Paid Church Workers: Worthy of ‘Double Honour’?

This blog has bcame pretty crap lately, I know.

Forgive me.

I just can’t get everything right. Life — in a healthy sense — has consumed me lately with college, moving home, and now getting it ready for our baby girl.

Ironically, I’m like a coiled spring, ready to unload a heap of ideas and discussion topics. But they’ll just have to wait until I get a reasonable pattern back into my life in the coming weeks. Until then, it’ll just be a random blurb like this:

Fredrickson and Gibbs, and also, Scot McKnight (although I can’t remember where), all recently challenged me to think about the professional side of church life. I am beginning preliminary research on my final year dissertation this August and I am already thinking about including this topic with the overall church related heading (which I will discuss later).

So:

All three aforementioned sources make their point quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote during the Nazi era from a prison cell:

The church is only the church when it exists for others. To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men (sic) of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others (Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 1997, 1953:282)

Considering this, is their a case for paid church staff? Do you think Bonhoeffer is portraying a sound exegesis of 1 Tim 5:17-18?

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.

And, why do think scripture does not recommend that Apostles, Evangelists, and Prophets (Eph 4) get the same perks? (or maybe it does and I’ve missed it?)

Nski

Related posts:

1. More on Paid Church Staff
2. “Word Centered” Church
3. The Emerged Church?
4. Killing Me Softly
5. Post-Christendom Realities

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