(continued from above...)
Not so, Mike.
First, he reminds the Corinthians that they were his work in the Lord. Was Paul from the church in Corinth or from the church in Antioch?
He obviously travelled, and having no abode, he remained in Corinth as a guest of the city, or perhaps a temporary resident, but not as a citizen. We know from
Acts 18 and 19 that after Paul spent his time in Corinth, he travelled to the coasts of Ephesus. So, Paul's ministry was clearly itinerant in nature.
Secondly, if you look at the examples Paul gives, he mentions the following:
- Soldiers going off to war.
Roman soldiers and indeed all soldiers are by nature of their vocation itinerant.
- Shepherds who partake of the milk and wool and lamb of the flock.
Shepherds lived most of their lives outside, under the sky and stars. They walked and travelled and led their sheep across hill and valley to wherever the grass was greenest. So, again heavily itinerant.
- The priests and servants of the temple who ate from the sacrifices offered there.
The Levitical priesthood was divided by King David into 24 courses, who rotated and served in the temple in 8-day shifts (See
2 Chronicles 23:8) on a continuous 168-day cycle. They did not all live in Jerusalem. Rather, they travelled in from all over the country and lived and worked in the temple precinct for their scheduled time of year, then went home again.
- The one who plows and threshes
Anyone who knows anything about farming knows that almost all the hired hands who work farms around the world and in the ancient world, are and were immigrant workers who travelled as itinerant employees who helped sow and reap, shared in the produce and food the farm generates, receive their final wages, then go home.
Lastly, from the more stationary example, we can see the following:
- Planters of vineyards.
This example reflects Paul's work as the church planter who founded the Corinthians assembly. That is, like Paul, the one who digs out a vineyard and gets it going and makes it happen and generates a profit from it, is something similar to the apostle-evangelist who starts a church work.
Additionally, it should also be noted that like with farmers, often the general laborers of a vineyard are people who come in for the season, work the vines and help the owner, get paid, then leave.
So, even here there is a hint of itinerancy.
It is not Paul who generalizes, but you, and many other ministers, who don't seem to ever see any of the categorical differences Paul took great pains to lay out for us in his writings regarding the different gifts and the graces these gifts receive from the Lord, wherever and whenever Paul addresses the topic of ministry and church leadership structure.
Because Paul used the quote from
Deuteronomy 25:4 as part of the case he made for his apostolic calling. What is chapter 9 about? It's about Paul defending his calling as the Corinthian assembly's founding apostle and evangelist. It's not about Paul being their local prophet and teacher like he had been at the church in Antioch according to
Acts 13:1. It's about reminding and proving that he and Barnabas and Apollos were the ones who put in the labor and time as emissaries of Christ Jesus, and so, if the Corinthians were going to take the lead from anyone, it ought to be from them, and no one else (that is to say, the 10,000 instructors in Christ; See
1 Corinthians 4:15). He was trying to bring this mess of a church back into unity and focus, and help them realize that some of the people who were causing divisions through heresies and were propping themselves up as factional leaders in the church needed to be dressed down and ignored because they were carnal and didn't know what they were talking about or how to correctly lead a church.
And so, in this way, Paul and Barnabas and Apollos were the "oxen" who tread out the corn.
Addressed and shown to be otherwise in many cases.
We have to remember the context. Paul's use of this concept is not given to us as a generalized, universal principle, but as a specific appeal to help get the Corinthians focused on his ministry and ministry team, because they had gone too far afield into divisional rivalries. So, he transferred a certain amount of authority to both himself and Apollos, figuratively speaking, just to straighten out the issues until the dust cleared (See
1 Corinthians 4:6).
Addressed and shown that those who served in the temple lived of those things only insofar as they served in their courses on a rotating basis, then went home.
Again, remember the context. The Corinthians weren't just Paul's work in the Lord as if Paul was just a local prophet and teacher and pastor. They were his work in the Lord as a traveling apostle evangelist. So, I don't think we should extrapolate from that context the idea that Paul is in chapter 9 referring to all laboring ministers for all time in every place. He is only referring to himself and Barnabas, and by extension, Apollos, and perhaps Titus, who also came to Corinth for a short time.
As an aside, I am not going to address this right now.
Agreed.
Because you have been trained not to see the distinction? Why didn't Paul just write "Am I not a minister?" Or "Am I not a servant?"? If he had done that, this conversation would be going in an entirely different direction. But as it stands we cannot see the use of the word "apostle" then somehow think it's shorthand for every gift and ministry in the church.
No. As addressed and explained. But of particular note are prophets, pastors and teachers, who are typically local, non-traveling ministers who shepherd the saints and provide the sincere milk of the Word from house to house. These are always exhorted to work and provide for themselves and even help financially support others (I realize there are exceptions with prophets, such as Agabus, Silas, and etc. But in other cases, prophet remain in one place, like the five other men listed in
Acts 13:1).
Well, hopefully, you see it differently now.
That's because you're not thinking of what an actual shepherd of sheep in the ancient and in many cases modern, world actually does. While such things as sheep farms exist, in the ancient world, sheep roamed the country side and their shepherds led them far and wide and were frequently never home. Compare it, if you will, to an over the road truck driver, who's only home a few days a month.
Just because you think of tithe that way, which is fine if you do, you have to recognize you have a very novel approach that many, if not most, do not share. Most do not divorce the word tithe from the associated legalities of the Torah. In fact, you can't even preach or teach on tithing as merely a 10 percent offering, from the Bible. You have to use a dictionary or your own words. Because every use of the word tithe is in some form or another associated with the law, even Abraham's tithe to Melchizedek and Jacob's vow.
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