Does having a higher degree guarantee, in and of itself, that a person will perform better in ministry than one with a basic required degree? Does a pastor with a Ph.D. give more of himself or is more productive in ministry than one with a M.Div.? Does he have greater influence on the spiritual outcomes in the lives of members of a local church than others with lesser educational achievements? Is it educational achievement or the Holy Spirit that blesses the ministry of a pastor?

How pastors are paid can be confusing to many. The range of pastoral compensation can be incredibly broad; from richly to poorly compensated pastors. This broad range does not appear in Scripture for those ministering in the church. Were the priests on different levels of compensation?
There is little biblical evidence what the apostles or pastors were paid. We do know they were not wealthy. We know they were worthy of compensation. Much of what churches took in went to proclaim the Gospel and meet the needs of the hungry, widows, and persecuted Christians.
Throughout time, more clergy appeared to suffer financially than those who prospered. Many required other financial support. Some added part-time or full-time occupations along with their ministerial duties.
A more recent trend that appears to affect pastoral compensation today, a phenomenon coming into the church from cultural influences: Pastors are being compensated according to the degrees they’ve received. If a pastor has more than the regular seminary M.Div. degree, such as a Th.M., or a Ph.D., compensation is raised accordingly by each advance degree received. Since there is no biblical reference to the impact the amount of education has on how pastors are compensated, from whence does this notion originate?
This practice appears to originate from the academic and business worlds where individuals are valued relative to degrees earned. A question worth posing is how did a worldly standard and practice come into the church? Does it even belong? Should highly educated Paul have expected more than fisherman Peter? Why should pastors putting in the same time in pastoral care, sermon preparation, visits to the sick, performing marriages and funerals, and sacrificing personal and family time be valued and compensated unequally. Is this practice wise? School districts can testify that teachers with more degrees are not necessarily better teachers. CEOs in the business world with MBAs do not necessarily perform better than CEOs without them.
I’ve had the privilege of serving on pastor search committees. Unfortunately, some of these search committees were seeking pastors who appeared much like Chief Executive Officers. Isn’t this a far cry from the servant-heart leadership model given in the New Testament for shepherds? Arguably, this is an unhealthy approach with unhealthy expectations. One pastor remarked how stressful it was, when the search committee appeared to diminish his time spent in prayer and sermon preparation. The world’s business model is now defining the role of pastors/shepherds.
This more recent trend represents a new concept of paying people according to what and how many degrees they have received rather than for what tasks they are expected to do. The ability to receive advanced degrees can relate to privilege and provision. Not everyone can afford the cost of an advanced education—a reality that cannot be denied. Those who work to provide for themselves with such have something not all possess, including financial backing, scholarships, moral support, encouragement, and other provisions. I, as many others, worked my way through college. The encouragement I received from others that I could make it to the end often buoyed me up. Summer jobs and a campus job enabled me to pay for my college education. I recognize both the privilege and provision these circumstances afforded me. I’m keenly aware others did not receive what I received, which is little in comparison to those who were more financially able to pay for their education.
Does having a higher degree guarantee, in and of itself, that a person will perform better in ministry than one with a basic required degree? Does a pastor with a Ph.D. give more of himself or is more productive in ministry than one with a M.Div.? Does he have greater influence on the spiritual outcomes in the lives of members of a local church than others with lesser educational achievements? Is it educational achievement or the Holy Spirit that blesses the ministry of a pastor? The privilege of receiving a higher education should not be disparaged. But is the higher education in itself worthy of greater compensation than for those who have not received a higher education?
A comparison in Christian service enables us to see how this appears and why it can be suspicious taking place in churches. Missionaries are also ministers, messengers, and servants of God. Missionaries serving under their respective mission organizations tend to receive comparable remuneration as their fellow missionaries. Most mission organizations compensate their missionaries equally across the board. There are the natural compensation differences related to the cost of living in the various countries in which they serve. A missionary serving in Japan or France may receive a higher cost of living amount than those serving in the Amazon rain forest or the Nepalese mountains. However, the relative value of compensation for their mission service is not ordinarily based on number of degrees received.
Hopefully, no one is in the pastorate primarily for the money. The expectation should be that they’ve been called by God, have been gifted by the Holy Spirit, have the requisite spiritual equipping, display a love for Jesus Christ, and desire others to know and grow in Christ. All deserve livable wages so they can provide for their families. Pastors are prophets—not profiteers. Compensation based on an inordinate fixation on higher degrees can promote a distraction from the priority of ministry.
My intent in addressing this issue is not to disparage the search for greater knowledge or seeking further education; achieving more can be a reward in itself. Any of us fortunate enough to go beyond basic elementary and secondary education do well to recognize what a privilege we’ve received in growing through learning. But we need to keep it all in perspective: Does acquiring more degrees deserve greater reward or compensation at the expense of the church’s overall ministry?
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.
Related Posts:

