Should Anyone Pay For Bible Teaching?

[valuecard]

This post was inspired by the following verse I read in Micah 3:11

Her heads judge for a bribe,
Her priests teach for pay,
And her prophets divine for money.
Yet they lean on the LORD, and say,

“ Is not the LORD among us?
No harm can come upon us.”

And what I want to adress from it is the trend in christianity to make people PAY MONEY for bible teaching!! First of all, this verse shows that one of the identifiers of apostate isreal was intertwining fee's or cost with teaching or with the administration of the church (prophets/teachers/judges). Clearly this is wrong in God's sight, hence the reason He sent Micah to rebuke the Jews for 'teaching for pay' etc Teachign for pay happens ALL the time amongst christians! You have to pay exhorbitant fees for bible college. You have to pay to do special weekend or mid week courses and you have to pay for conferences, and you even at times have to pay to hear guest speakers when they come out to speak! (eg when philip yancey came to preach in brisbane a few years ago). WHEN did christianity become a 'pay before you pray' religion? Where is the "freely ye have received, freely give" mentality from matthew 10:8 gone? I understand the concept of recovering costs,, eg bible college has text books and people have air fares etc, and within reason its fair enough at times, but you cant tell me every case where christians are charging money to attend their "spiritual breakthrough" conference is 100% always just to recover costs. Thats just not the case. I know through witnessing to people on the streets that one of the things the world HATES about churchianity is that everything is 'always about money'. And often i have to find myself agreering with them.

1 Tim 6

5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.
6 ¶ But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.

So that's my gripe, I feel much better now that I have got that off my chest
Now ill just sit back and wait for a hearty amen! =)

Phil

 

[ebia]

This post was inspired by the following verse I read in Micah 3:11

Her heads judge for a bribe,
Her priests teach for pay,
And her prophets divine for money.
Yet they lean on the LORD, and say,

“ Is not the LORD among us?
No harm can come upon us.”

And what I want to adress from it is the trend in christianity to make people PAY MONEY for bible teaching!! First of all, this verse shows that one of the identifiers of apostate isreal was intertwining fee's or cost with teaching or with the administration of the church (prophets/teachers/judges). Clearly this is wrong in God's sight, hence the reason He sent Micah to rebuke the Jews for 'teaching for pay' etc Teachign for pay happens ALL the time amongst christians! You have to pay exhorbitant fees for bible college. You have to pay to do special weekend or mid week courses and you have to pay for conferences, and you even at times have to pay to hear guest speakers when they come out to speak! (eg when philip yancey came to preach in brisbane a few years ago). WHEN did christianity become a 'pay before you pray' religion? Where is the "freely ye have received, freely give" mentality from matthew 10:8 gone? I understand the concept of recovering costs,, eg bible college has text books and people have air fares etc, and within reason its fair enough at times, but you cant tell me every case where christians are charging money to attend their "spiritual breakthrough" conference is 100% always just to recover costs. Thats just not the case. I know through witnessing to people on the streets that one of the things the world HATES about churchianity is that everything is 'always about money'. And often i have to find myself agreering with them.

1 Tim 6

5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.
6 ¶ But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.

So that's my gripe, I feel much better now that I have got that off my chest
Now ill just sit back and wait for a hearty amen! =)

Phil

On the other hand, as Paul noted, you don't muzzle the ox that treads the grain.

If someone is getting rich off bible teaching something has got a bit lots, but if you want quality teaching you want professional teachers who know their stuff and can deliver it well, you need to fund colleges, etc. The bible colleges I know barely scrape through - and that's with outside assistance from benefacts etc. The fees come to around half of what it actually costs to run the course. Few people have any idea how much the unavoidable costs of running a school or college come to.

Our small bible conference will hopefully just about break even - last year we did make a profit. All of about $3 if I remember correctly. And that's given that the speaker (a professional lecturer in Old Testament) had donated his time, and various other bodies had donated time, expertise and money.

If studying God is to command the rigour and quality one would put to studying anything else it is going to cost serious amounts in both time and money. Of course, if you think God is something to be skimped on....

Somebody has to pay - even Jesus' ministry cost money. If you've got a bunch of girls like he had willing to fund all the costs of your local bible college I'm sure they would be quite happy to subsidise or even eliminate their fees.

 

[we are called]

should we pay to learn about the Bible? Depends on the cirumstance: If you're receiving materials, then you should pay for the materials. Everything costs money, from taxes to electricity, the water in the washrooms and the garbage collection. At every church, you have a staff that has to sustain themselves somehow (and most of them do not get paid much), a building to maintain and materials to present. At every Bible study I've been to, there's been a free-will offering, even if it was just to pay for the coffee and snacks (one I did had dinner every week for almost 3 months, and each person put in $2. at the end, we had enough left over to give more than $200 to my cash-strapped youth group, where we again provide dinner for kids that need it). If someone has the ability to pay, they should. If you're talking about a college, I think there needs to be a balance between income and output, in that they should be equal. In my job, I work a fair bit at a local seminary, and they havn't made a profit in almost 150 years. At the end of every year, whatever's left over goes to their denominations mission fund. our church is the same way. when we finish black, it goes to the mission. Churches and everything thereby related should be not-for-profit, but the operating costs have to come from somewhere.

 

[homewardbound]

I think the question boils down to this....is the person or organization teaching God's word making a legitimate living or are they accumulating wealth? There are a lot of preachers/teachers out there making a lot of money spreading their version of the gospel. Most of them are frauds and false teachers. As do most people, I have a real problem with anyone getting rich off the gospel.

There are, however, situations where being compensated for preaching/teaching is legitimate. Well-trained bible scholars/teachers have spent a lot of their own time and money to learn God's word, and most of them make the ministry their chosen career. I have no problem at all compensating people who fall into that category. I also have no problem with schools charging tuition, but all monies in excess of operating costs should go to missions, approved expansions, or other causes that directly help those in need.

 

[bbbbbbb]

If a Christian is motivated enough, he can read and study the Bible on his own. There is no law against that. In fact, I have known many such Christians.

Other Christians, for a very wide variety of reasons, are unable or unwilling to do their own personal study and prefer to receive information from others who have spent time and/or their own money to do so. Whether or not these people should receive finanical support for their efforts can be argued until the cows come home. A lot of it has to do with motive and in that area God is the Judge of the heart.