Tentmaking Ministry in the 21st Century

(Thoughts on Full-Time Vocational Ministry versus Bi-Vocational Ministry)

When I was in high school, my plan was to head towards the Georgia Institute of Technology so that I could become an engineer. My senior year of high school the Lord changed everything. He called me to preach at the beginning of that year. I walked away from my “dream” of being an engineer to obey the Holy Spirit. Instead of pursuing engineering, I made a radical break: I majored in Bible and minored in Greek. My father advised me to consider getting a minor in business so that I would have something to fall back on just in case things did not work out well in ministry. As a “wise” eighteen-year-old, I decided such a decision would show a “lack of faith” in my obedience to God’s call on my life.

I do not regret my decision, but my dad’s advice was wiser than I thought at the time. Through twenty-six years since graduating from seminary, the Lord graciously provided for me (and my family) in ways I never envisioned as a young man. Ironically, for the last thirteen years, while working for an oil distributor and pastoring a church, my secular title is “Sales and Application Engineer.” I am an ‘engineer,’ after all!

Since seminary, through ministry in four different churches, I’ve only been in full-time ministry for nine of twenty-six years (34% of the time). My training was for full-time ministry only. Almost all ministerial students in a major Christian college receive this kind of training. I don’t remember the term “bi-vocational” being entertained or discussed in six years of college and graduate school. I came away from my training with the attitude that anything less than full-time ministry was somehow something “less than” the real thing.

My grandfather actually served as a bi-vocational minister most of his life, before “bi-vocational” was a thing — he just did it, regardless of what it was called. I always thought a bi-vocational ministry was something I would never do. It might be something my grandfather had to do, but he didn’t have the opportunity to have the depth or length of training that I received to minister the Word. In my eyes, men with “lesser training” would (of course) have “lesser opportunity.” I doubt that I would have ever said that out loud, but it was wrong thinking — very wrong thinking. (And let me say that I love and admire my grandfather for his faithful ministry!)

The fact is, prior to the 1960’s in America, most of the ministers in this country were bi-vocational. In fact, many small, rural churches didn’t even meet every Sunday (they might meet on the first and third or the second and fourth Sundays — my grandfather’s first two churches in the 1950’s were such). With the growing wealth of World War II veterans, churches began to have enough money for “full-time” vocational ministers. Full-time ministers were a luxury of the “big-city churches” prior to this time, but those men were in the minority.

In this study, the question before us is simply this: “What is the biblical model for vocational ministry?” We live in a day of declining churches across America. MOST churches are closing or shrinking in attendance for a variety of reasons. The notoriety and prominence of the megachurch movement in the public mind might make you miss this fact. Megachurches are the minority in number of churches — not the majority. Answering this question about vocational ministry is not some strange, far-away kind of thing; this question is at the bottom of the future of American ministry. Not only does this question affect local American churches, it also will greatly influence the ability of American churches to support foreign missions. Unfortunately, if a church begins to run out of money to pay their full-time pastor, the first category to be “laid off from employment” in the church budget is often the missions’ fund.

1 Corinthians 9:4-14

The New Testament is actually very clear on the question of whether the church should pay the preacher or not. The short answer: they should. Paul asserts two “rights” (exousia) which both have to do with the minister’s physical needs (v. 4: food and drink) as well as his other earthly needs (v. 6: a salary of some sort). Paul himself received multiple “support offerings” from Philippi (2 Corinthians 11:9 and Philippians 4:14-19) while he was in Thessalonica, Corinth, and imprisoned at Rome. It is the right of the New Testament minister to get paid: (v. 14) “even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.”

Paul uses four “points of argument” to support his conclusion:

The Secular Example (v. 7)

His questions are rhetorical in nature and involve two occupations: the soldier and the farmer.

Soldier: Who in their right mind would risk his life in a war to fight while paying for everything that he needs to be a full-time soldier himself? In fact, if this were the case, how many men could afford to fight in a war? The armies of the earth would be relatively small and impotent if only the monetarily self-sufficient of this world did all the fighting. Paul actually stresses this “full-time soldier” concept in 2 Timothy 2:4 to Timothy: “no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life.” When was the last time you saw video footage from World War II showing the soldiers were busy making clocks or selling cotton candy on the battlefield? Soldiers are completely dependent on their government to supply all their basic needs. As with the soldier, so it should be with the gospel minister.

