1 Timothy 5:18, commentary and pictures

Those who give themselves wholly to gospel ministry have the right to live by that work, with generous provision for themselves and their families as those they serve share temporal support in return for spiritual labor. Withholding or stinting that due weakens the workers and hinders their usefulness, so they are to receive full, fitting, certain wages sufficient for food and clothing according to ability and work done, and to withhold it is injustice and robbery. The same right belongs to every essential faithful worker, including women who labor in word and doctrine, ministers' wives who share the burden of ministry, and faithful colored ministers, with differences in pay reflecting heavy responsibility, value, sacrifice and expense but never leaving any to want or to beggary. Not to muzzle the worker also forbids human leaders to restrict, dictate to, or bring under their control a fellow laborer who works in partnership with God. The right to support gives no right to compel the unwilling of another creed to maintain worship against consent, nor does it forbid self-support by manual labor when receiving support would invite suspicion and weaken influence, as in Paul's tentmaking at Thessalonica.

Just Support for Laborers

Those who give themselves to gospel ministry are entitled to live from their work, with support for themselves and their families. As priests who served in the temple were supported by those they served, so those who preach are to live from the gospel. Ministers who leave secular employment to preach are to be provided for generously, not meagerly, so they and their families have enough to live on. Withholding that rightful, ample compensation for labor that spreads truth and leads people to Christ is wrong, and it weakens ministers and can seriously hinder their usefulness.

The unmuzzled ox treading out corn figures workers under God’s eye who advance His cause by turning minds from earthly things to heaven. God loves these workers and requires respect for their rights, including their right to fair support for their work.

Those who labor in God’s work, especially in preaching and teaching, are entitled to material support, as surely as a day-laborer must receive full wages. Ministers who give time, thought, effort and ability to God’s service are to receive fitting, adequate, set wages according to ability and work done, enough to provide food and clothing for their families, rather than meager, withheld, or uncertain provision left to vague trust. To let a self-sacrificing minister go without providing for his needs is covetousness, injustice and robbery, and wives and families must not be treated as beggars or burdens, even though ministers look to God for their final reward.

A minister who faithfully gives time and ability in accepted work is entitled to wages just as a carpenter, blacksmith or teacher is. If his work is unsatisfactory, those responsible are to explain their concern to him rather than withhold his due while he serves as an accepted worker, and God holds them accountable for doing so. Those who decide what each worker receives must carefully follow God’s will and settle accounts with scrupulous care, since workers for God are entitled to remuneration in this life. Cutting wages as was done to Elder Haskell was an offense against God, and such shortfalls are to be made up from the tithe.

Growing ministry calls for increased means, and providing it requires self-sacrifice shared by all rather than borne by one class. Gospel laborers are worthy of their hire, and ministers are entitled to wages as workers in church institutions are. This is especially pressing because a minister must also give according to ability, while travel, camp-meeting expenses, donations and family support can leave him with little and burden him with debts. Some ministers through self-denial even give part of their wages to needy missions, and their labor, trials and sacrifices are known to God. Shireman’s work in difficult places and willingness to take responsibility show he deserves his hire, with service not measured only by sermons preached.

Support is to cover life’s necessities, allow comfortable living, and leave enough to contribute to God’s work, without being begrudged or left insufficient. Ministers are to receive enough to sustain their families, and workers are not to be treated as beggars or burdens. When a worker dies in God’s service, widows and needy children left behind are also to receive care, when necessary from the tithe. Black ministers who have spent their lives in the cause are to receive enough to support their families.

Faithfully laboring colored ministers must have bread and be treated with consideration, receiving their hire when they labor faithfully. They are to be encouraged to gain thorough knowledge of truth and to learn efficiency in teaching it to others. Ministers seeking to preach and do true missionary work in destitute fields and unworked cities are worthy of sufficient and even large means rather than meager sums, and God counts them more worthy of large means than others. Their need is greater because many calls for help come upon them, they meet those in pitifully needy circumstances, they deny themselves to help the needy, and they still need food and clothing for themselves. Leaving them with insufficient help and refusing to help them is covetousness and leaves undone the work God has pointed out.

