Selling Jesus

This series on "⁠⁠⁠⁠Christians Who Sell Jesus⁠⁠⁠⁠" takes profiles that represent real-world scenarios wherein well-meaning individuals are actively engaged in the Jesus trade, often unwittingly. Mandy is an Old Testament scholar and the author of some of the best commentaries on Job and Amos. Both are published by Zondervan and don’t cost more than other commentaries. She’s also employed by a legacy Bible institute and teaches several courses, including biblical Hebrew. She regularly tells her friends that she has a dream job and couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to do what she loves. People respect her and look up to her as a nearly perfect model of someone who has given her life to God’s service, blessing readers and students year after year. Unfortunately and unwittingly, Mandy is selling Jesus. The problem for her, like many others, is the fact that she has simply never thought about copyright or the status quo of selling Christian teaching. Even though she is a deep, critical thinker and has a PhD, she hasn’t taken the time to think biblically about whether it’s right to sell her commentaries on God’s Word or require students to pay tuition before being able to learn about the Bible from her. She has accepted an old, widespread system without a second thought, assuming that the system is biblical because so many other people have bought into it. If you were to challenge her to think differently and reconsider how biblical the system is, she would dismiss any contrary ideas as “fringe” and not worthy of her time. Like Luke (above), she’s comfortable with the way things are. In this way she resembles antebellum Christians who were extremely comfortable with the slave trade, and many historic Roman Catholic priests who were comfortable selling baptism. Besides, she might lose her dream job if she started to take what Scripture says about money and ministry seriously. Better to leave well enough alone, and if anyone brings it up, simply silence them by forcing certain parts of Scripture to support the status quo of commercializing Christianity. Ignorance is bliss. Tom follows in the footsteps of many seminary leaders who have gone before him since the seminary was founded in 1892. He has inherited a system and structure that is typical of nearly all seminaries around the world: students must pay tuition if they want to receive spiritual guidance and biblical teaching. Thankfully, the seminary has some endowments that allow it to keep its course prices down, but Tom is well aware that there are many people who never attend his seminary because of the cost. Although there are scholarships available, they are limited and usually reserved for international students. Sometimes at night he thinks about how nice it would be if professors could simply be like missionaries and raise support, freeing themselves to teach without charging students money. Or why couldn’t there be more bivocational professors who support themselves with another job like Paul did and offer their services to the seminary for free? But then he shakes his head and laughs at how impossible his idealistic musings are. The seminary has been operating the same way for too long. Tradition can’t be broken. There are too many people who would hate his ideas and keep them from even being tried. Why bother with a pipe dream? ⁠⁠⁠sellingjesus.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thedoreanprinciple.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠copy.church

What do you do when you've invested years working for a particular ministry that's part of the Jesus Trade, but then become convicted that selling ministry is wrong? We received an email from a listener along these lines. She finds herself in a dilemma. She wants to give Christian teaching freely and reach more people, but the organization she works under requires her to charge people a set amount because "they won't value what they don't pay for." What should she do? In this episode we do our best to address this situation. If you have a question about selling Jesus, please feel free to ⁠⁠reach out to us via email⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sellingjesus.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thedoreanprinciple.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠copy.church

Our guest in this episode, ⁠Joseph Jacowitz⁠, has been the pastor of Christ Bible Church, in Pleasanton, CA since 1990. He and his wife Sherry have been married since 1978 and have five children and eight grandchildren. Most importantly, for this podcast, Joe is the president of ⁠FirstLove Ministries⁠, which is one of the few ministries that truly lives out the ⁠Dorean Principle⁠ of freely giving and doing ministry by faith and funding everything through the provision of God through the free generosity of the Body of Christ. This is the first in what we hope will become a series of episodes in which we interview ministries that have rejected the Jesus Trade and are living out the command of Christ and the example of Paul, refusing to sell Christian ministry, but rather relying on God for all necessary finances to function. Although we may not always share all peripheral convictions with these ministries, we do share the core conviction of freely giving and taking a stand against the peddling of God’s Word. If you lead a ministry that seeks to reflect God’s heart by not commercializing Christianity, and you’d like to share about your ministry and God’s faithful provision as Joe has in this interview, please feel free to ⁠reach out to us via email⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠sellingjesus.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thedoreanprinciple.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠copy.church⁠

"When Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money. 'Give me this power as well,' he said, 'so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit'" (Acts 8:18-19). The sale of religious instruction is rightly labeled simony. As such, it should be readily condemned. The contemporary church is saturated with this particular sin. This episode answers several objections to calling the sale of religious instruction "simony." Those objections are: Simony Refers to Buying, not Selling Simony Refers to Ordinations, Not Other Religious Things Simony Refers to Spiritual Things, not Teaching Simony Refers to Immaterial Things, Not Material Things Simony Implicates the Buyer Read the article. ⁠⁠sellingjesus.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thedoreanprinciple.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠copy.church

For those of you who prefer to listen rather than watch a long video, this episode is for you. Watch the original video here, which also includes subtitles for the limited parts in Spanish. This is part 3, so if you haven't watched the previous episodes, make sure to watch part one and part two. Now that we’ve spent some time laying the biblical foundations for freely giving ministry, it’s story time. I want to share some anecdotes and interview clips to give you a picture of the bitter fruit of the Jesus trade. When we refuse to follow Jesus’ command in Matthew 10:8 to freely give the grace that we have freely received, the repercussions are tragic. Much of the fallout of the modern Church’s obsession with monetizing ministry has been invisible to Westerners. That’s because it’s usually casting a dark shadow on people in other countries who don’t speak English or who aren’t as wealthy. Special thanks to Fausto, Danillo, Paulo, and Botros for being willing to share about the reality in their countries. Here are some of the resources referenced in the video, as well as some others that might be helpful: Free and Open: Bibles without Copyright Restrictions Daniel Block interview Books and articles on copyright (including "Against Intellectual Monopoly") https://gracious.tech/ Bible Publishers - Stewards or Gatekeepers? United Bible Societies open resources https://open.bible https://aquifer.bible/ STEP Bible Center for New Testament Restoration https://openbookpublishers.com https://berean.bible/ https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/ https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essays/ The Dorean Principle The Christian Commons Does Jesus’ Command to “Freely Give” Apply Today? Common Objections Ten Times Commercializing Ministry Is Condemned Books and Resources on the topic Easy conversations to help you understand these issues better

Read the profile here. This series on "⁠⁠⁠⁠Christians Who Sell Jesus⁠⁠⁠⁠" takes profiles that represent real-world scenarios wherein well-meaning individuals are actively engaged in the Jesus trade, often unwittingly. Chris has a timely message and warning for the Church. He’s filled with a passionate and prophetic urgency to admonish evangelicals about the dangers he sees looming ahead if they do not repent and reform in seven key areas. So he has written a book in the form of a letter called Dear Church: Seven Lies Seducing Evangelicals. In the book he talks about how these lies are slowly infiltrating Christendom, and he desperately wants people to be aware of the dire consequences. Speaking from decades of pastoral experience, he believes that God has commanded him to sound a wake-up call to his people, and that he would have blood on his hands if he failed to raise these concerns. Chris has shared in multiple interviews that he had no intentions to write another book in his life, but God made it clear to him that he needed to help deliver people from the deadly deceptions of our anti-Christian culture. Since Chris is already a well-established author, he published his “letter” with a legacy publishing house. There are two options to choose from: a Kindle version for $14.99, and a hardback for $21.99. It is not freely available in any format, and copying it or sharing it is strictly forbidden in the “All Rights Reserved” notice at the beginning of the book. As we’ve already seen from other profiles like that of “Joe the Author,” what Chris has done is a clear violation of Christ’s command (Matt 10:8) and the wider teaching of Scripture (e.g. 2 Cor 2:17, Micah 3:11, 2 Cor 9). But from a purely pragmatic perspective, Chris’s choice for spreading his timely message is completely insane and hypocritical. It is evil, cruel, and illogical. Why? When you write a letter to someone, it’s an insult to require money from that person before allowing them to read it. It goes against the very definition of a letter to charge the recipient for it. It is both illogical and evil to put a paywall between people and urgent warnings. It’s illogical because, if you truly want to save people from imminent harm, you want them to get access to your warning as quickly, effortlessly, and freely as possible. For example, if you charge a fee before people can hear a hurricane or fire warning, it reveals that you don’t truly want to save lives, nor do you have any real “urgency” in your heart. This paywall is also evil and cruel because it ensures that many people will suffer harm or death because they didn’t hear the warning, especially the poor. Chris, by putting his book behind a paywall, has sealed painful consequences for many people, for which he will be held accountable at the judgment (by his own assessment and admission). People who are the most vulnerable to these lies of our anti-Christian culture are often the least likely to pay for a book in order to find out how they’ve been seduced. Many people who are deceived believe with all their hearts that they’re walking in the truth. They scoff at the idea of going out of their way to pay someone to tell them what lies they’ve fallen for. Ironically, Chris has contributed to the lies that harm evangelicals by believing and promoting a lie himself: the lie that Christian exhortation and messages inspired by the Spirit of God (speaking truth) can be turned into merchandise. He is not only aggravating the current crisis by keeping his important letter behind a paywall, but also helping to spread the deception that the only way to warn people is by selling that warning. ⁠⁠⁠sellingjesus.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thedoreanprinciple.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠copy.church

