Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

God requires that his people should pray for his ministers; and it is not
to be wondered at, if they who pray not for their preachers should receive
no benefit from their teaching. How can they expect God to send a
message by him for whom they who are the most interested have not
prayed? If the grace and Spirit of Christ be not worth the most earnest
prayers which a man can offer, they, and the heaven to which they lead,
are not worth having.
Even the success of the apostles depended, in a certain way, on the
prayers of the church. Few Christian congregations feel, as they ought,
that it is their bounden duty to pray for the success of the gospel, both
among themselves and in the world. The church is weak, dark, poor, and
imperfect, because it prays little.
There are some people who are unwilling to grant the common
necessaries of life to those who watch over them in the Lord. For there
are such people even in the Christian church! If the preachers of the
gospel were as parsimonious of the bread of life as some congregations
and Christian societies are of the bread that perisheth; and if the preacher
gave them a spiritual nourishment as base, as mean, and as scanty as the
temporal support which they afford him, their souls must, without doubt,
have nearly a famine of the bread of life.
St. Paul contends that a preacher of the gospel has a right to his
support; and he has proved this from the law, from the gospel, and from
the common sense and consent of men. If a man who does not labour
takes his maintenance from the church of God, it is not only a domestic
theft, but a sacrilege. He that gives up his time to this labour has a right
to the support of himself and family. Those who refuse the labourer his
hire are condemned by God and good men. How liberal are many to
public places of amusement, or to some popular charity, where their
names are sure to be published abroad; while the man who watches over
their souls is fed with the most parsimonious hand! Will not God abate
this pride, and reprove this hard heartedness?