Audio Transcript

We are approaching Halloween. It will be here on Sunday. For many, it’s a day about ghosts and ghouls and goblins and pumpkins and candy. But for some of us, the day serves as an annual reminder of the Protestant Reformation. Reformation Day reminds us how Paul’s epistle to the Romans ignited a fire in Martin Luther’s soul, a fire so bold that he stood against an entire religious system that wanted to shut him up and shut him down. It didn’t. Luther gave his life to preach the gospel of justification before a holy God through the vicarious substitution of Jesus Christ. The Reformer epitomizes lionhearted boldness. So where does such boldness come from? And why are sinners so fearful in life? As we move toward Reformation Day, this is a great clip from a 1993 John Piper sermon, a sermon on Proverbs 28:1, which reads, “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” It begins with Pastor John mentioning Proverbs 14:16 and talking about the guilty conscience. Here he is.

Bold for Justice

“The fool rages and is bold” (Proverbs 14:16, author’s translation). And the word bold is the same word as in Proverbs 28:1: “The righteous are bold as a lion.” So fools can be bold and the righteous can be bold, which causes me to think — as you find with so many Proverbs — that what is being said here in this verse is that, in general, there’s something about wickedness that kindles fear, and there’s something about righteousness that kindles boldness. But it’s not so absolute that there isn’t a kind of boldness that the wicked can have and there isn’t a kind of timidity that, now and then, the righteous can have.

And we all know that from experience, and we know it from the Bible, that there is a reckless boldness that the wicked have, especially in the pursuit of their wickedness: dirty needles, promiscuous sex, speeding, reckless crime. It takes a lot of stupid boldness to do what many wicked do. They are not often cowardly in the pursuit of sin. They take manifold risks with their lives and their freedom and their eternity.

So there is a kind of boldness that the wicked have; it’s just not the kind that’s being talked about in verse 1. The kind of boldness that’s being talked about here is the boldness that’s required in the atmosphere of justice. And there’s something about wickedness that, in the atmosphere of justice, flees even when there’s no one pursuing. And there’s something about the righteous that is bold as a lion for the cause of justice.

Scared from the Start

What is it about the wicked that makes them flee when no one is pursuing? I think you know the answer to that. We can find it from the Bible. We can find it in our experience. The answer is that a bad conscience, a guilty conscience, an evil conscience, makes the person flee when no one is pursuing. When you see a police car, is your first response gratitude that there are law-keepers? When you play basketball, or used to play basketball or soccer or football, did the way you play affect the response you felt every time the whistle blew? When you’re in a conversation, do you begin to defend yourself even before there’s been any accusation or anything clearly said against what you think? Do you flee because you can hear an accuser where there may even be none?

We flee when we’re not being pursued because we have a bad conscience. There are a lot of things stored up in our lives, bad things that we have done that we have not made right, and a voice inside is telling us that someone is after us, even when they are not. Guilt is the parent of fear, and our conscience is very creative. Conscience creates pursuers where there ought to be some and are not any. The breeze turns into a burglar. The shadows turn into ghosts. Police turn into adversaries. Parents turn into police. God turns into an enemy — all when they are not.

Genesis 3:8 says, “The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” He wasn’t pursuing. He didn’t have a gun. And God said to Adam, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). And Adam said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid” (Genesis 3:10). And we’ve been afraid ever since. We’ve been afraid of him ever since.

“We flee when we’re not being pursued because we have a bad conscience.”

A guilty conscience will turn shadows into phantoms, and ambulances into police cars, and innocent inquiries into indictments, and doorbells into threats, and mailmen into warrant officers, and schoolteachers into wardens, and parents into cross-examiners, and friends into traitors, and simple office memos into termination papers. The conscience is almost infinitely creative, and the wicked flee where there is no one pursuing — but there ought to be. The conscience makes up for what isn’t by creating out of nothing the pursuers we need to have to bring us to justice and repentance and reconciliation and forgiveness with people we’ve wronged.

A guilty conscience creates pursuers where there are none, unless you drown it with alcohol, or numb it with drugs, or blast it with constant loud music, and constant escapes from solitude, or endless denials — “It isn’t there, it isn’t conscience, it doesn’t count, it’s not important; I can live without talking to them” — until you go so far in hardening yourself against this God-given voice that it ceases, and you can no more hear the steps of God in the garden. And that is a dreadful place to be.

