The greatest hurdle to funding your ministry or raising support is not the practical approach but the paradigm shifts that need to happen in your mindsets and beliefs about money. The mental hurdle is the biggest one to jump over.
I have already shared Four Surprising Realities About Support Raising that begin to unravel some of the misunderstandings about this topic.
Today I want to challenge the notion that bi-vocational ministry, or tent-making, is the more biblical or honorable approach. I have experienced multiple challenges from people that Paul made tents while doing ministry, so ministers should have to work marketplace jobs while doing ministry as well. While this is certainly one option, is this really the only biblical way?
Let’s first look at Paul and then let’s also examine Jesus’ example for us.
Paul’s Example
There is no doubt that Paul spent some time making tents. Getting a job in the marketplace is actually one of the six things I suggest you do before you start raising support.
The question is – why did Paul go back to making tents in certain seasons of his life after he started his apostolic ministry? The answer is that he only went back to making tents when it would help the advancement of the Gospel.
It is worth noting that Paul traveled to many places for years, and we only have three examples in Scripture of Paul making tents. It was the exception, not the norm, for Paul who was serving the Gospel full-time after he was launched from Antioch as an apostle. His apostolic ministry kept him traveling and preaching, and there were only a few instances where he was settled down long enough to even stop and work a normal job.
In Thessalonica, Paul chose to work while ministering in order to set an example for hard work and confront the laziness that seems to have crept into the church there.
Nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us. For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. 2 Thessalonians 3:8-10
In Ephesus in Acts 20:33-34, Paul worked a private job while encouraging believers to stop buying idols of Dianna. If he had received support from those same believers, he could be accused of trying to personally profit from the abandonment of the idols. This would have hindered his Gospel witness among the unbelievers there. So Paul made tents in order to do more effective ministry in this particular season by not receiving finances from the Church.
Paul’s ministry in Corinth gives us the most insight into Paul’s view on receiving finances. We have a mention of it in Acts 18:4-5, and Paul writes extensively about this topic in I Corinthians 9. The foundation of Paul’s teaching in that chapter is the right of ministers to be supported financially by the Church.
6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working? 7 Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock?
11 If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? 12 If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more?
He then shares in verse 12 about how he voluntarily gave up this right for the sake of the Gospel.
Nevertheless we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ.
It is clear that reason for Paul’s tentmaking was not because full-time ministry is wrong or that receiving finances is wrong, but because it would have hindered the Gospel in Corinth. Yet he shares this while also trying to teach the Church there that they should be giving to support full-time ministers. Paul continues in the chapter to reaffirm that there are laborers who should be supported for their ministry work.
13 Do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat of the things of the temple, and those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings of the altar? 14 Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.
So Paul makes his beliefs on the topic very clear here as well as in other New Testament letters such as I Timothy 5.
Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer is worthy of his wages.” I Timothy 5:17-18
Paul’s default mode was full-time ministry – funded by financial partnerships from the body of Christ. His constant admonition to churches and ministers was that ministry workers are worthy of their wages. Any other representation of Paul’s life and teachings on finances is simply not biblical.
Jesus’ Example
Did you know that Jesus himself modeled full-time ministry via missionary support?
Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God…. many others who provided for Him from their substance. Luke 8:1-3
Steve Shadrach notes that “Jesus chose interdependence over independence.”
Not only did Jesus model this interdependence, but he trained his followers in living on support when he sent out the seventy to do ministry in Luke 10:1-11
Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals… Luke 10:4
It is also worth noting that we have no record of the original twelve apostles returning to their normal jobs after Jesus’ ascension. In fact, when Peter tried to return to fishing after the crucifixion, Jesus confronted him and called him back into full-time ministry (John 21:15-19).
The Challenge of Interdependence
Could it be that many people’s emphasis on tent-making is not rooted in a desire to be biblical, but is actually just covering up fear or pride? Working a “real job” helps us feel independent, in control and self-sustaining.
Raising support exposes our fears and doubts. It reminds us that God is our provider and that we need one another. It reveals our frailty and our dependence. It is not lazy, selfish or prideful. It can actually be quite humbling. And it definitely requires responsibility and a lot of hard work.
This interdependent lifestyle of faith is what was modeled to us by Jesus, Paul and the other early apostles. It is biblical, and it may be the lifestyle that God is calling you into as well.