PAYING PASTORS: PRINCIPLES FROM THE PENTATEUCH

From its earliest days, the Christian church has taken Old Testament teachings concerning the priests and Levites and applied them toward the way her ministers should be compensated for their work. While there is nothing wrong with this practice in general, we must always keep in mind that one should not expect direct, one-to-one correlation between the two different situations and dispensations. However, the principle may be the same in both. For example, consider the question of the priesthood.

Numbers 18:1-20

In these verses are enumerated all the things that the Aaronic priests are to receive for their role in representing the people to God. These included all or a portion of each required animal sacrifice, all of the first-fruits of the crops and animals, and the cash redemption price for the first-born child in each family.

While the Roman Catholic Church takes the OT priesthood as a direct model for their own priesthood, that is not at all the practice in the Protestant churches. The reasoning is quite clear. In the New Testament, we learn that all Christians are “a nation of priests” (I Peter 2:9) There is no priesthood to stand between us and God. Instead, we each now have direct access to the very throne of God due to our status in Christ.

Thus, very few Protestant churches follow the practice of turning over all contributed money to the head pastor to do with as he or she pleases. However, it would certainly appear to be the case with some prosperity gospel megachurches where the “spiritual leader” lives a lavish lifestyle and even brags about it as a sign that God is pleased with him.

Numbers 18:21-32

In this passage we have the systematization of earlier instructions given in the Pentateuch relating to the Levites. However, as Wenham points out, “The assignment of the tithe to the tribe of Levi is something new.” He goes on to explain:

“The tithe is a payment in return for their service in the tent of meeting (21, 31), i.e. their work of dismantling, carrying and erecting the tabernacle. It is a recognition of the dangers inherent in their occupation: by dealing with such holy things they may be subject to divine judgment, and they protect the people from that risk (22-23).”

Such potential danger is demonstrated during the move of the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem when the cart it was on began to topple over and Uzzah stepped in to steady the ark. He was struck dead on the spot. (II Samuel 6:3-8).

And this danger inherent in being in the service of the Lord holds today as well. James 3:1 cautions not many people to be teachers since God will judge those people with greater strictness. It is a shame that more church teachers and preachers, myself included, have not seriously taken this warning to heart.

Wenham continues: “Finally, the tithe compensates the Levites for their lack of inheritance in the land: whereas the other tribes had large tracts of land assigned to them to settle in, the Levites were given only forty-eight villages, scattered throughout the land (24; 34:16-35:8; Jos. 13-21). But the Levites are to treat the tithes they receive just like a farmer's income: they are to give a tenth of their tithes to the priests, in fact the best part of the tithe must be passed on (29)...As this passage makes plain, these payments were an acknowledgment of the enormous importance of the ministry of the tribe of Levi.”

I know that many full-time ministers make it a practice of taking a tenth of the salary they get from the tithes and offerings of the congregation and giving it back to the church. I was even at one congregation where we figured that into our calculation as to how much salary to offer a prospective pastor.

Deuteronomy 14:28-29; 16:14

McConville finds it interesting that whereas Numbers 18 presents the tithe as a right to be given to the Levites, in the Deuteronomy passages above it is classed together with offerings given for charitable causes. I know that there are some congregations who begrudge their pastor a living wage and treat his salary more in the category of charity rather than something he has earned.

One notable case in the past was that of the Scottish preacher George MacDonald who had a very large family. His skinflint congregational leaders periodically lowered his salary more and more, but he never complained about this unfair treatment. His good influence ended up reaching much further than his small church because his writings were read by C.S. Lewis and had a profound effect on his subsequent career in the areas of apologetics and fictional writings.

Deuteronomy 25:4

Among the miscellaneous instructions given in Deut. 25 is this one stating, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” This obscure regulation is actually cited twice by Paul to demonstrate that those who labor in the ministry deserve to be paid a living wage.

