Patronage, Poverty and Powerless Gospel

Paul and company turned the ancient world upside down by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The gospel they preached was summarized in the death, resurrection and the imminent return of Christ.  Such was the power of this gospel; it brought the ancient world to its knee in worship of Jesus Christ our Lord.   It transformed lives, families, villages, cities, nations and empires for the better.

Preaching this gospel was a glorious opportunity for Paul; a profession he would have chosen a thousand times over.  He says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16) because “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1Cor. 1:18).  The gospel was the power of God that set humanity free from the bondage of sin, death and the devil; because of this gospel, men and women found themselves at the threshold of eternal life.  All they had to do was to accept the offer of life by faith.   

For Paul, this gospel had become as if it was a part of his being; it literally sprang from the core of his being.  He had this gospel embedded in his blood streams from the day he stood in the presence of resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus.  This was an experiential reality from which he never veered away; not even the glorious visions of celestial realities of third heaven could be compared to the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ he was preaching.  He did not allow those visionary experiences of ascending and descending the heavenly portals to divert him from preaching Christ and him crucified; death, resurrection, and imminent return of Christ became the foundation for Paul’s life and ministry. 

As Paul canvassed the Roman world with this gospel, he faced many trials and hardships.  One of the hardships that broke Paul’s heart the most was when he saw Christians plagued by the conflicts of personal ambitions fueled by the desire to possess earthly fame, power and glory; the carnal Christians fighting for the things of this world.  In the Greco-Roman world, the philosophers enjoyed the patronage of the wealthy citizens.  In return, the wealthy patrons would also enjoy sharing the fame of the philosophers they patronize.  The philosophers would write books in the names of these wealthy nobles and speeches would be addressed to them in public squares.  The preachers and teachers would preach and teach to sooth the “itching ears” of such patrons and audiences.

This patronizing spirit of the wealthy and the profit seeking preachers in the Greco-Roman world found great counterparts in each other causing serious damage to the health of the church and reducing the effect of the gospel; particularly the Corinthian and the Galatian churches suffered the most at the hands of such practices.  It appears that many Christian preachers had given into the temptation of materialism, and Paul feels helpless in his letter to the Philippians; he writes about those who “preach Christ out of selfish ambition”.  The only consolation for Paul is that somehow Christ is preached and for that he rejoices (1:17-18).  In his farewell message to the Ephesian elders, he warned them of those who will destroy the church from within by following their selfish ambitions and greed.  As a precaution, he testified to them that he never coveted their silver or gold but rather he provided for himself and his fellow ministers with his own labor.  Paul practiced the saying of Jesus that “it is better to give than to receive” (Acts 20:22-35).  Peter also faced similar challenges in his ministry.  He urges the elders to take care of the church sacrificially and not for monetary gains (1Pet. 5:2).

Therefore, it seems likely that the patronizing believers and the profit seeking preachers posed great challenge to the power of the gospel in the early church.  The spirit of Judas Iscariot, the rich young ruler of Luke 18 and a scribe of Matthew 8 continued in the days of Peter, Paul, and down through the ages. 

In the postindustrial world, this challenge has fully come home in the developing nations like no other times in the history of the church.  Vast portion of world’s population is getting poorer everyday while the rich continue to be richer.  Most part of the church in the affluent nation has impersonated the spirit of patronizing and found the perfect ally in the form of profit seeking preachers in the developing nations.  There is such a noise in the name of missions and missionary activities, but no one cares to notice the powerlessness of the gospel in the face of rampant corruption in missions and missionary activities.  The church in the developing nation has become a helpless victim between the rich patrons and the poor preachers.  But the church in the affluent nation is hungry for name, fame and popularity.  One way of getting such luxuries is to brag about the involvement in missions so that it can continue to impress its affluent members while the profit seeking preachers in the developing nations are busy in feeding the donors' itching ears with all kinds of reports, pictures, and videos.  The primary purpose of the profit seeking preachers’ ministry in the developing nations appears to impress the donors  rather than preaching the gospel.  Such motifs can be easily detected by a simple glance at the colorful mission reports of these preachers presented to their donors.  Be it sharing the gospel with a new person, baptizing new believers, helping the needy, praying for someone, training anyone, or whatever, they want to make sure that their faces are displayed clearly on the photographs and videos so that the donors can be impressed.  Every ministry and mission work of the prosperity seeking preachers is geared toward impressing the donors to milk some donations. 

If Paul visited the church on earth, he would wonder in aghast seeing that the kingdom of God, for these preachers, has become a matter of food, drink and talk sans righteousness, peace, joy, and power.  Under the tyranny of patronage and poverty (desire for prosperity), the gospel has become a casualty as if it has lost its power against the power of money and materialism.  The rich Christian Patrons’ desire to control and the poor preachers’ desire to prosper are the two crutches holding the limping church look like as if she is standing on her feet.   Should the rich patrons decide to stop the flow of money, much of the church reported in the annals of the missions organizations in developing nations would vanish from the face of the earth.  It took a Mao in China for the gospel to reclaim its power from the clutches of patrons and prosperity seeking poor preachers; it took the blood of countless martyrs for the church in China to free itself from the ignominy of being called “Rice Christians”.   One wonders…