I wrote this elsewhere and was encouraged to put it here. It is a comment on what a pastor is. Today, this is not very well understood, and God’s people suffer because of it.
There are four professions: medicine, education, law, and religion. Each of these, when done at a professional level, is marked by the wearing of a gown. A gown is a garment of leisure.
Each of these mandates that a man be paid to have leisure time. Do you want a busy M.D. looking over your general health? A busy judge deciding your case? A busy professor teaching you? A busy pastor? No, not if you’re sane. Each of these professions entails having lots of time to listen to people, and also lots of time to read and keep abreast.
That’s why real tentmaking, like Paul did, fits just fine with being a Christian minister. But a “day job” does not.
Each of these professions requires that a man have lots of time to listen to people and to reflect on what they have said. Also, each requires that a man have time to study and consult before making a life and death decision. In a sense, the academic professor is not making a life and death decision, as the judge, physician, and pastor is. Yet, he also needs time to sculpt and mold the mushy mind of his students.
This is why “parttime” pastors and ruling-elders as the same as pastors does not work and is a major problem. People instinctively know that the fulltime guy is the real pastor; unless he’s a jerk who keeps his door locked and thinks he’s a great scholar and is not available all the time to his people.
Interesting thought. I am not quite sure though. What would the difference be between tent making and a day job?
Well, tentmaking (aside from the allusion to Bezalel and Oholiab), is a kind of job that enables you to have lots of evangelistic contact. As Oholiab wove the tabernacle, Paul builds the church. He can do so sitting in the public square. A day job that has you working at a factory and exhausted at the end of the day is not something that fits very well with pastoral ministry. Teaching Bible or literature (or anything) at a Christian school does fit okay. Obviously it’s a matter of more and less.
Jim,
I like the point of your comment i.e. the minister should be fulltime. Do you think you could direct me to some books that support your view?
Thanks,
Marcus
What do we know about Paul’s tent-making? Did he and Aquila do the manual labor together? Or were they co-owners of a tent-making business that employed others to do the labor? The first scenario would leave them little time and tired at the end of the day. But the second would allow them time and social/leisure opportunities.
Given Paul’s position as a Pharisee, it is hard to image that Paul would have done the actual labor because he would have had the knowledge and the resources to do otherwise. Of course, he could do it, and probably did at first. That’s the way entrepreneurs work. Paul’s father was probably a man of some wealth and a tent-maker. So, Paul probably had a “leg up” in the business.
I think of my brother-in-law who worked his way up in the health food industry and bought into a dynamic store in California decades ago. He has for decades since had the leisure to travel and keep his own involvement in the store to a minimum — and he makes money from it.
Good thoughts Phillip. I just don’t know. Since Paul moved from place to place, I don’t know that he could build up a tentmaking concern; but perhaps Aquila kept it up and helped Paul afterwards.
Marcus, I don’t know. I’ve had these ideas for 30 years, ever since Gary North’s old “Tentmakers” newsletter used to come out. I’m certain as I breathe that some good pastoral literature is out there that deals with this. I’m just not up on it. Anybody?