When you first read this, you could think that Paul is upset because the church is refusing to support him, but that’s not what’s going on. Here’s what he is saying:
Paul knows that every minister has the right to be supported by the people that he/she ministers to. He gives several examples from every day life, and from the Bible to support his claim. However, he goes on to say that he isn’t interested in being paid…more than that, he is opposed to it. Paul only mentions a salary to remind the church that he has placed no burden on them. I think he is encouraging the people of the church to do likewise…maybe not using the salary issue, but in other ways. The Pharisees were guilty of placing heavy religious burdens on their new converts. They would say “now that you are a believer, you must comply with these regulations” …and they would drop a thick book of rules on them.
Paul doesn’t do that. He is giving the new church every opportunity to use their resources to grow stronger and deeper in their faith. He seems to be less concerned about small behavior problems than we are today. For instance, it was Paul who said “one man considers one day more holy than the others, another man considers every day the same”. (Romans 14:5) Perhaps Paul felt that the Sabbath was a Jewish regulation, it had value to Jews, but Gentiles weren’t obligated to follow it. Interesting, isn’t it?
I believe in the Sabbath, and in paying the preacher…. But Paul has a good point here. He says “do whatever you have to do in order to win people into the faith” In his mind, his refusal to demand a salary was helping the church to grow. What would help our churches to grow today? What form of “self denial” would create an atmosphere for growth in your local congregation? Is there anything that you could do that would open the door to new converts?
I suspect that there are many things that we “could” do, but we hesitate because of the social and traditional stigmas attached to them. I knew of a church once that was growing by leaps and bounds. They had a guy in a gorilla suit standing out on the freeway pointing into the church parking lot. That’s radical. You know what else is radical? They had more converts than any other church in North America. Real converts, people who genuinely turned their lives over to Jesus.
Maybe a gorilla suit isn’t what your church needs…but let’s be honest, in most cases what we are doing now has run it’s course, and we need to try something new.
Thinking aloud,
PR