Full Time Ministry - Mark

The original church was very similar to our small groups that meet in private homes.

• When did the church become an institution with a full time staff?
• Is this a Biblical principal or something invented by men?

The Roman Catholic Church claims that it began with Peter in Matthew 16:18. Jesus said, "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Later in Acts 10:15 God tells Peter, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean" making it possible for gentiles to become saved.

I had always assumed that the idea of a formal church was a product of the Council at Nicaea in 325 AD. They wrote the Nicaean Creed which divided up the church into dioceses based upon geographic regions. Writing the Bible in Latin and administering confessions has always made the Catholic Church appear a little self serving.

I noticed yesterday that the concept of full time ministry originates thousands of years prior to the Catholic Church and actually comes from the beginning of Judaism.

Leviticus 7:28-36
God spoke to Moses: "Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When you present a Peace-Offering to God, bring some of your Peace-Offering as a special sacrifice to God, a gift to God in your own hands. Bring the fat with the breast and then wave the breast before God as a Wave-Offering. The priest will burn the fat on the Altar; Aaron and his sons get the breast. Give the right thigh from your Peace-Offerings as a Contribution-Offering to the priest. Give a portion of the right thigh to the son of Aaron who offers the blood and fat of the Peace-Offering as his portion. From the Peace-Offerings of Israel, I'm giving the breast of the Wave-Offering and the thigh of the Contribution-Offering to Aaron the priest and his sons. This is their fixed compensation from the People of Israel."

From the day they are presented to serve as priests to God, Aaron and his sons can expect to receive these allotments from the gifts of God. This is what God commanded the People of Israel to give the priests from the day of their anointing. This is the fixed rule down through the generations.

Jesus later reinforces the idea that the priests should be supported by the people in Luke 9:3-6. He told them: "Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them." So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.

God clearly described a culture where a small portion of the population was called into full time service, and they were to be supported by the citizens.