double honor?

Double honor? What does that mean? I had a conversation with a friend about a month ago concerning some questions that I had on the validity of paying pastors. 1 Timothy 5:17 says "The eldars who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching" I found three different versions of this in commentaries. 1. A minister of the church is to be double paid.
2. A minister is to recieve honor and also pay.
3. A minister is to recieve double honor as in, honor for being a minister and added honor for working hard at it.
Concerning the first, I have to be honost. The only people I believe seeing this scripture as a definition to the verse are those ministers who are greedy. Double pay? Double pay from what? I don't even see what is suppose to be the right pay amount. It seems odd to me that this scripture would be talking about paying someone double. It doesn't flow with scripture at all. If we were to take a look at what the early church was doing in the book of Acts and see that they all sold their properties and shared among one another so that there was no want. That would mean that there wasn't one person or a group of people being paid, in money, to do what God had already told them to do. Every recieved what they needed, despite what part of service they were doing in the church. Paul also referances in scripture that they should reflect what he taught them and how he worked while he was with them. He worked so that he wouldn't be an extra burden to those that he was serving. The other interesting thing about this scripture is that if you were to look at the importance that Paul is puting on where the church's money should be going, the first and formost should go to the poor and the widow. Exactly where the tithes and offering were going to in the book of Malachi.
I will touch on 2 and 3 in further blogs.
same blog channel, different blog time, thanks for tuning in.

Why family works

I have often wondered why the church familys that I have been part of always seem to come up short with what my real family is like. Yes we have our problems and there are those that do not know the Lord but why do we continue to get together? Invite each other to family gatherings and out of all our faults we still love each other. There is a bond that happens in a family that just doesn't seem explainable to me. In a modern day church in America, you might have something that in a way reflects a family but as soon as something turns somebody off. Their gone. Why stay at one church when there is hundreds more to be part of. If the pastor says something wrong at one church, then you can just go to another. Countless families end up "church hopping" going from one to another. In the early church, they called each other brothers and sisters. I would think there was a reason why they called each other that. Maybe it was to continually remind themselves that no matter what happened between each other they were still family. We have gotten away from that. How many people in a church do you hear say brother, so and so or sister, so and so. Very few. My wife and I have started to call our friends that come into the coffee house (brothers and sisters). It seems to fit. We don't go to the church they do but who cares. They share the same Lord and the same Father. It has been part of the journey, to realise that you are part of a family and that you can't just throw away brothers and sisters, even though you might disagree with them. Today I am surounded by family both in the Lord and also family in marriage. Thank you Jesus!

The Journey

Ok, here is the meaning of the title. My wife and I have been on a journey. What kind of journey, you may ask? A spiritual one! Ok, so here is the point, if for some reason you find yourself not liking the whole spiritual thing, that you can stop reading and find something else on the internet because this is not for anyone else but for me and those who may be like minded. I also wanted to write down my ideas somewhere so I can keep track and maybe (if I am lucky get feedback). Also, I am not an English major, nor do I aspire to be, so there may be times where my sentences continue to run on and on and on. Just bear, I will get to my point sooner or later. My wife and I felt very comfortable in what some would consider traditional church and have now found ourselves looking for something different and that is where the journey begins. In the Lord of the Rings Bilbo Baggins says "it's a wonderful and dangerous business walking out your front door". I guess you can say that my wife and I just walked out the front door and have no idea where we will be swept off too.