I have coveted [the] silver or gold or clothing of no one.
Paul is saying goodbye. He has called the elders of the church at Ephesus down to the coast at Miletus. He has warned them that wolves are coming for the flock. Now he holds up his own record: he wanted nothing that belonged to them.
This sentence is not a stray boast. It answers the danger Paul has just described, and it answers it by pointing at himself.
So he warns them of coming dangers — dangers from without and dangers from within. Fierce wolves would come in and not spare the flock. And from among themselves men would rise up, speaking twisted things to draw away disciples after them. Had Paul sought to gather round himself? They well knew that he had not. He had not received material support from them.
The three items in the verse are not random. Each one feeds a real appetite.
The old nature covets silver, gold, and clothing. All of these feed the cravings of the body and of the mind. Love serves others. Love with faith alone glorifies God. It is good when those who teach these things are living examples of all they urge on others.
Paul was not saying that workers should go unsupported. He taught the opposite — and then declined the benefit himself.
But you say, The servants of the Lord must be supported. Certainly. Look at this dear man of God, and see how he was supported. To everyone who would have given to him, he could say, I do not want your support… He supported himself by making tents, and I guarantee they were the best tents on the market. He would not give any man a chance of saying, Paul was paid for it, or, I have made Paul rich… Paul would not take a penny from the Corinthians. Yet he laid down the rule that the servant should be supported. He laid it down for others and flung it up for himself.
If money is not what drives a servant, something else must be.
The true servant of Christ does not work for money or to make a living. He works out of love to the Lord and to precious souls. He seeks their blessing, not their possessions. He trusts the Lord for his own needs and his family's. And he thankfully takes whatever he receives as coming from the Lord whom he serves.
One writer treats Paul's whole farewell speech as a checklist for anyone who serves at all.
Our own service may be very small, yet the things that marked him should mark us. Here are some of them. "Humility of mind." "Many tears" — a sign of deep exercise of heart. "None of these things move me" — a steady soul. "I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel" — the strictest possible righteousness before the world. "I have shown you all things" — practising what he preached.
Paul is not the first leader to end his work with this claim. Samuel, Israel's last judge, ended his public life by daring the nation to accuse him, and Nehemiah, governor in Jerusalem, refused the food allowance his office allowed him. Behind all three stands an old warning about what a gift does to the person who takes it.
He had stayed close to the law of Moses. It says, "You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right" (Ex. 23:8). He well knew the blinding power of presents, even when they are not given directly to corrupt the court. He knew how easily a gift from someone in the case can sway a judge, however small the gift, and almost without the judge noticing it.
- Danger. Paul speaks with wolves in view. He had just warned of men who would draw disciples after themselves. His own empty hands were the contrast, and the elders knew it.
- Diagnosis. Silver, gold and clothing are what the old nature wants. They feed the cravings of the body and of the mind.
- Surrender. Paul taught that workers deserve support, then gave up his own claim to it. He worked with his hands, so no one could say he preached for pay.
- Substitute. What replaces gain is love for the Lord and for souls, plus quiet trust that God supplies the need. The true servant seeks people's blessing, not their possessions.
- Standard. This is not a rule for leaders only. The marks of Paul's service were humility, steadiness, plain honesty before the world, and practising what he preached. They belong to the smallest service any believer does.
Yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my wants, and to those who were with me.
This is Paul's farewell to the elders of the church at Ephesus, and near the end of it he holds up his own hands as evidence. He had just said he coveted no one's silver or gold; now he points to the hands that paid for his bread and for his companions' bread.
Paul does not ask them to take his word for it. He points to work they had all seen.
Now he can honestly appeal to the fact of his own character and conduct among them. He had not coveted the property of anyone, a marked contrast to many popular religious leaders today. They all knew that he had worked to support himself and others who were with him even though he had a right to refrain from secular employment (1 Cor. 9:11-14).
The word "these" is a gesture, not just a pronoun. Paul had learned tent-making, and the trade left its mark on him.
It is striking that (as far as I can recall) Philippi is the only one of the many assemblies Paul founded that we read of sharing with him in his daily needs. Instead, he points the elders of Ephesus to his own hands. And it is no light matter to provide for the needs of a group as large as those sometimes with Paul. Can you not see the apostle stretch out those work-worn hands, hard and calloused with tent-making, as he speaks of "these hands"?
His hands did not stop at his own needs. Set beside the rest of his work, that is remarkable.
What he did was to work with his own hands by night as well as by day, so that, being self-supporting, he might not be any charge on them. He refers to this again in his second letter. From Acts 20:34 we learn an astonishing fact. He met his own needs this way, and the needs of those who were with him too. Elsewhere he speaks of "night and day praying exceedingly," and we know how abundant his labours in the gospel were.
Paul agreed that a worker deserves his pay. Two things held him back.
At the same time he fully recognised our Lord's maxim, "the labourer is worthy of his hire." (See 1 Cor. 9; Phil. 4; Gal. 6:6.) Why then, it may be asked, did the apostle not take more advantage of it? On the one hand, this devoted servant would not claim his rights, for fear people would misunderstand him. And some of his converts had only just been rescued from the deepest darkness. He felt they needed an object lesson in him — how to earn an honest living. ... On the other hand, we must not forget that there were times when he did receive, and he fully recognised that to be the divine order.
Greed belongs to the old life. Paul's own record shows the opposite, and it sets a standard few reach.
The old man covets silver, and gold, and clothing. All these serve the desires of the body as well as of the mind. Love serves others. Love with faith alone glorifies God. It is well when those who teach these things are living examples of everything they press on others. How few can say truthfully and consistently with the apostle, "I coveted no man's silver, or gold, or clothing."
The same working hands appear in another city. There Paul was copying Someone.
The apostle had pushed forward alone and without means into a region of abundant ease and refinement, and of loose morals to match. There he worked with his own hands for the needs of others as well as his own, as he always did. In this he truly represented the Master who came not to be served but to serve. ... He was not the man to urge on others what he shrank from himself. Nor did he hesitate to commend such a path of gracious self-denial to those whose work it is to feed or tend the flock of God.
- Hands, not words — Paul answers with proof, not claims — calloused, tent-making hands the Ephesians had all seen at work.
- Hands that fed himself — he supported himself, so that he would be no charge on his hearers and no one could misunderstand him.
- Hands that fed others — those same hands covered the needs of his whole travelling party, on top of work by night, prayer and preaching.
- Hands held up as a model — he had a clear right to support and gave it up, so new believers could watch him earn an honest living.
- Hands shaped by Christ — working for the needs of others as well as his own, he showed the Master who came not to be served but to serve.