Last time, we observed that the New Testament draws two pictures about two kinds of ministers. One man goes out to reach people who do not yet know Christ. The other man, whom I’ll call a resident pastor, lives among a congregation of people who already do. He serves as an elder, sometimes called a bishop or overseer. These terms describe the role people today commonly call a pastor.
In this article, we’ll examine passages people often use to authorize paying resident pastors a regular salary. I want to make one point clear from the beginning: nobody has misunderstood what these verses say. Jesus and Paul both affirm the right of gospel workers to receive material support. The question is not what the verses mean. The question is who the verses describe.
Before we apply these passages to resident pastors, we should ask a simple question: Do the people in these passages belong to the same category as the resident pastor? Watch closely as we follow the context.
The relevant verses
These are the passages people think authorizes a regular salary for a resident pastor:
- Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. Do not carry any gold or silver or copper in your belts. Take no bag for the road, or second tunic, or sandals, or staff; for the worker is worthy of his provisions. (Mt 10:8-10 BSB)
- Or are Barnabas and I the only apostles who must work for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Who tends a flock and does not drink of its milk? Do I say this from a human perspective? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Isn’t He actually speaking on our behalf? Indeed, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they should also expect to share in the harvest. (1 Cor 9:6-10 BSB)
First, notice the right itself
Let me state this plainly: no one has misunderstood these verses. They say exactly what they appear to say. Jesus and Paul both teach that those who devote themselves to gospel work have a right to receive material support from that work. Jesus puts it simply: “the worker is worthy of his provisions” (Mt 10:10).
Paul builds an extended argument toward the same conclusion. He points to soldiers, vineyard keepers, shepherds, temple priests, and even an ox treading grain. He then summarizes his argument: “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel” (1 Cor 9:14). The right is real. Jesus says so. Paul says so. Nothing in this article challenges that conclusion.
But recognizing the right does not answer every question. We still need to ask whom these passages address. That question matters because context determines application.
Second, notice who the passages actually describe
This is where the discussion often stops too soon. People read, “the worker is worthy of his provisions,” or, “those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel,” and immediately apply those statements to resident pastors. But the context gives us more information.
Jesus sent the Twelve on a journey
Jesus did not speak Matthew 10 while describing the ministry of a pastor living among one congregation. He spoke these words while sending the Twelve out. The entire chapter assumes travel. Jesus tells them where to go. He tells them what not to carry. He tells them how to enter towns. He tells them to find worthy households. He tells them how to respond when people reject their message.
He specifically tells them not to carry money or provisions for the journey:
“Freely you have received; freely give. Do not carry any gold or silver or copper in your belts. Take no bag for the road, or second tunic, or sandals, or staff; for the worker is worthy of his provisions.”
Jesus describes men traveling from place to place and depending upon hospitality from the people they meet. In fact, they weren’t to carry money at all (Mt 10:9). The immediate context concerns the man who goes.
Paul frames his argument around himself and Barnabas
First Corinthians 9 gives us another important example. Before Paul mentions the ox, notice how he frames the discussion: “Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?” Paul does not ask whether elders deserve a salary. He does not discuss the financial arrangement of men who shepherd a local congregation. He discusses himself and Barnabas.
Paul and Barnabas traveled extensively as they proclaimed the gospel and established churches. Paul defends their right to receive support while doing that work. The illustrations that follow strengthen Paul’s argument. Soldiers do not pay their own expenses. Vineyard keepers eat from their vineyards. Shepherds drink from their flocks. An ox should be able to eat grain while it is working.
Paul draws all these examples toward one conclusion: workers should receive provision from the work to which they devote themselves. But we should not miss the people standing at the center of the argument. Paul asks, “Is it only Barnabas and I?” The context concerns traveling gospel workers. The same remains true when Paul reaches his conclusion in verse 14: “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.”
Paul develops this principle while defending the rights of himself and Barnabas as men engaged in traveling gospel ministry. That distinction is important.
Third, notice how support worked
The context also shows that traveling ministers did not depend upon one fixed arrangement. Sometimes those who heard the message provided support in the form of hospitality. In Matthew 10, Jesus instructed the Twelve to travel without money and provisions. They depended upon the hospitality of the households that received them. Their support took the form of food and lodging, not a regular salary. That arrangement fit the mission. They traveled from town to town. They did not settle permanently among the people who provided their provisions. However, it should be noted that this was an exceptional situation; not the New Testament norm (Lk 22:35-36).
Sometimes churches behind the traveling minister provided material support. The Philippians did this for Paul directly, sending aid more than once even while he ministered in Thessalonica (Phil 4:15–16). Paul describes the same pattern from the other side, telling the Corinthians that he drew support from other churches in order to serve them (2 Cor 11:8). In both cases, one church helped support work taking place somewhere else.
And sometimes Paul supported himself. Acts 18:2–3 shows Paul working alongside Aquila and Priscilla as a tentmaker.
The New Testament therefore shows flexibility in the support of traveling gospel workers. They could receive hospitality from those they served. Churches could help support their work elsewhere. And when support did not meet their needs, Paul worked with his own hands.
The important point here is not that the New Testament limits support to exactly three possible sources. The point is simpler. The New Testament describes several ways of supporting the man who goes. Those arrangements fit the realities of traveling ministry.
The distinction is not new
This observation is not unique to this series. J. Andrew Kirk made a similar argument in a 1973 article in The Expository Times. He argued that nearly every New Testament passage defending a right to material support concerns itinerant ministry, particularly Paul and his traveling companions, rather than resident local leadership.1 Kirk challenged the assumption that these passages automatically settled the question for every kind of minister.
The same assumption drives much of the modern discussion. But recognizing the context does not require us to deny the principle. Traveling gospel workers had a genuine right to material support. Jesus said so. Paul said so. So, can we simply take passages about traveling ministers and use them to establish a particular financial arrangement for resident pastors? No. That conclusion doesn’t follow from these texts. If it exists, it has to come from somewhere else.
The man who goes and the man who stays
Keep this distinction firmly in mind. The passages we have examined establish the right of traveling gospel workers to receive provision while they carry out their work. Jesus speaks to men he sends. Paul defends the rights of himself and Barnabas. The New Testament presents these men as people who went from place to place proclaiming the gospel. These passages concern the man who goes.
That observation does not prove that resident pastors have no right to support. Those questions require us to examine the passages that actually address resident elders. But we should not skip that step. Before using these texts to establish a financial arrangement for the man who stays, we should first ask whether these texts describe the man who stays. So far, they do not.
A word about labels
Paul was an apostle. Nowhere does he call himself an elder, a bishop, or a pastor of a local congregation. Peter, by contrast, addresses elders, the resident pastors of local congregations, as one of their own: “As a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings, and a partaker of the glory to be revealed, I appeal to the elders among you” (1 Pet 5:1).
People often treat “preacher,” “apostle,” “evangelist,” and “pastor” as interchangeable words for one job. The New Testament does not (Eph 4:11). The passages we have examined concern apostles and other men engaged in traveling gospel ministry. Not one of these passages describes a resident pastor carrying out his ordinary work among one congregation.
That does not settle the question of resident pastoral support. It only tells us these texts aren’t where the answer is found.
Assumptions about who and how
Let me make the argument as clear as possible. Nobody has misread these verses. “The worker is worthy of his provisions” means exactly what it says. “Those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel” means exactly what it says. Jesus and Paul plainly affirm the right of gospel workers to receive material support. The question is not whether the right exists. The question is whom these passages describe and how those ministers received support.
Matthew 10 describes men Jesus sends from town to town. 1 Corinthians 9 develops Paul’s defense of the rights of himself and Barnabas as traveling gospel workers. The New Testament contexts place the man who goes at the center of these passages. That does not prevent anyone from making an argument for supporting the man who stays. But Scripture must supply that argument.
We should not assume that a passage about one kind of minister automatically establishes a financial arrangement for another. What we have found in these passages belongs to the man who goes. The next question concerns the man who stays.
In the next article, we’ll examine the New Testament passages that address resident pastors and see how the New Testament describes their support. That difference matters a great deal for the question this whole series asks.