How Much Should Pastors Make?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | Well, how much should a pastor make?
00:00:07.000 | The pastor's salary is a question we get often.
00:00:10.000 | The topic is actually factored into at least three different episodes in the past that I can remember,
00:00:15.000 | back in APJ episodes 217, 472, and 912.
00:00:20.000 | But the pastor's salary was only a sub-theme in all three of those episodes.
00:00:25.000 | The time, I think, has come for a full episode to explore this question more fully,
00:00:29.000 | just because we get asked about it so often.
00:00:31.000 | And to get into that discussion, here's how a podcast listener named John asked the question.
00:00:36.000 | Recently, John lives in Los Angeles.
00:00:38.000 | Pastor John, hello to you and thank you for this podcast.
00:00:42.000 | What are some guidelines a church should set in place in order to compensate pastors?
00:00:46.000 | Could you address the meaning of double honor in 1 Timothy 5:17?
00:00:51.000 | And can you explain whether background, experience, and education should get factored into this decision, too?
00:00:57.000 | Thank you.
00:00:59.000 | This passage in 1 Timothy 5:17 is one of three crucial passages about how gospel ministers are to be supported.
00:01:10.000 | I think it would be good to get all three of them in front of us and then draw some lessons.
00:01:17.000 | So, let's start with Luke 10, 1-7.
00:01:22.000 | It goes like this.
00:01:24.000 | "After this, the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two,
00:01:31.000 | into every town and place where he himself was to go.
00:01:35.000 | 'Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.
00:01:40.000 | Carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.
00:01:47.000 | Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house.'
00:01:52.000 | And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him.
00:01:57.000 | But if not, it will return to you and remain in the same house eating and drinking.
00:02:02.000 | What they provide for the laborer deserves his wages."
00:02:09.000 | Now, that statement at the end there, "the laborer deserves his wages," in verse 7 of Luke 10,
00:02:18.000 | is quoted by Paul in 1 Timothy 5, 18 as a quote from Scripture.
00:02:27.000 | This is the only other place where this statement occurs in the Bible.
00:02:31.000 | There's something almost like it in Matthew 10, 10.
00:02:34.000 | So, it seems that Paul is already regarding the words of the Lord Jesus preserved by his physician, Luke,
00:02:43.000 | as part of Scripture.
00:02:46.000 | Now, I'll come back to that quote when we talk about 517, 1 Timothy 5, 17, in just a minute.
00:02:52.000 | But it's worth noting that even though we, the way we read the Bible, might just kind of fly by that statement
00:03:01.000 | when reading the Gospels, Paul did not fly by that statement.
00:03:06.000 | He took it as a principle that would apply to the elders of the church.
00:03:10.000 | "The laborer deserves his wages."
00:03:14.000 | Then I go to 1 Corinthians 9, starting at verse 6.
00:03:20.000 | "Is it only Barnabas and I," Paul says, "who have no right to refrain from working for a living?
00:03:29.000 | Who serves as a soldier at his own expense?
00:03:33.000 | Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit?
00:03:38.000 | Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?
00:03:42.000 | I say these things on human authority.
00:03:45.000 | Does not the law say the same?
00:03:47.000 | For it is written," and then he's going to quote Deuteronomy 25, verse 4,
00:03:53.000 | "Is not it written in the law of Moses, 'You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain'?"
00:04:01.000 | Now, that same Old Testament quote is used in 1 Timothy 5, 17 for elders.
00:04:08.000 | Is it for oxen, then, that God is concerned?
00:04:12.000 | Does he not certainly speak for our sake?
00:04:16.000 | It was written for our sake because the plowman should plow in hope
00:04:22.000 | and the harvester thresh in hope of sharing the crop.
00:04:26.000 | If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much to reap material things from you?
00:04:33.000 | If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?
00:04:38.000 | Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple?
00:04:45.000 | And those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings in the same way?
00:04:51.000 | Now, here's the amazing statement.
00:04:53.000 | "In the same way," he says, verse 14,
00:04:57.000 | "the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel."
00:05:05.000 | Wow.
00:05:06.000 | Now, that's amazing.
00:05:07.000 | It's a strong statement that tent-making pastors,
00:05:12.000 | pastors who have to work other money-making jobs in order to be a pastor,
00:05:18.000 | should be the exception, not the rule.
00:05:22.000 | Jesus said that it should be normal for those who devote full time to gospel ministry
00:05:30.000 | to be paid full time for gospel ministry.
00:05:33.000 | It's a biblical principle.
00:05:34.000 | In fact, in this text, it's more than a principle.
00:05:38.000 | It's a command.
00:05:39.000 | The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.
00:05:47.000 | Now, that's the second text.
00:05:50.000 | So, 1 Luke and 1 Corinthians 9, and now 3 Timothy 5, 17.
00:05:57.000 | "Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor,
00:06:02.000 | especially those who labor in preaching and teaching."
00:06:07.000 | Now, why do I think "double honor" refers here to financial remuneration, which I do?
