prayed by Agur Bin Jakeh:

⁷ Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die:

⁸ Remove far from me falsehood and lying;

give me neither poverty nor riches;

feed me with the food that is needful for me,

⁹ lest I be full and deny you and say,

“Who is the Lord?”

or lest I be poor and steal

and profane the name of my God.

Proverbs 30:7-9

No, not too much, not too little, just enough.

            Take a look at one more Biblical text that speaks about this.  This time is the New Testament.  1 Corinthians 9:3-14 speaks:

³ This is my defense to those who would examine me. ⁴ Do we not have the right to eat and drink? ⁵ Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? ⁶ Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? ⁷ Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?

⁸ Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? ⁹ For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? ¹⁰ Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. ¹¹ If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? ¹² If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?

Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. ¹³ Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? ¹⁴ In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

In Paul’s defense of his apostleship and his rights, he mentions all these things.  Yes, the workers for the gospel have rights.  Pastors and church workers have rights, just like priests and Levites have rights.  When Paul quotes Moses talking about muzzling an ox, and quickly he says that he is not talking about oxen, Moses indeed is talking about God’s people.  If to animals we are obligated to be just, how much more are we supposed to be just toward fellow humans?  Many people would justify their stinginess by referring to Paul’s life.  But they are just doing it to cover their sins.  Besides, they deliberately ignore the part where Paul purposefully mentions that he is not using his rights.  Rights, yes rights!  Paul has rights, but he does not use it.  He does not use it doesn’t mean it ceases to become rights.  It is still his rights.  He is just not using it.  Paul is a special case.  The regular norm is for the workers to make use of their rights.  When it comes to rights, then the church has an obligation, a duty, a responsibility, to take care of the pastors and church workers.  It is so ordered by God Himself.  They should get their living by the gospel.  This is the normal regulation.  A special case like Paul cannot be generalized to become regular norm.  And for sure it cannot be exploited to keep pastors and church workers’ wages very very low.  Insisting on doing so would be evil.

            Now you know the truth.  Now you know that God honors those who work in His house.  Such service is a special kind of service.  These people abandon all other potential things they could do that might make them honored, famous, wealthy, so they could dedicate their lives to serve God in His house.  So that as members of the body of Christ, you could be benefited.  They do not have time to trade, to be property agent, to be business owner, to be manager of a finance company, to be doctors, to be lawyers, to be engineers, or to do anything else, all they do is dedicating their entire lives for the kingdom of God.  Just like priests and Levites, they do not own a piece of land like all their brother Isralites, but God has so arranged that they could live properly with dignity, so pastors and church workers too are to be supported properly by the church that they may live and have dignity.  Council of the church, do not abandon your pastor and church workers.  They are not your servants!  They are God’s servants.  It is not you that set their wages.  It is God himself.  They work for God.  You should fear God when you are entrusted with deciding how much salary you are to pay them.  You are His stewards.  If you don’t do what is right, God himself will hold you accountable.  This is a serious business.  Do not think that because of tradition that has been done for years you can excuse yourselves and hide behind it.  Excusing yourselves and continuing with allowing the oppression of pastors and church workers in that way would only make them bitter and tired.  Not only that, you would discourage a lot of potential people from the next generation from going into ministry.  Ministers will continue to be scarce.  And you will find it difficult to have excellent ministers to serve in your church.

Now you know.  Now you have an obligation to put your knowledge into practice.  Council of the church, if you have a budget of $5 million a year, would you pay your pastor $10,000 a year?  Don’t you think that you are supposed to give your pastor more than $10,000 a year?  I believe you know what is fair.  If it is too difficult, try to think it this way: try to imagine that you are the pastor and now you are given the authority to write down the pastor’s salary, what will it be?  Or imagine your son is the pastor, or your grandson that you love so much, what numbers would you write down?  When you imagine all that, imagine too that their life depends on the monthly paycheck you are going to decide.  Imagine that the paycheck from church is their only source of income.  Perhaps that might help you a bit.  For Jesus says that whatever you would want others do to you, you do it to others (cf. Matthew 7:12).  When you sit down together and starting to plan for the budget, what is it that you put in the first priority in your budget?  Is it the building of bricks and mortars?  Or is it the provision of God’s servants?  Dear church council, as you are now given the duty and authority to manage the wages of the pastors and church workers, remember the instruction of the Lord on this matter.  My hope is that you would do as God instructs his people.  May the Lord of all wisdom guide you through all this, and may God of mercy bless his servants through you, and that you also may be blessed in your work as church council and that may God also bless your life as His people.  Amen!