The same principle requires fair compensation for women who labor in the word and doctrine. Whether in house-to-house ministry, Bible readings, explaining Scripture privately or publicly, preaching, teaching and carrying truth into families, prayer, and seeking converts, their work may be as demanding as preaching before a congregation and is essential. It is to be paid just as ministers’ work is, including from the tithe, and not left to donations or neglected and underpaid, which is injustice. This holds even when a woman’s husband also receives wages.

When a minister’s wife shares the burden by devoting time and strength to visiting family to family and opening the Scriptures, she accomplishes work in the line of ministry even though hands of ordination have not been laid upon her, and her labors must not be counted as nothing. If her husband receives a salary, she who devotes herself just as disinterestedly is to be paid in addition to his wages, even if she does not ask for it. Payment for ministry is a matter of justice because the laborer is worthy of reward, and that justice extends to the wife who shares the labor. To pay men-laborers while not paying wives who share their labors discourages women from qualifying for work they should engage in.

In God’s institutions every essential, faithful worker is to receive suitable, reasonable wages for honest labor, with pay according to hours given, full time for full time, and according to mind, soul and strength enlisted in bearing burdens. Such wages rightly allow workers the gratification of giving to the cause. It is not right to pay some very largely while others doing essential and faithful work receive very little, to require time and labor without pay, or to overwork workers. Workers are to be free to decide use of their wages, those entrusted with God’s goods must show kindness and liberality rather than niggardliness and exacting every cent, and when lack of means requires self-denial and reduction of wants the burden must unite all in sacrifice rather than rest wholly on a few.

Differences in pay must still reflect heavy responsibility, value, sacrifice and expense, with no exorbitant or mercenary salaries for even special capabilities. It is unjust to pay those carrying heavy responsibilities and doing work of great value no more than mere mechanical workers, when they could have less care and greater profit elsewhere. The physician in chief is to receive larger wages, work appointed by the Lord to a woman must be estimated according to its value, and account is to be taken of differences such as ministers who move at any moment separated from families compared with publishing workers who generally have a permanent home with families.

For sanitarium workers, faithful conscientious labor requires a reasonable wage for a reasonable day’s labor with needed rest to maintain strength and vitality. Only just labor is to be required, proper rest periods given, more helpers employed when necessary, and work arranged so each is freed after a day’s labor to do justice to the work. Decided reforms in dealings with workers are required so sanitarium service is rightly represented.

Freedom Without Human Coercion

The prohibition on muzzling the ox while it treads grain forbids muzzling, restricting, dictating to, or bringing under human control a human laborer who works in partnership with God. Those placed in responsible positions are not of infallible judgment, and those who trust in God and His wisdom rather than their own never claim authority to restrict a fellow worker. To control the human agent whom Jesus invites to take His easy yoke and who labors together with God is offensive, an assumption of a jurisdiction that belongs to the Lord alone.

The declaration that the laborer is worthy of his hire means he is worthy of it from those who hire him, giving a minister the right to support from those who choose his labor and consent to his worship. It gives neither church nor magistrate any right to compel people of a different creed to unite with that worship or to maintain it against their own consent by fine or imprisonment. To drag the irreligious and the unwilling to public worship and force them to pay for it is an open violation of their natural rights and produces only hypocrisy. Believers must instead put faith into practice and not let worldly pursuits consume their resources while leaving God's servants without means.

The right to support does not forbid manual labor, so Paul's joining tentmaking with preaching does not mean his ministry as a minister of the highest rank was less worthy or his time wasted, though it looked inconsistent and like spending in manual work time that could be put to better account. At Thessalonica he chose self-support because he feared that receiving support there could lead people to suspect selfish motives and weaken the gospel's influence. As he worked he stayed in touch with the great Teacher, lost no opportunity to witness for the Saviour and help those in need, instructed fellow workers in spiritual things, and gained access to a class otherwise unreachable. He taught that skill in the common arts is a gift from God, who gives both the gift and wisdom to use it aright and is to be honored even in everyday toil, and he set an example of quick, skillful, diligent, fervent industry and thoroughness whose toil-hardened hands took nothing from the force of his appeals.