Fair Pay

You've noticed by now that Kings and Chronicles have significant overlap in the details reported. We'll see this again when we reach the Gospels, at which time I'll paraphrase an essay in my NIV Study Bible, but for today, I'm going to focus on the events described in 1 Kings 5:10-11 and 2 Chronicles 2:8-10. Since the Chronicles citation is fuller, that's the one I'll state here:

⁸ “Send me also cedar, juniper and algum logs from Lebanon, for I know that your servants are skilled in cutting timber there. My servants will work with yours ⁹ to provide me with plenty of lumber, because the temple I build must be large and magnificent. ¹⁰ I will give your servants, the woodsmen who cut the timber, twenty thousand cors of ground wheat, twenty thousand cors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine and twenty thousand baths of olive oil.” 

I'll comment on how much Solomon paid tomorrow, but will focus instead on the fair payment for goods and services. Up to this point, the concept of paying for things has been largely overlooked--the Egyptians never compensated Israel for their slave labor, nor did Israel  compensate the residents of the Promised Land for their land. Commerce clearly happened--it's hard to have trade routes (recall Joseph was sold to Midianite merchants in Genesis 37) without trade.

In today's reading, Solomon doesn't demand the lumber from Lebanon, but assists in harvesting and is willing to pay for it. In the modern church, we tend to regard commerce as a dirty business worthy of contempt, and we over-inflate the significance of Jesus throwing out the moneychangers in the temple. The truth is, nowhere in Scripture is any instance suggesting that a fair price shouldn't be paid for what the church uses. I'll comment on this more when we get to Paul's epistles, since he had much to say on the subject.

We should never finance anything in any church by not paying the people who provide the work, nor should we expect any type of discount--if the provider wants to be generous, that's their prerogative, but it should never be considered our due. We're all aware of the wisdom of Solomon, and this is a small, but important glimpse of the extent of that wisdom--anything of value should be compensated, and fairly at that. Our church workers ARE storing up treasures in heaven, but that doesn't excuse us from paying them what they're worth here.

Scott