Farmer: Whether it is a grape grower or a goat herder, why would anyone spend all their hard labor on such things, and never eat a grape or have a glass of goat’s milk? It’s insane to think that a man would endure the heat by day or the cold by night to make something succeed, and then never use any of the benefits that he himself helped to create. As farmers make their living by the things that they farm, so it should be with the gospel minister.

Scriptural Teaching (vv. 8-10)

Apart from the Holy Spirit, who would have ever applied Deuteronomy 25:4 to the ministry? It is a short verse tucked between a commandment never to inflict punishment on a man greater than forty stripes, on the one hand, and something we refer to as the Levirate marriage clause on the other. The point is simply this: if God cares about oxen, how much more does He care about His providentially-chosen ministers? The Israelites were to allow the ox to “have a snack” on what he was producing when threshing the wheat (just as every cook has the right to “taste test” what he is cooking). The apostle gives us the Holy Spirit intended meaning of the passage: God’s man should get to eat from his gospel work. The word “hope” occurs three times in verse 10. This word in the Bible refers to something that is a “confident expectation.” In other words, a minister should confidently expect that when he “plows” or “threshes” (does God’s work in ministry), he will receive compensation for his work.

The Greater To the Lesser (v. 11)

Paul often uses this kind of argument, and his logic works here as well. Which of the two of these things is the greatest: the gospel or money? One produces eternal results while the other can only meet a temporary need. Only the Lord Himself can truly repay the great value a preacher sows into the lives of his congregation in that great day when He rewards His servants. No congregation can give the man of God what He truly deserves in return for when he faithfully “labours in the word and doctrine” (1 Timothy 5:17). Nevertheless, shouldn’t the people of the church pay the preacher the “carnal things” (earthly things) for his ministry of the “spiritual things?”

Scriptural Example (v. 13)

The Old Testament priests made their living only one way: the gifts and offerings brought to the Lord at the Tabernacle/Temple by God’s people. This idea of the people of God paying their ministers is not new — it is actually very old. God’s economy for providing for His ministry (not just the ministers but also the entire ministry itself) has always been through His people as a rule.

God’s Norm: Pay the Preacher

Those four strong arguments make it clear that God expects His people to pay His preachers, and commentators devote a great deal of ink to make this point for one reason: people are often very much attached to “their money”.

John Phillips relates a story from his early days in ministry (Exploring 1 Corinthians, pp. 188-89):

“I remember many years ago driving up to our local church in a new car. I had only recently joined the staff of Moody Bible Institute. The pay was very meager in those days and I and my family knew what it was like to pinch and scrape to make ends meet. The car I drove that Sunday morning was not a flashy car. Indeed, it was a very modest car — no power brakes, no power steering, no automatic transmission, no air conditioning — but it was new. The car had been provided for me by a relative, but nobody knew that. As I was getting out of the car a young man came over. He looked at the new car. He looked at me. He said, ‘It must pay to be in the Lord’s work.’ The jibe stung me. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it does. However, please remember, there’s not one penny of your money in that car.’ The young man had never contributed a penny toward my support, and never did. Yet he felt he had the right to make the critical remark he did. Others have made similar comments over the years, and I have learned it’s best to ignore them. Equally provoking are those who live high, wide, and handsome themselves but who expect the Lord’s servants to be kept poor and to be satisfied with secondhand, worn- out cars and cast-off clothing. They would muzzle the ox that treads out the corn. The Holy Spirit wants no part of such discrimination and mean-spiritedness.”

A parallel passage that attests to this truth of “pay the preacher full-time” is found in 1 Timothy 5:17-18 where Paul once again quotes as his proof texts the ox passage (Deuteronomy 25:4) and then quotes Jesus verbatim from Luke 10:7 “the labourer is worthy of his reward.” The command in these verses is to give “double honor” to those ministers who fulfill their ministry well.

The verb “honor” is much more than simply calling a man by some title or even submitting to his leadership. This verb is used only 14 verses earlier (v. 3) to refer to giving monetary support to “those that are widows indeed.” Honor includes money, and that’s why we still call a check written to a visiting preacher an “honorarium.”

The teaching of the New Testament leads us to conclude that the church should pay the preacher full-time, but in our next passage we will see Paul absolutely upset that apple cart.

1 Corinthians 9:12, 15-18

When it came to receiving pay from the churches Paul served, he taught one thing and did another. This is not hypocrisy! Actually, his motive was love. He insisted that all gospel ministers (including himself) have the right to get paid full time, but then he claimed the prerogative to set his right aside if he so choose for the sake of “the gospel of Christ” (v. 12).

