Sowing and Reaping

DEVOTION

1 CORINTHIANS

SOWING AND REAPING

1 Cor 9:7-12

7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk? 8 Do I say this merely from a human point of view? Doesn't the Law say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Surely he says this for us, doesn't he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? 12 If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more?

NIV

The continuation of his defense is within this passage but at the same time we also can see that it is appropriate for those who sown spiritual seeds to except to be supported by those who the seeds were sown. We cannot be sure if this was meant as a salary, or simply a free will offering. Of course today we have turned it into salaries and even incomes that are commensurate with the lifestyle of those who support them. We might even see that some seed sowers life much higher than those who support them. In fact we have seen some of those television “Evangelists” living so large it stagers the mind, and on the backs, or wallets, of those they have deceived. Yet we also have some “Men of the cloth” that shepherd such a same congregation that they have needed to find employment outside the church to help support their family and thus are only a “Sunday morning” pastor, perhaps an afterhours one. There is such a disparage in this principle of supporting those who sow spiritual seeds. Now again does this only apply to those who are considered hirelings of the church? What about all those people who spend so much of their time investing spiritual truths, sowing spiritual seeds among the children in Sunday schools?  Shouldn’t they be able to expect support? What about those others who spend so much time practicing to be a part of a band, or choir, in order to be a part of leading people into the throne room of God at the beginning of gatherings, shouldn’t they except some kind of support? What about all the others who serve in so many different ways, investing time and effort in order to help others gain some spiritual growth? Is this only about the hirelings? Are they the only ones who deserve to have support? Maybe we are looking at this principle in such a limited view we are missing the whole point. Should we not see that anyone who sows spiritual seeds among others is supposed to have some sort of material compensation from those who have gained from those people’s efforts, irrespective of position or title in the Body of Christ? But in our postmodern church that simple does not happen. What has happened to sowing and reaping?