Lionhearted in Christ

The righteous ones are the people who trust in the Lord, and not in themselves and their own merit and their own deeds and their own righteousness. They trust in the Lord and his mercy and his steadfast kindness. And then they are the ones who, according to Psalm 32:1–2, have their sins covered, and their iniquities are not imputed to them. Their iniquities simply are not counted because they trust in the Lord. Now that’s who the righteous are in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and everywhere in this universe: the righteous are people who trust in the Lord and bank on Jesus Christ for everything they have and need. And they are as bold as a lion.

“Fear with men is rooted in the fear of not being right with God.”

If you can have that kind of boldness with God like Martin Luther had — so that you know, as you look the almighty, holy, infinitely wise and beautiful God in the face, that he imputes no iniquity to you — you will be as lionhearted as can be with men. Fear with men is rooted in the fear of not being right with God. If you knew God was standing at your right hand with infinite power, with his right hand on your shoulder, you’d be bold as a lion.

Here We Stand

Now I want to take Martin Luther as an example of that. In 1521, the lionheartedness came out. His whole life was one of incredible courage, but let me close with one illustration of his boldness. It was the fall of 1521. It was in the city of Worms. Charles, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and who had the biggest empire since Charlemagne, was there in the cathedral. Fredrick the Wise, the local governor, was there. The Archbishop of Trier, named Eck, was there. And a room at least as large as our sanctuary was filled with lords and nobles. Every one of them was against Martin Luther, and all of them had the capacity to sentence him to death for heresy and treason if he did not recant his criticisms of the Holy Catholic Church.

Eck said, “Do you or do you not repudiate your books and the errors which they contain?” And first in German, and then in Latin so that it could go down in the official register, he responded like this:

Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason — I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other — my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. [Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.] God help me. Amen. (Here I Stand, 182)

“The righteous are bold as a lion” (Proverbs 28:1). They are as bold as a lion because they are righteous in Christ. They look into the face of God, and they see a smile that imputes to them no iniquity, but rather makes “him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). And standing clothed with the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus, they are as bold as a lion before God and before men.

And my prayer for us in these days as a church is that God, by the gospel of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ through faith, might deliver us from fear of God and fear of men and make us valiant for the truth in this city.

Christians confess that God is. Indeed, his name is “I am” (Exodus 3:14). According to Hebrews 11, a fundamental aspect of pleasing him is believing that he exists: “Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). But unless we are philosophers, words like existence and being and is are fairly bland. They don’t awe us (though they should).

Perhaps that’s why the Bible regularly stresses that God doesn’t merely exist, but that he lives. “The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation” (Psalm 18:46).

A common oath throughout the Old Testament is “as the Lord lives.” What’s more, references to “the living God” are highlighted in some key biblical stories. Reflecting on the biblical witness to the living God may stir our affections more than simple statements about his existence.

Not Like the Idols

The Bible often refers to Yahweh as the living God in order to set him apart from the idols of the nations. In Jeremiah 10, the prophet exhorts Israel to avoid the vain customs of the people. He looks with disdain on the making of an idol:

A tree from the forest is cut down     and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman.They decorate it with silver and gold;     they fasten it with hammer and nails     so that it cannot move. (Jeremiah 10:3–4)

The idols of the nations are “like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak.” What’s more, “they have to be carried, for they cannot walk.” There’s no reason to fear them, since they can do neither evil nor good (Jeremiah 10:5).

Isaiah echoes the same truth in chapter 45 of his oracle. The nations “carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save” (45:20). Isaiah 46 elaborates:

Bel bows down; Nebo stoops;     their idols are on beasts and livestock;these things you carry are borne     as burdens on weary beasts.They stoop; they bow down together;     they cannot save the burden,     but themselves go into captivity.“Listen to me, O house of Jacob,     all the remnant of the house of Israel,who have been borne by me from before your birth,     carried from the womb;even to your old age I am he,     and to gray hairs I will carry you.I have made, and I will bear;     I will carry and will save.” (Isaiah 46:1–4)

The contrast couldn’t be clearer. Donkeys carry the idols of the nations; Yahweh carries his people. Idols can’t even save themselves; the Lord saves his people.

According to Jeremiah 10:6–7, this is why Yahweh is unique.

There is none like you, O Lord;     you are great, and your name is great in might.Who would not fear you, O King of the nations?     For this is your due;for among all the wise ones of the nations     and in all their kingdoms     there is none like you.

