A husband or wife, a grown child, or a brother-in-law asks it at the table: “You have preached for years and never been paid. Why do you still go?” The question can sound like criticism. It deserves a real answer, given from Scripture and in a gentle voice, before the family has stopped asking.
This article sets out how to explain to family why you preach for free, including the verse your relatives are most likely to quote against you.
The question your family asks is usually love in a worried voice
When a family member asks why you preach without pay, listen for what they are afraid of. They may see a pension that is small, a body that tires, bus fares and meals that cost something, and they fear you will run short. They are not asking whether the gospel matters. They are asking whether you will be cared for.
Treat that concern as legitimate. The Bible treats the care of one’s household as a serious duty, and your relatives are right to raise it. If you answer their worry with offence or with silence, they will conclude that you have no answer. If you answer it calmly, with the Word of God, many of them will listen.
It also helps to remember that the same family may already be helping you, with a meal, a fare, or a ride to the place where you preach. Their questions come from people who are part of the work, whether or not they have said so. The sacrifices of a whole household are the subject of When the Whole Household Pays for the Pulpit, Tell Them So and Share the Reward.
What the Lord said: freely you have received, freely give
Begin where the Lord began. When Jesus sent out the twelve, He told them to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead and cast out devils, and then He said: “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8).
The reason for giving freely is given in the command itself. The preacher has received the gospel without paying for it. Salvation, forgiveness and the knowledge of the Scriptures all came as gifts. A servant who has been given everything without charge has good reason to hand it on without charge.
This gives your family a plain first answer: “The Lord gave this to me freely, and He told His servants to give it freely.” It is a statement about obedience, and it requires no argument about money.
The right Paul had and the right he chose not to use
Your relatives may reply that a labourer is worthy of his hire, and they would be correct. Paul says as much in 1 Corinthians 9: “Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel” (verse 14). He also asks whether he and Barnabas have no right to eat and drink, and no right to be supported.
Paul affirms the right. Then he declines to use it: “Nevertheless we have not used this power; but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ” (verse 12). Later he says, “I have used none of these things” (verse 15), and he names his reward: “that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge” (verse 18).
Three points follow for the preacher explaining himself:
- Congregations that support their preachers are doing what the Lord ordained. You can say so to your family without criticising anyone.
- A preacher who serves without pay is using a freedom, as Paul did, and is not breaking any rule.
- Paul gave a reason: he did not want anything to hinder the gospel. Your reason may be the same, or it may be that no one has offered, or that your circumstances make it fitting. Say the reason that is true for you.
Paul’s example was not rigid in every place. He also writes of gifts that other churches sent him to support his work (2 Corinthians 11:8, 9; Philippians 4:15 to 18). So Scripture shows both a right to support and a freedom to receive or decline it. Your family can see that you are not condemning those who are paid.
Facing the hardest verse honestly: 1 Timothy 5:8 and the duty to provide for your own
Sooner or later someone will quote this verse: “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8). Do not avoid it. It is a hard verse, and it is true.
Read in its setting, it deals with the support of widows by their families, and it condemns neglect: the person who could provide for his household and does not. It does not say that every hour given to unpaid service is a failure to provide. Paul himself, who preached without charge, worked with his hands to do it (Acts 18:3; 1 Thessalonians 2:9).
The verse therefore leaves each preacher with a question to answer before God, and he should answer it honestly:
- Is anyone in my household going without food, medicine, shelter or schooling that I could have supplied?
- Is my preaching taking money or strength that those needs required?
- If so, what must change, and what must I ask of my family, my congregation or the Lord in prayer?
If the answer to the first two questions is yes, the verse corrects you, and you should listen to your family. If the answer is no, you can tell them so with a clear conscience and show them that you have weighed the verse. A family that sees you take their strongest text seriously will trust the rest of what you say.
Where God has actually supplied you, and how to say so without boasting
Paul wrote to believers who had supported him, “my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). Your family will be more persuaded by the particular ways that promise has been kept in your own house than by the promise alone.
Make an honest list before you speak. Consider your pension, the food that has reached your table, a lift to a distant place, a coat or a pair of shoes given by a brother, and your health on the days you have travelled. Include only what has really happened. Do not enlarge it to win the argument.
To say this without boasting, name the gift and the giver, and give thanks to God for it. “The Lord provided the fare for that journey through a brother in the church” is a statement of thanks. Avoid comparing yourself with preachers who are paid, and do not suggest that your family has failed to provide. If you are living on a pension, the article God Asks the Pensioner for What He Has, Not for What He Lacks deals with how a small income can be given to the Lord’s work.
Note that where you have been supplied in less than you hoped, you may say that also. A family trusts a speaker who admits a lack more readily than one who claims to have none.
What to say at the table: a few plain sentences a preacher can use, spoken gently
Choose a quiet time, not the moment of an argument. Speak slowly and keep the sentences short. Adjust each one so that it is true of your own household, and drop any that is not.
- “Your question is a fair one, and I know you ask it because you care for me.”
- “The Lord told His servants, ‘Freely ye have received, freely give.’ I received the gospel without paying, and I want to give it the same way.”
- “Paul wrote that those who preach may live of the gospel. He also wrote that he chose not to use that right so that the gospel would not be hindered. I am following his example.”
- “I have read what Paul wrote to Timothy about providing for one’s own house, and I take it seriously. If any of you is in need that I can meet, tell me, and I will do what I can.”
- “I do not ask you to agree today. I ask you to hear why I do this.”
Then stop talking and listen. Let the others answer in full, without correcting them mid-sentence. If a relative names a real need, such as school fees, food or medicine, write it down and treat it as a prayer and a duty. Your family’s needs are part of the work the Lord has given you. A written plan to meet them, even a small one, does more to settle their fears than another argument. The companion article Pray for the Uniform, the Fees and the Lunch by Name, and Wait on God to Supply Them gives a method for bringing such needs to God one at a time.
When they still do not agree: patience, prayer, and leaving the reward to the Father
Some relatives will not be persuaded, however gentle and well grounded your answer. Paul told Timothy that “the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient” (2 Timothy 2:24). Patience here is part of the answer you give, because your family will watch how you behave long after they have forgotten your words.
Pray for them by name. Ask that the Lord give them peace about your service, and ask that He show you any place where you have been careless of them. Continue to meet their needs as you are able. Over the years, the plain fact of a preacher who keeps both his calling and his household usually speaks more clearly than speeches.
Then leave the reward with the Father. The Lord’s own word is: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth… But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:19, 20). The preacher who is not paid by men is not left without a payer. The Scripture on this is gathered in A Whole Life of Unpaid Preaching Ends in a Crown, Not in Loss, which you may share with a relative who wants to see what the Bible promises.
This week, sit down with one family member, read Matthew 6:19 to 21 aloud together, and tell them in your own words why you serve. Then read next: Tell Your Relatives Plainly What You Can Give, and Let God Supply the Rest.
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