In I Corinthians 9, Paul couples this OT law (in 9:3-12) with the example of the priest's wages in Deuteronomy 18 (9:13-14) to make his point. Evans and Novakovic cite this as an example of a form of rabbinic commentary called the practice of “constructing a father [i.e. principal rule]” from two different scriptural passages.

And Ciampa and Rosner add that “it is not merely a matter of acceding to an affirmation of Paul's apostolic authority on this subject, but rather of learning to understand how scriptural authority should inform our ethical understanding with respect to such issues.” We should be able to reach Paul's same conclusion either through reasoning from the lesser (ox) to greater (a servant of God), or by considering the general context of love in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 25:4 is also cited in I Timothy 5:18 where it is combined with Jesus' saying “The laborer is worthy of his hire” (Matthew 10:10 // Luke 10:7). This latter command is given to the apostles in the context of their going out two-by-two to preach the Gospel with only minimal provisions. They were to rely on the hospitality of others in each town.

Schnable explains that forgoing provisions made sense for short-term mission trips such as these. But that directive makes much less sense if applied to longer-term ministries.

Banks says concerning the I Timothy passage that Paul “does encourage those who consistently benefit spiritually from others' teaching ministry to share materially with them (Gal 6:6; cf. The analogy in Romans 15:27). This may well be the injunction in the Pastorals to give a 'double honor' (i.e., 'ample remuneration') to elders who do their work well, especially those who focus on teaching (I Tim 5:17). So while full-time employment by the local church of pastors, teachers, overseers, and so on, was not a feature of congregational life, some support for those who gave time and effort to serving others was appropriate. These people were not full-time professionals in the church but part-time servants of it who occasionally received, but did not necessarily depend on, reimbursement for their efforts.”

Ellis adds that “their ministry was a function of their spiritual gifts, and their support and leadership role was apparently unofficial and had no contractual character.”

Numbers 35:1-8

“Numbers 35 makes provisions for special cities in which the Levites will live, since the Levites have no tribal lands of their own (Num. 18:24).” (Olson)

This is another area where the rules governing how the Levites are to be treated may have had an influence on later church practices. I am talking specifically about the common practice among Protestant churches to provide a parsonage for their preachers. The IRS has even made special allowance for this practice so that this “perk” is not fully taxed as income.

Personal Experiences

I have served in a number of different churches over the years in various capacities as a volunteer. Here are a few random observations relating to the compensation of church workers.

My family attended a start-up congregation years ago which never had more than 20 adults in attendance on a given Sunday. We had no full-time pastor and so three of us men took turns preaching and officiating at weekly communion service. What little money we received went towards our rented meeting place and for bringing in an outside speaker once a month from a neighboring Christian college. We did not at all begrudge paying that speaker since he was in full-time Christian service and could use the extra income. That was even though we three “deacons” devoted more time to the congregation that he did, and without any monetary compensation. The difference was that we all had well-paying outside jobs and did not mind exercising the spiritual gifts we had been given for the good of the church.

However, in two different, and much larger, churches I attended in later years, I ran into a situation that I felt was not at all appropriate. In both cases, I was involved in adult teaching ministries and had the opportunity to be in close contact with the full-time paid Adult Ministries Pastor at the time. My observation concerning two of them was that neither ever bothered to attend an adult Sunday school class or did anything to aid the teachers in doing their job except to occasionally urge us unpaid volunteers to add more duties to our teaching load. And what few initiatives they took were only new programs which relied totally on other people to actually man them. There is another scriptural injunction that I felt should apply in those cases even though it seems a bit harsh: “Those who do not work should not eat.” (II Thessalonians 3:10)

One of those two churches had a Senior Pastor who at one point requested that his duties be limited to preaching one sermon on Sunday only, but at full pay. This was at a time period when they had already eliminated the positions of Pastoral Care Minister and Missions Minister as being unnecessary and not cost-effective. It is no surprise that one of the elders of that church referred to the members of the congregation as “giving units.” Serving the needs of others in the congregation and supporting outreach ministries were obviously very low on the priority of those church leaders.