00:06:17.000 | There are two reasons.
00:06:19.000 | One is that just before this verse, Paul has been talking about honoring widows.
00:06:28.000 | So, honor widows, and now he says double honor to the elders.
00:06:32.000 | Verse 3, "Honor widows who are real widows."
00:06:36.000 | Then the whole context from verses 3 to verse 16 of chapter 5 in 1 Timothy
00:06:42.000 | talk about financial care of widows.
00:06:46.000 | That's the form that the honors should take.
00:06:51.000 | He's talking about widows who don't have families.
00:06:53.000 | That's what he means about real widows.
00:06:55.000 | They don't have any families to take care of them.
00:06:57.000 | They're going to be destitute if we don't step up.
00:07:00.000 | So, there's good reason to think that when Paul says, "Now, if that's the way you honor
00:07:08.000 | and take care of your widows financially, do the same, even more, doubly more for the pastors."
00:07:18.000 | Now, the other reason I think verse 17 is dealing with the pastors' pay is that the next verse,
00:07:25.000 | verse 18, begins with "for," which means it gives a reason or a ground for giving double honor to pastors.
00:07:33.000 | Here's what it says, "For," the Scripture says, "you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain
00:07:41.000 | and the laborer deserves his wages."
00:07:45.000 | So, Paul grounds his concern for paying pastors with double honor by quoting Deuteronomy 24.5
00:07:56.000 | and Luke 10.7, calling them both Scripture.
00:08:00.000 | And both are clearly relating to the physical needs of the pastor.
00:08:07.000 | Now, it might mean that pastors should be paid twice what the widows received as their
00:08:16.000 | stipend from the church in the order of widows that Paul had been talking about in the preceding verses.
00:08:25.000 | I doubt it.
00:08:27.000 | The term "double honor" in verse 17 probably doesn't mean something that precise because
00:08:35.000 | there's no reference to a specific stipend for widows.
00:08:40.000 | We don't know how the widows were cared for.
00:08:45.000 | They just were. Their needs were met.
00:08:47.000 | They had to be honored. They should be honored by their needs being met in the absence of a family.
00:08:54.000 | So, I would say verse 17, "Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double
00:09:01.000 | honor," especially those who labor in preaching and teaching, probably means be doubly sure
00:09:10.000 | that the elders are honored and are paid enough to meet their needs like the widows.
00:09:18.000 | And the fact that he says, "especially those who labor in preaching and teaching," probably
00:09:26.000 | implies that with the word "labor," that this is their job.
00:09:31.000 | They are giving themselves to the flock, and the flock should take care of them financially
00:09:38.000 | with a double sense of duty that they feel for the widows.
00:09:43.000 | Not that the elders are more valuable as human beings than the widows, but that along with
00:09:53.000 | the value of the person, there's the huge value of the ministry of the word, labor in
00:10:01.000 | preaching and teaching, on which the whole life of the community rests.
00:10:07.000 | So, my counsel to churches would be that the basic principle for pastoral remuneration
00:10:17.000 | would be something like this.
00:10:20.000 | Let it be a reflection of the honor you put on the ministry of the word of God, and let
00:10:29.000 | it be a commitment to lift financial burdens from the pastor so that he can give himself
00:10:37.000 | totally to prayer and to the word and to the flock.
00:10:43.000 | And if it comes to mind that we need to safeguard against a pastor's greed, the answer to that
00:10:53.000 | concern is that it should have been taken care of when the church assessed the elders
00:11:01.000 | or the pastor's fitness for the office at the very beginning, because 1 Timothy 3:3
00:11:07.000 | says an overseer must not be a lover of money.
00:11:14.000 | You don't even hire somebody who looks like he might be in it for the money.
00:11:20.000 | So, the summary then is, don't call a pastor who's trying to get rich, and don't be a church
00:11:30.000 | that's trying to keep him poor.
00:11:33.000 | Yeah, very clear paradigm spoken from a lot of experience.
00:11:36.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for joining us today.
00:11:39.000 | If you want to ask Pastor John, email us your question by going to askpastorjohn.com.
00:11:47.000 | We're gearing up for a big week on the podcast.
00:11:50.000 | Two hot topics next week, both related and both very relevant to this season of church life.
00:11:55.000 | Monday, we look at the sick love of controversy, the unhealthy craving for controversy, as
00:12:02.000 | Paul calls it in 1 Timothy 6:4.
00:12:05.000 | What does a sick love of controversy look like?
00:12:08.000 | And then Thursday, we talk about how to speak to cultural sins or to not speak to them.
00:12:13.000 | As Paul tells us, there are some things that are simply too wicked, too shameful even to speak of.
00:12:19.000 | He says that in Ephesians 5:12.
00:12:21.000 | So, what cultural sins should we not even talk about?
00:12:25.000 | What does Paul mean here, and why does it matter for us today?
00:12:29.000 | Two great questions from you all on the table next week.
00:12:32.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:12:34.000 | We'll see you on Monday.
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