“Donkeys carry the idols of the nation; Yahweh carries his people. Idols can’t even save themselves; the Lord saves his people.”

In contrast, the nations are “both stupid and foolish,” worshiping wood overlaid with gold and silver, and clothed with violet and purple by the hands of men (Jeremiah 10:8–9). “But,” the prophet says, “the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King” (Jeremiah 10:10).

This is a fundamental difference between the Lord and the gods of the nations. The Lord is the living God. He’s not a statue. He’s not dead; he is alive. When Yahweh is on the move, it’s not because someone put him on their shoulders. He comes and goes as he pleases.

‘You Are God Alone’

He is the living God who speaks from the fire (Deuteronomy 5:26). He dwells with his people and drives out their enemies (Joshua 3:10). When David confronts the giant Goliath, he is particularly incensed that the uncircumcised Philistine has defied “the armies of the living God” (1 Samuel 17:26, 36). Likewise, Hezekiah appeals to Yahweh for deliverance when Sennacherib, king of Assyria, mocks “the living God” (2 Kings 19:4, 16). He pleads with Yahweh,

Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone. (2 Kings 19:17–19)

King Darius, after being tricked into casting Daniel into the den of lions, calls Daniel the “servant of the living God” (Daniel 6:20). When he sees that God has preserved Daniel, he decrees that all peoples “tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God, enduring forever; his kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall be to the end” (Daniel 6:26).

In the New Testament

In the New Testament, Paul echoes the prophets when he urges the inhabitants of Lystra to “turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them” (Acts 14:15).

However, we also discover some surprising things about the living God in the New Testament. He has a Son, as Peter confesses when Jesus asks who the disciples say that he is. “You are the Christ, the son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). More than that, the living God has a Spirit, as Paul testifies to the Corinthians: “You are a letter from Christ . . . written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God” (2 Corinthians 3:3). The living God is the triune God, eternally subsisting in three persons.

The triune God also has a household, “the church of the living God, the pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). More than that, those of us who have set our hope on the living God as our Savior have now become the temple of the living God, in whom and with whom he dwells (2 Corinthians 6:16). We are the children of the living God, as numerous as the sand on the seashore (Hosea 1:10; Romans 9:26).

“Have you considered recently how wonderful it is to draw near to the God who exists, the God who is?”

And as such, we take care, lest there be in any of us an evil, unbelieving heart, leading us to fall away from the living God (Hebrews 3:12). Our consciences have been purified by the blood of Christ so that we no longer offer dead works, but instead serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14). And one way or another, we will have to eternally face the living God. Either we will fall into the hands of the living God (a fearful and terrifying prospect, Hebrews 10:31), or we will come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, and to his innumerable angels in festal gathering (Hebrews 12:22).

Longing for the Living God

But perhaps the most striking note about the living God is expressed twice in the Psalms. It is the note of longing after such a God.

As a deer pants for flowing streams,     so pants my soul for you, O God.My soul thirsts for God,     for the living God. (Psalm 42:1–2)

And then again, in Psalm 84:

How lovely is your dwelling place,     O Lord of hosts!My soul longs, yes, faints     for the courts of the Lord;my heart and flesh sing for joy     to the living God. (Psalm 84:1–2)

Have you considered recently how wonderful it is to draw near to the God who exists, the God who is? And more than that, to draw near to the God who lives and who is to us the fountain of life? We come to him to drink, to satisfy our souls with the greatest reward that he offers: himself.

Audio Transcript

How much should a pastor make? The pastor’s salary is a question we get often. The topic has actually factored into at least three episodes in the past that I can remember, back in APJ episodes 217, 472, and 912. But the pastor’s salary was only a subtheme in all three of those episodes. The time has come for a full episode to explore this question more fully, just because we get asked about it so often.

And to get into that discussion, here’s how a podcast listener named John asked the question. John lives in Los Angeles. “Pastor John, hello to you and thank you for this podcast! What are some guidelines a church should set in place in order to compensate pastors? Could you address the meaning of ‘double honor’ in 1 Timothy 5:17? And can you explain whether background, experience, and education should get factored into this decision too? Thank you!”

This passage in 1 Timothy 5:17 is one of three crucial passages about how gospel ministers are to be supported. I think it would be good to get all three of them in front of us and then draw some lessons.

