1 Timothy 5:18 - Exposition

When he for that , A.V.; hire for reward , A.V. Thou shall not muzzle , etc. This passage, kern Deuteronomy 25:1-19 ., which is quoted and commented upon, in the same souse as here, in 1 Corinthians 9:9 , shows distinctly that reward was to go with labor. The ox was not to be hindered from eating some portion of the grain which he was treading out. The preacher of the gospel was to live of the gospel. The laborer is worthy of his hire ( ἄξιος ὁ ἐργάτης τοῦ μισθοῦ αὑτοῦ ). In Matthew 10:10 the words are the same as here, except that τῆς τροφῆς (his meat) is substituted for τοῦ μισθοῦ . But in Luke 10:7 the words are identical with those here used, even to the omission (in the R.T.) of the verb ἔστιν . The conclusion is inevitable that the writer of this Epistle was acquainted with and quoted from St. Luke's Gospel; and further, that he deemed it, or at least the saying of the Lord Jesus recorded, in it, to be of equal authority with " ἡ γραφή ," the Scripture. If this Epistle was written by St. Paul after his first imprisonment at Rome, we may feel tolerably certain that he was acquainted with the Gospel or St. Luke, so that there is no improbability in his quoting from it. His reference to another saying of the Lord Jesus in Acts 20:35 gives additional probability to it. The passage in 2 Timothy 4:18 seems also to be a direct reference to the Lord's Prayer, as contained in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. St. Paul does not directly call the words ἡ γραφή , only treats them as of equal authority, which, if they were the words of Christ, of course they were.