Self-Employed "Doctors of
Divinity"
"Neither
did we eat any man’s bread for nought; but wrought with labour
and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to
any of you..." 2Thessalonians 3:8
"that we might not be chargeable to any of you
";
or burdensome to them, they being for the most part poor; and
the apostles being able partly by their own hand labor, and
partly by what they received from Philippi, (Php 4:16) to
support themselves, chose to that they might not lie heavy upon
them, and any ways hinder the spread of the Gospel among them,
at its first coming to them. And so Maimonides says the ancient
Jewish doctors behaved, and with a like view: wherefore, says
he:
“if a man is a wise man, and
an honorable man, and poor, let him employ himself in some
handicraft business, even though a mean one, and not distress
men (or be burdensome to them); it is better to strip the skins
of beasts that have been torn, than to say to the people, I am a
considerable wise (or learned) man, I am a priest, take care of
me, and maintain me; and so the wise men have ordered: and
some of the greatest doctors have been
hewers of wood, and carriers of timber, and drawers of water for
the gardens, and have wrought in iron and coals, and have
not required anything of the congregation; nor would they take
anything of them, when they would have given to them.”
Maimonides, (from John Gill's Expositor, 2
Thess. 3:8-9)