Well-Earned Wages

Let’s start with Luke 10:1–7.

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said . . . “Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages.”

Now, that statement at the end there, “the laborer deserves his wages,” is quoted by Paul in 1 Timothy 5:18 as a quote from Scripture. This is the only other place where this statement occurs in the Bible. (There’s something almost like it in Matthew 10:10.) So, it seems that Paul is already regarding the words of the Lord Jesus — preserved by his physician, Luke — as part of Scripture.

Now, I’ll come back to that quote when we talk about 1 Timothy 5:17 in just a minute. But it’s worth noting that even though we, in the way we read the Bible, might just kind of fly by that statement when reading the Gospels, Paul did not fly by that statement. He took it as a principle that would apply to the elders of the church. “The laborer deserves his wages.”

No Muzzled Oxen

Then I go to 1 Corinthians 9:6–14.

Is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?

Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain” [Deuteronomy 25:4]. Is it for oxen then that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? . . .

Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

“It should be normal for those who devote themselves full-time to gospel ministry to be paid full-time for gospel ministry.”

Wow. Now that’s amazing. It’s a strong statement, that tent-making pastors — pastors who have to work other moneymaking jobs in order to be a pastor — should be the exception, not the rule. Jesus said that it should be normal for those who devote themselves full-time to gospel ministry to be paid full-time for gospel ministry. It’s a biblical principle. In fact, in this text, it’s more than a principle; it’s a command. The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. Now, that’s the second text.

Double Honor

So first Luke 10, then 1 Corinthians 9, and now, third, 1 Timothy 5:17: “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.” Now, why do I think “double honor” refers here to financial remuneration (which I do)? There are two reasons. One is that, just before this verse, Paul has been talking about honoring widows. So, “honor widows,” and now he says, “double honor to the elders.” “Honor widows who are truly widows” (1 Timothy 5:3).

Then the whole context of 1 Timothy 5:3–16 talks about financial care of widows. That’s the form that the honor should take. He’s talking about widows who don’t have families. That’s what he means about real widows. They don’t have any families to take care of them. They’re going to be destitute if we don’t step up. So there’s good reason to think Paul says, “Now, if that’s the way you honor and take care of your widows financially, do the same, even more — doubly more — for the pastors.”

Now, the other reason I think verse 17 is dealing with the pastors’ pay is that the next verse begins with for, which means it gives a reason or a ground for giving double honor to pastors. And here’s what it says: “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and ‘The laborer deserves his wages’” (1 Timothy 5:18). So, Paul grounds his concern for paying pastors with double honor by quoting Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7, calling them both Scripture. And both are clearly relating to the physical needs of the pastor.

Now, it might mean that pastors should be paid twice what the widows receive as their stipend from the church (in the order of widows that Paul had been talking about in the preceding verses). I doubt it. The term “double honor” in verse 17 probably doesn’t mean something that precise, because there’s no reference to a specific stipend for widows. We don’t know how the widows were cared for; they just were. Their needs were met. They had to be honored; they should be honored by their needs being met in the absence of a family.

“Don’t call a pastor who’s trying to get rich, and don’t be a church that’s trying to keep him poor.”

So I would say 1 Timothy 5:17 — “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching” — probably means, “Be doubly sure that the elders are honored and are paid enough to meet their needs, like the widows.” And the fact that he says, “especially those who labor in preaching and teaching” probably implies with the word labor that this is their job. They are giving themselves to the flock, and the flock should take care of them financially with a double sense of duty that they feel for the widows. Not that the elders are more valuable as human beings than the widows, but that, along with the value of the person, there’s the huge value of the ministry of the word — labor in preaching and teaching — on which the whole life of the community rests.

Basic Principle for Churches

So, my counsel to churches would be that the basic principle for pastoral remuneration would be something like this: Let it be a reflection of the honor you put on the ministry of the word of God. And let it be a commitment to lift financial burdens from the pastor so that he can give himself totally to prayer and to the word and to the flock.

And if it comes to mind that we need to safeguard against a pastor’s greed, the answer to that concern is that it should have been taken care of when the church assessed the elder’s or the pastor’s fitness for the office at the very beginning. Because 1 Timothy 3:3 says an overseer must not be “a lover of money.” You don’t even hire somebody who looks like he might be in it for the money. So, the summary, then, is this: don’t call a pastor who’s trying to get rich, and don’t be a church that’s trying to keep him poor.