The term euthanasia literally means “good death”—the premises are built into the name. To mainstream the idea that medical professionals should kill patients, we must use terms that distract from that reality: end-of-life care; physician-assisted death; medical aid in dying. Euthanasia activists paint a picture of people being put out of their suffering surrounded by their loved ones as soothing music plays in the background, dying peacefully and with dignity. If you didn’t know better, you’d hardly think someone was being killed—and that’s the point.

This essay was first published at The European Conservative.
Nearly 3,000 people died by euthanasia in Belgium in 2022. One of them was 36-year-old Alexina Wattiez, who was suffering from terminal cancer. In 2021 she was told that she likely had less than a year to live; by March 2022, Alexina was declining rapidly. She decided to request euthanasia. A doctor and two nurses came to her home where she lived with her partner Christophe Stulens and his 15-year-old daughter Tracy to administer the lethal injection. After a brief sleep before the fateful event, a nurse woke Stulens and his daughter and asked if they wanted to say goodbye. 
After the farewell they left the room to wait on the terrace and the doctor went in with syringes. They expected Alexina’s death to be swift and silent. After a moment, they heard screams. “I recognized her voice,” Stulens said. “Afterwards we saw her lying on the bed with her eyes and mouth open.” A post-mortem examination revealed the truth: Alexina had been suffocated to death. Some news reports indicate that the doctor used a pillow when the drugs failed to kill her; others say that the nurses took turns holding the pillow over the young woman’s face until she asphyxiated.
The family is now suing, with their lawyer stating that they are seeking to ensure that this sort of thing—being killed via suffocation rather than lethal injection—never happens again. The Public Prosecution Service of Liège has also apparently opened a murder investigation, although they haven’t explained why one method of killing administered by medical professionals would be homicide and the other healthcare. In fact, Belgian politician Jacques Brotchi hastened to make the distinction. “What happened is not euthanasia,” he assured the press. “Such a definition of this terrible situation devalues the gesture of euthanasia, which accompanies a person to the end without pain.”
Read More
Related Posts:

The last days began in the first century and ended with the end of Jerusalem and her temple. That isn’t to claim that the Bible contains nothing in our future; it does. But when we consider this text and the ones that have come before, we can conclusively conclude that these events have already happened.