Although this article was not originally written for a podcast, we offer it here for those who don't have time to read it. If you prefer to read it, you can do that here. See the timestamps below to skip to different sections: 00:00 BIBLICAL CONTENT + BIBLICAL CONTEXT 03:29 BIBLICAL TIMES 04:06 MINISTRY, MOTIVES, AND MONEY 08:27 GOD’S INSTRUCTIONS TO HIS LEADERS 14:16 OTHER BIBLICAL EVIDENCE 19:57 WHO IS THE “COUNSELEE”? 21:20 WORLDLY MODEL 25:07 LEGAL LIABILITY 29:54 COUNSELING OR DISCIPLESHIP? 30:28 CONCLUSION - “COME TO THE WATERS” Should a ministry relationship, either in its initiation or continuation, ever be conditioned on the payment of a fee? Should the fulfillment of a biblical responsibility to care for God’s people ever be conditioned on the payment of a fee? In recent years, many churches and Christians have started to question modern psychotherapy and return to God’s Word as sufficient for counseling other believers. Although we rejoice at this development, a related question lurks in the background. Is it biblical to charge fees for biblical counseling? Is this question quickly answered “yes” by a simple reference to scriptures saying the “laborer is worthy of his wages”? (See Leviticus 19:13, Deuteronomy 24:15, Luke 10:7, Matthew 10:10, 1 Timothy 5:18, 1 Corinthians 9:14.) Knowing this topic may generate heated debate and disagreement, I begin with some personal observations as a former psychologized counselee. My journey through the maze of psychotherapy ran nearly thirty years. I was much like the sick woman who came to touch the garment of Jesus after spending all she had and suffering under the care of doctors who could not heal her (Mark 5:25-34). I poured out thousands of dollars to psychiatrists and psychologists who had no answers. The church sent me away, referring me to “greener” counseling pastures. Just having a “friend” cost dearly. Is this how God intends for His undershepherds to care for His sheep? Jesus told John three times to “feed My lambs” (John 21:15-17). Did He intend for His lambs to be charged for the meal? This was originally published by Christian Discernment Publications Ministry, Inc. (© 2007) and has been republished by permission, due to its valuable insights. ⁠sellingjesus.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thedoreanprinciple.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠copy.church

Read the article here. "For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ" (2 Cor. 2:17, ESV). This highly technical discussion is not an easy listen, and it's recommended that you complement it with the visuals in the written version of the article. That said, the primary source of interest in this verse is the word translated by the ESV as “peddlers” (καπηλεύοντες, from καπηλεύω). Commentators and translations divide over recognizing this word as indicating an adulteration or commercialization of the gospel. Furthermore, they differ on whether or not this word necessarily implies a motive of profit. Thus, as we will see below, some translations add “for profit” to the verse because they believe it to be implicit information from the context that needs to be made explicit to the reader, even though the words “for profit” are not found in the Greek. This matters because there are those who would argue that 2 Corinthians 2:17 does not confront the Jesus trade, but rather speaks merely of those who make too much profit from selling Jesus. Or they claim that this verse has nothing to do with selling, but rather with "corrupting" God's Word. Is there really a loophole here for Jesus sellers to avoid Paul's condemnation, or does it simply mean: "we are not commercializing God’s Word like so many others"? sellingjesus.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thedoreanprinciple.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠copy.church

Our Master has commanded us to “teach and admonish one another” (Col. 3:16) and to “warn those that are unruly” (1 Thess. 5:14) as part of our Christian duty. Yet rather than speaking truth and wisdom to others freely, as they received it from God, some sell their biblical counsel as though it had originated from themselves. By God’s grace, this is not the practice of a majority of biblical counselors, but it is unfortunately widespread, even among highly reputable biblical counseling organizations such as the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), as this episode will demonstrate. One of the hallmarks of the biblical counseling movement is the firm conviction that Scripture is sufficient for all non-medical problems. If this is so, God’s Word should also be sufficient for answering the question as to whether counseling should be supported or sold. We believe that the Bible is crystal clear that Christian ministry should never be sold, but rather freely supported by the Body of Christ, and we want to encourage the biblical counseling movement to embrace this scriptural truth. As long as biblical counselors teach and function as though the Bible is insufficient to answer this question, they unintentionally undermine their foundational premise. The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) is an esteemed organization, devoted to counseling according to God’s Word. I myself am an ACBC certified counselor, and greatly appreciate and admire the work they have done in equipping both pastors and laymen to rightly handle God’s Word in counseling. However, when it comes to Jesus’s teaching that the ministry of the gospel should be offered freely (Mat 10:8), this organization has opted to turn a blind eye. Rather than take the position of its founder Jay Adams, who clearly assumed that biblical counseling would be offered for free, ACBC leaves the door open for individual counselors to decide whether or not they will charge, and how much: “The Bible is clear that ministers of the gospel of Jesus are entitled to earn their living from the gospel…. Biblical counselors … must seek to love their counselees in discerning whether to charge fees and how much to charge.” Notice that they wrongly assume that earning a living “from the gospel” means charging people for speaking truth in love, putting a price tag on wisdom, and requiring people “obtain the gift of God with money” (Acts 8:20). Also, they imply that it can be loving to charge people for healing, for pointing them to Jesus, and for other spiritual gifts that are involved in biblical counseling. But it is never loving to disobey God by selling access to the ministry of his Word and Spirit. As we’ll see in the data presented below, this confusing stance regarding money and ministry has created a biblical counseling landscape in which everyone simply does what is right in their own eyes. Read the article here. ⁠sellingjesus.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thedoreanprinciple.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠copy.church

This series on "⁠⁠⁠Christians Who Sell Jesus⁠⁠⁠" takes profiles that represent real-world scenarios wherein well-meaning individuals are actively engaged in the Jesus trade, often unwittingly. Luke is a gifted preacher and speaker. Some of the biggest summer camps book him years in advance, and large churches love to invite him to present at conferences. In the early years of his preaching ministry he would only receive honorariums as a free gift that churches might give him to help cover expenses. But now he receives more requests than he can commit to. At one point an old pastor told him that he needed to think about charging upfront for speaking engagements. This would help limit the amount of requests and enable him to start a college fund for his kids. His family agreed that this was a wise idea, and after considering it prayerfully, Luke began making it clear that he would require X amount in payment in addition to all of his travel expenses before agreeing to speak at an event. At first he didn’t like how this exchange felt, especially when smaller, likable churches couldn’t afford what he asked. But as the money started to flow, after a while he got used to it. Now and then, when Luke has quieted his heart and is out on an evening walk with God, conflicted sentiments crowd his thoughts, and his conscience wonders whether he’s doing the right thing by putting a price tag on sharing what God has freely given him. But he’s quick to tell himself, “At least you don’t charge as much as your friend David does. He charges twice as much and doesn’t even have the greatest things to say. Most respected Christian celebrities charge for speaking. Besides, how else could you help your kids with their college expenses? God wants you to care for your family.” Luke is a classic example of a man who bases his pursuit of holiness on people around him instead of on the standard of God’s Word. As long as he’s a little better than “that other guy,” he feels justified. He has believed a few lies: 1) putting his kids through college is more important than obeying God, 2) God is incapable of providing for his children through any other means than the ill-gotten gain of peddling God’s Word, 3) as long as his sin is not as extreme as those around him, God is pleased and honored, 4) widely-respected, famous evangelicals are a better standard to live by than Scripture. While Luke is not actively trying to do evil, he has become complacent with the default state of affairs around him and is content to go with the flow. He’s comfortable with worldly ways of thinking about money and ministry, so why rock the boat? ⁠⁠sellingjesus.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thedoreanprinciple.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠copy.church⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Music: "Amazing" by Liborio Conti, https://www.no-copyright-music.com