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Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.
“The worker is worthy of his hire” - Apostle Paul
Good one vmac.
Do you think that Paul - who wrote this - had $70,000 salaries in mind?
Are you saying that that amount is too low or too high? To me, it seems just about the right salary for someone with an advanced degree. Most with that level of education make a lot more than that, of course, but pastors usually go into the ministry as a labor of love, so a salary as low as $70,000.00 is a willing sacrifice.
My wife is a teacher and there was a time when teachers were woefully underpaid, and the result was that anyone willing to put in the education would most likely choose another profession. And that meant that way too many teachers were those who could not get a job elsewhere. Then they realized this problem and started raising teachers salaries. Now, the best and brightest go into teaching!
Do we really want to pay ministers so little that the best and brightest are inclined to go elsewhere?
Good points Vance. As well, it will greatly depend on where you live. Here in Frisco, the average salary is $100,000. This is just about right to make a medium living.
In Los Angelos or New York, however, this would not cut it unless the pastor was committing to live in poverty. While I think that pastors should count the cost, understanding that this is not a profession one goes into for money, we, on the outside, need to honor their service. This is why, as we learned in seminary, the pastor should get paid according to the average salary of the community.
In OKLA, a pastor could probably get about $50,000 a year and be fine. In Enid, OKLA it may even be less.
In the end, I think that we need to honor the minister of the Gospel and never think that he has committed to poverty, even if this might be the Lord’s lot.
I was saying that the amount is too high – far too high. Read 1 Timothy 6:3-11. It, along with the whole New Testament, treats money very, very differently than most of us do. “If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.” The fact that most Americans live obscenely far above just “food and covering” should not blind us to the Bible’s truth. When we live in materialism and decadence, we destroy ourselves spiritually, and we keep the majority of the world suffering in poverty. Our standard should be the standard of God, not the standard of most Americans. If this drives the “best and the brightest” elsewhere, then perhaps we will be mercifully left with only those willing to follow Christ.
I just posted some excerpts from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship over at my blog which definitely apply to this. The most direct is this:
“Since the authorization and equipment of the messengers is absolutely dependent on the word of Jesus, it is essential that nothing should obscure their royal message or make it incredible. The messengers are to deliver their testimony to the riches of their Lord in royal poverty. The gifts they have received are no personal possessions which they could trade for other goods. “Freely ye have received.” To be a messenger of Jesus Christ confers no personal privileges, no title to power or renown. This is true, even where the free messengers of Jesus have turned into a regular ministry in the Church. The rights of a university education and social standing mean nothing to those who have become messengers of Jesus. “Freely ye have received.” Or was there something else in addition to the call of Jesus which drew us into His service without any merit of our own? “Freely give,” He says, moreover: “Show men that you have plenty of riches to give away, but desire nothing for yourselves, neither possessions, nor admiration nor regard, and least of all their gratitude.” Whence could you have any claim on it? Any honours that come our way are only stolen from Him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us. The poverty of Christ’s messengers is the proof of their freedom.”