“But Paul, why would you do this for free?” Let’s discuss two reasons:

The No Hindrance Principle (v. 12)

Paul makes it clear that “we have not used this power (right)” of getting paid full-time for gospel ministry. The “we” refers to Barnabas and himself (v. 6), both of whom served the Lord as missionaries. Why did these men choose to be bi-vocational? We find the answer in one verb in the negative: “not hinder.” To hinder something means to halt its progress, to slow it down, or to keep it from reaching its destination.

If Paul received full-time pay from the church at Corinth, what would he hinder? What about the many other places where he used his skills as a tent maker, what would Paul hinder there? The answer: taking pay could hinder gospel. How is that possible? I would have thought that tent making actually would hinder the gospel ministry, taking time away from preaching for his work on tents. Now it is time for us to think biblically. Time is not a hindrance to God. If He can make a boat immediately jump to land from the middle of a lake when the rowers have spent hours getting nowhere all night (see John 6:21), or He can make the sun stand still in the sky for a whole day so that His people could finish conquering their enemies (see Joshua 10:12-13), or He can bring in a boat full of fish with one cast of the net for professional fishermen who spent an entire night working hard and catching nothing (see Luke 5:4-10), then surely the God who created time itself finds no hindrance from time. God can give a bi-vocational minister what he needs in order to accomplish the ministry that God has called him to do fully knowing that this man will have much less time than a minister who is paid full-time.

Remember that Paul spent most of his ministry in missionary work: church planting. It is a rare occasion when an “infant” church is immediately able to come to the place where it can financially support a full-time salary for a minister. New converts must first learn the biblical model of giving before the church can even begin to see where it stands financially. It is no surprise that Paul expected no pay from the Corinthian church he founded. “Preach for free” was Paul’s usual motto when he went to a new town as a missionary often so that he was not a hindrance to gospel progress in that place. Pastors of new churches likewise need some means of support while the local church starts and matures.

Leaving aside the church-planting situation, we find long established churches where full ministerial support no longer is an option. For various reasons, finances are such as to prevent the church from fulfilling these obligations. In fact, attempting to do so would itself become a hindrance to the gospel. Let me suggest some ways this can be so:

1) A church that cannot pay its mortgage, rent, or utility bill on time because almost every penny it gets is going to the minister’s full-time salary can hinder the gospel if it defaults on its existing financial obligations.

2) A church that cannot financially take care of its building and grounds, allows them to look old, outdated, or fall into disrepair can hinder its testimony to an on-looking world.

3) A church that spends the majority of its budget on the preacher and very little (if any at all) of its budget on fulfilling commitments already made to its missionaries can hinder the gospel going “into all the world.”

4) When the world sees ministerial support as the focus of a local ministry, and thinks that a minister serves for the sake of “filthy lucre,” the gospel is hindered. The Bible implies that apparently many a minister will indeed serve this way: 1 Timothy 3:3 & 1 Peter 5:2. Bi-vocational ministry removes such a hindrance almost automatically.

Simply put a church that cannot afford to pay a full-time preacher and yet attempts to do so hinders its gospel ministry. Paul understood this, and chose not to use his right for this very reason.

It Is More Blessed To Give (vv. 15-18)

Most Christians have heard these words and can even finish the verse: “than to receive.” However, can you tell me the context of those words where Paul quotes Jesus? The context is Paul’s bi-vocational ministry. He is speaking to the Ephesian pastors (where he had ministered earlier on this third missionary journey for three years planting their church) in Acts 20:33-35: “I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel.” As if to prove to them and anyone else that he was not in the ministry for the money, he continues: “Yea, yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have shewed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.” I assume that Paul had little (if any) money to contribute to the Lord’s work, but that did not mean he could not give. Paul gave by giving his gospel ministry away (v. 18) “without charge.” This bi-vocational thing was his love offering to Jesus and God’s people.

It took me years to learn this biblical principle: don’t take someone’s “blessing” away when they want to give you something. It’s not them giving it to you anyway — it’s the Lord. Let Paul explain (v. 15): “It were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void” (take away his blessing of giving). If you can do it and God tells you to do it, preach for free preacher! God has a reward waiting for you that is way better than anything people can pay you down here. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

The last thing we want to think about: when is it right to transition from bi-vocational to full-time ministry?