Swing and A Miss
When Christians hear the phrase “The Last Days” or “The End Times,” what images come to mind? For some, a clandestine government laboratory where a pseudo-scientist whose name rhymes with Dr. Ouchie is busily brewing the next super woo-flu that will kill a quarter of the population is well in view. For others, it could be a one-world cryptocurrency, planes falling from the sky, a maniacal and blood-lusting monarch, or the Romish pope (if you’re really old school). Whatever the case, for the vast majority of evangelicalism, we have utterly missed it.
Now, when I say we have missed it, I don’t mean a booming foul ball ovah tha Green Monstah, kid! No. We missed it like an undersized middle schooler trying to make contact against a Randy Johnson slider. It wasn’t even close.
Instead of the final fleeting moments at a cataclysmic end to human history, when the Bible talks about the “Last Days,” it means the last days of the old covenant era. It refers to the winding down of that redemptive epoch where priests mediated between God and us, temples were where you traveled to meet with God, and animal blood sacrifices stood between you and the almighty. The “Last Days” picture the close of that significant era and the dawning of the final chapter of human history, where the world will know God through His one and only Son.
We are not waiting for that great eon to materialize in the uncertain future. The old covenant has been closed already, the new and final covenant era is fully here, and the events we will look at today, from Acts 2:17-21, will overwhelmingly confirm this.
The Text
17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: 18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: 19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke: 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come: 21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.Acts 2:17-21 KJV
Ten Proofs the “Last Days” Are Past
A Bit of Background
Whenever one of the three great pilgrimage feasts prescribed in the Law occurred, Jerusalem’s population would swell from a couple hundred thousand to well over a million. This is because all Jewish males were required by the Law of God to attend these three festivals every year. And, since most Jewish males were also married with sizable families, the city would balloon up rather quickly.
Intriguingly, history reveals that numerous Jewish pilgrims embarked on journeys from the farthest reaches of the known world to partake in these festivals. While some hailed from nearby Judea and Galilee, a significant contingent had settled in the distant corners of pagan cities, towns, and nations across the vast reaches of the Roman empire. This widely scattered group bore the title of “diaspora Jews,” they arrived in Jerusalem, each carrying the rich history and traditions of their native people and the languages from their far-flung homelands.
Now, on the morning of Pentecost, downtown Jerusalem would have been packed with no shortage of extra bodies. Once-quiet city blocks, home to only a handful of families, now teemed with hundreds, even thousands, of individuals pressed tightly together. According to the account of Luke, as the Spirit descended, a deafening crescendo of sound erupted, undoubtedly piquing the curiosity of neighbors, onlookers, and the naturally inquisitive.
They found a group of very ordinary, a run-of-the-mill assortment of blue-collar Galileans. But, with one extraordinary twist. Instead of those Galileans praising God in Aramaic, the common tongue of the Jews, everyone present heard them praise God in their native tongue. For instance, picture those from Rome hearing hymns sung in Latin or Greek while those from Egypt listened to Peter’s preaching in the elegant flow of Coptic. Even pilgrims journeying from as far as Seluecia, modern-day Iraq, were met with the disciples speaking fluently in their Parthian tongue. They all collectively saw the ancient curse of Babel being miraculously reversed before their very eyes. Well… Not all of them.
Among them stood a few who remained untouched by the Holy Spirit’s power, hearing only an incomprehensible babel crescendoing from a cacophony of gibberish. Instead of recognizing the nature of this event as a fulfillment of eschatological prophecies, they hurled derision and ridicule upon the disciples, accusing them of inebriation.
For the one group, God had chosen to freely give them the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That outpouring caused them to praise Him, to hear His praises in their own dialects and languages, and to go on to serve Him for a lifetime. For the skeptical party, God intentionally chose to withhold His Spirit, leading them from skepticism to utter ruination, poignantly demonstrating His total sovereignty over election and regeneration.
To clear up any confusion between these two groups and let everyone in earshot know what was happening, Peter stood up and declared precisely what was happening from the prophet Joel. Within those very poignant words from Peter, we will see ten undeniable proofs that the end times have already come.
This week, we will look at the first five that Peter mentions, describing the situation for those who love Christ and receive Him. They are the ones who will experience the Holy Spirit’s power, inherit the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit, and they are the ones who will endure to the end, and be saved in those last days.
Next week, we will look at the final five signs that Peter mentions from Joel’s prophecy, which concern those who hate Christ and reject Him. For them, incredible signs and wonders will demonstrate they are on the wrong side of the end-times debate. They will not make it alive into Jesus’ Kingdom; they will be buried in the ashes of Jerusalem, along with all of the other old covenant trappings and shadows.
With that, let us look at the first five proofs that the “last days” concern the events in the first century, focusing on how that applies to believers and Christians.
Read More
Related Posts: