Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

ne of the primary issues regarding the teaching of “spiritual covering” is the covering’s call for monetary gifts as a matter of right. The line of teaching usually goes something like this:

The Lord has raised me up to be a [put in your ministry office here] in the Body of Christ. As you are here, you can take it that He has called you to partner in this ministry with your prayers and financial support [prayers are always mentioned first]. As you honor God’s [put in your ministry office here], God will honor your giving and multiply back your seed sown. And, by the way, the Lord has given this ministry big plans which require all of us to give sacrificially.

This call to receive tithes and offerings from the Body is not based upon ministerial functioning (a verb), but upon status (a noun). The coverees (if I may call them that) are required to give even though they might not have a slice of spiritual fruit to show for it. And while the minister may say that he is accountable to God for the money, that’s basically all the coverees get for their money.

The Apostle Paul, the man who received the revelation of the mystery of Christ and therefore who, of all people, should have been able to demand payment as a matter of status, didn’t operate that way. The book of Acts and his own epistles show that, while he received monetary gifts, he received them as the fruit of his own efforts in establishing the Gospel and edifying the Body.

If we go by Luke’s chronology in Acts -

it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus - (Luke 1.3, NASB)

- we see that Paul’s ministry was of the order: Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth (I’m just naming those places relevant to this post). According to Luke, Paul went to preach in Thessalonica only after he had been to Galatia and Philippi.

When Paul reached Thessalonica, he did not come with the “God has called me as an apostle and he has called you to support this ministry so that you can be blessed” message. Indeed, though Paul had already established churches in his previous journeys, he had to continue his ministry with “lay” status (apparently he had not yet garnered names from a Galatian or Philippian mailing list):

For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. (1 Thessalonians 2.9, NASB)

For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you - (2 Thessalonians 3.8, NASB)

As is clear from his own hand, Paul did not establish himself as a “spiritual covering” to the Thessalonians, but rather worked alongside them to become an example.

Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. (1 Thessalonians 4.11, NASB)

Sometime after he had begun the work in Thessalonica, he did receive monetary gifts from the Philippians.

You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone; for even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once for my needs. (Philippians 4.15-16, NASB)

These gifts enabled Paul to devote himself exclusively to the preaching of the Gospel which he presumably did after leaving Thessalonica. After leaving, Paul used the money to go to Berea, Athens and then Corinth. In Corinth, he continued with his “no burden on anyone” ministry.

and when I was present with you and was in need, I was not a burden to anyone; for when the brethren came from Macedonia they fully supplied my need, and in everything I kept myself from being a burden to you, and will continue to do so. (2 Corinthians 11.9, NASB)

But after ministering for some time, the money ran out. Paul, instead of reasoning that he was now the Corinthians’ “spiritual covering” and therefore rightful heir to their tithes and offerings, continued to refuse to take money from them and went back to working a day job.

After these things he left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He came to them, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and they were working, for by trade they were tent-makers. And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. (Acts 18.1-4, NASB)

If we examine Paul’s ministry closely when it comes to the issue of money, we see that ministers have the “right” to ask for offerings on the basis of their function to the Body of Christ (what have you done for me lately?) -

If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? (1 Corinthians 9.11a, NASB)

- not on any supposed hierarchical ministry status. And, frankly, that makes a lot of sense. Why should the Body of Christ be called to perpetuate the ministry of a milquetoast preacher?