Acts 18:1-5

When should the preacher quit his secular job? The answer to this question is simple, but the application is probably never the same in any given situation. We will start with the answer: when there is enough money in the church budget for it.

Paul began his 1½-year ministry at Corinth planting this church bi-vocationally. His missionary team probably “pooled” their financial resources. Paul initially began ministry in Corinth alone, and later Silas and Timothy joined him. There is a variant reading at verse 5 in the Greek texts. The KJV translates this variant, “Paul was pressed in the spirit.” The NASV translates the variant as “Paul began devoting himself completely to the word.” The only question is whether the text reads “spirit” or “word.” Consider what happened when Silas and Timothy arrived from Philippi and Thessalonica respectively:

2 Corinthians 11:8-9: I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service. And when I was present with you, and wanted [did not have enough money] I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia [Silas and Timothy] supplied.

Where did the “love offering” Paul of Acts 18:5 came from?

Philippians 4:15-16: Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated [sent a love offering] with me as concerning giving and receiving but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity.

The biblical evidence backs the reading of the NASV. Paul operated completely bi-vocationally until Silas and Timothy arrived with what must have been a substantial love offering from the Philippian church that (at least for a time) allowed him to begin “devoting himself completely to the word” (interpretation: Paul went full-time in ministry). What was the trigger? God sent the money. If the money was not there, Paul’s solution was simple: bi-vocational ministry. The principle we operate under today: if the money is there, go full-time in ministry.

John Phillips again (Exploring 1 Corinthians, pp. 186-87):

“There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods of support in the Lord’s work. For a number of years I supported myself in the ministry as an accountant for a large lumber company in Canada, while seeking to establish a church in what, in those days, was a remote frontier town. One advantage was that I was able to meet all kinds of people on their own level, as a fellow businessman. It provided many opportunities for making contacts and witnessing. Also, the church was in its infancy, was made up of poor people mostly, and could not afford to pay a pastor. The drawback was that a considerable amount of my time was committed to the company I worked for. Sermon preparation, visitation, supervision, and the scores of other things that needed attention had to be crowded into what time was left — sometimes my family had to suffer as a result. For many years now I have been supported in the ministry. What a blessing that has been! I’m sure, for one thing, none of my books would ever have been written had not the Lord opened the way for me to devote many hours a day to the systematic study of His Word. Both methods of support were appropriate in their proper time and place. And so Paul felt.”

Churches should pay the preacher as well as they can. A church should pay the preacher full-time when it is finally able to do so financially, but that time may never come for some churches while that time may come quickly for others. A preacher of the gospel must be willing to give his ministry away free of charge if that is the calling God places on him at any given time or situation realizing that to do so will mean bi-vocational ministry for as long as the Lord wants him in this. In the end, God alone gets to be the one who chooses how he provides for His ministers. God can use Pharaoh (secular job) to provide for Joseph and his extended family if He wants to, or He can send a Lydia (full-time ministry support) to your church at any given time. Rather than being found as fighting against the Lord in your given circumstance, seek the Lord for what He is currently doing. Let God be in charge in your ministry — it’s His anyway, isn’t it?

The largest church that I have pastored so far (numerically speaking) in 26 years of ministry grew to be 120 people (I was full-time in that ministry). My bi-vocational grandfather pastored churches for a short time that grew to twice that size. Little is much when God is in it. My dad was right about preparing for whatever may come in the ministry. My middle son plans to be a missionary. He is currently at a Christian college, and his major is business marketing. We chose his major (after much counsel and prayer) specifically because bi-vocational ministry allows a man to be more flexible when needed. Paul had that “tent making thing” in his back pocket, and God used it. We are putting something in my son’s back pocket. He may or may not ever need to use his business major (dad is making him minor in Greek), and he plans on his getting ministry training after he has completed his four-year-degree.

I understand completely that there are plenty of places in the world and circumstances where a missionary or minister will not be able to work a secular job for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, in my estimation, every minister ought to have a secular trade in his back pocket, and that is what this study leads me to conclude. I am greatly concerned that we are training a generation of ministers in our Christian colleges that will not be ready for what I believe is coming next in America: a return to bi-vocational ministry as the norm in churches that hold to the Bible for their model of ministry. It will be a return out of financial necessity. The baby boomers are beginning to die off. Many churches are shrinking. Don’t you think we ought to be ready? I never did make it to Georgia Tech, but remember that you just finished reading an article from an engineer.

---

Steven Smallwood is the pastor of Hope Baptist Church in Winder, GA.