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Japanese No. The Gospels never show Jesus asking for money for himself or charging for his teaching or healing. Before his ministry he worked as a carpenter. During it, Luke 8:1–3 says, women including Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna supported the group from their own means, and Judas Iscariot kept a shared purse.
Did Jesus ever ask for money?
The Gospels record no request by Jesus for money for himself, his disciples or his work. When he sent the Twelve out to preach and heal, he told them, “freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8).
Jesus did ask to see a coin once, to answer a question. His opponents asked whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar. He said, “Shew me the tribute money,” and they brought him a penny, a Roman denarius. He asked whose image was on it, and when they said Caesar’s, he answered, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:17–21).
In the Old Testament, God does ask his people for money and goods. The law of Moses says that “all the tithe of the land” is “holy unto the LORD” (Leviticus 27:30), and the prophet Malachi tells Israel, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse” (Malachi 3:10). The law gave “all the tenth in Israel” to the tribe of Levi for its service at the tabernacle (Numbers 18:21). Jesus lived under that law, but the Gospels do not show him collecting tithes or offerings.
Did Jesus get paid for preaching or for his miracles?
No fee, wage or payment for preaching or healing appears anywhere in the Gospels. Jesus did expect his messengers to be fed and housed by the people they served. He sent the Twelve out with “no money in their purse” (Mark 6:8) and said, “the workman is worthy of his meat” (Matthew 10:10). When he sent out seventy others, he told them to stay in one house, “eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire” (Luke 10:7). They were to live on the hospitality of the households that received them. At the Last Supper he changed the instruction: “But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip” (Luke 22:36).
The apostle Paul drew a rule from these sayings: “Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:14). Paul also said he had not used that right himself, so that he could “make the gospel of Christ without charge” (1 Corinthians 9:18).
How did Jesus earn money before his ministry?
Jesus worked with his hands. In his hometown people asked whether he was not “the carpenter, the son of Mary” (Mark 6:3), or in Matthew’s account, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Matthew 13:55). The Greek word is tektōn. Encyclopaedia Britannica summarizes the two verses: Joseph was a carpenter, “a craftsman who worked with his hands,” and according to Mark, Jesus also became one. The question of whether he worked mainly in wood or in stone is covered in Was Jesus really a carpenter?
His family was not wealthy. When Mary and Joseph presented the infant Jesus at the temple, they offered “A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons” (Luke 2:24). The law allowed that offering when a mother was “not able to bring a lamb” (Leviticus 12:8). Luke says Jesus was “about thirty years of age” when his ministry began (Luke 3:23). Scripture does not say how much he earned as a craftsman.
Who supported Jesus’ ministry financially?
Luke names the supporters. As Jesus traveled “throughout every city and village,” the Twelve went with him, along with “certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities”: Mary Magdalene, “Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance” (Luke 8:1–3). “Substance” means their own property or money. Joanna’s husband managed the household of Herod, the “tetrarch of Galilee” (Luke 3:1), so at least one supporter had ties to the ruler’s court.
The King James Version says the women ministered “unto him.” The Greek text used for most modern editions reads “unto them,” meaning Jesus and the Twelve together, and modern translations follow it. The ESV says the women “provided for them out of their means.”
Others gave food and lodging. Simon Peter’s mother-in-law served Jesus and the disciples in the house of Simon and Andrew (Mark 1:29–31). Martha “received him into her house” (Luke 10:38). A Pharisee invited him to a meal (Luke 7:36), and Jesus invited himself to stay with Zacchaeus, a rich tax collector (Luke 19:5). After his death, Joseph of Arimathea, “a rich man,” laid his body “in his own new tomb” (Matthew 27:57–60), and Nicodemus brought “a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight” for the burial (John 19:39).
Did Jesus have a treasurer?
Yes. Judas Iscariot kept the group’s money. John’s Gospel says Judas “had the bag, and bare what was put therein” (John 12:6). John adds that when Judas objected to a costly gift, he spoke “not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief” (John 12:5–6).
The purse paid for ordinary needs and for gifts to the poor. At the Last Supper, when Jesus spoke to Judas, some of the disciples assumed he had told him, “Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor” (John 13:29). In Samaria the disciples went into the town “to buy meat,” meaning food (John 4:8). Before the feeding of the five thousand they asked whether they should “go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread” (Mark 6:37).
Judas later agreed to betray Jesus to the chief priests, who “covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver” (Matthew 26:15). After Jesus was condemned, Judas brought the silver back and threw it down in the temple. The priests would not put “the price of blood” into the treasury and bought “the potter’s field” with it instead (Matthew 27:3–7). More on that sum is in the price of Judas’s betrayal.
Did Jesus accept expensive gifts?
Yes. Days before his death, at a supper in Bethany, a woman poured “ointment of spikenard very precious” over him (Mark 14:3). John names her as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and says she anointed his feet (John 12:1–3). Some present complained that the ointment “might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor” (Mark 14:5). In Jesus’ parable of the vineyard, a laborer is hired “for a penny a day” (Matthew 20:2), so the ointment was worth about 300 days’ wages.
Jesus defended her: “Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.” He said she had come “aforehand to anoint my body to the burying” (Mark 14:6–8). Luke tells of a separate anointing earlier in the ministry, in a Pharisee’s house, by a woman described as “a sinner” (Luke 7:36–50).
Did Jesus have money of his own?
Jesus described himself as having no home of his own: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Luke 9:58; Matthew 8:20). Matthew says that after leaving Nazareth he “dwelt in Capernaum” (Matthew 4:13), but the Gospels never mention a house, land or savings that he owned during his ministry. Money for daily needs came from the shared purse.
He did pay tax. In Capernaum the collectors of the two-drachma tax asked Peter, “Doth not your master pay tribute?” (Matthew 17:24). This was the half shekel that the law of Moses required of every Israelite counted in the census, “from twenty years old and above,” for “the service of the tabernacle” (Exodus 30:13–16), and modern translations such as the ESV head the passage “The Temple Tax.” Jesus pointed out that kings tax strangers, not their own children: “Then are the children free.” Still, “lest we should offend them,” he told Peter to catch a fish, and “thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee” (Matthew 17:26–27).
Did Jesus tithe or teach tithing?
Scripture does not say whether Jesus paid a tithe. He lived under the law of Moses, which required one.
His clearest words on tithing are addressed to the scribes and Pharisees: “ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone” (Matthew 23:23; compare Luke 11:42). He approved of the tithe and said that justice, mercy and faith matter more.
He also watched people give. Sitting opposite the temple treasury, he saw rich people put in “much” and a poor widow put in “two mites.” He told his disciples that she “hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury,” because they gave “of their abundance” and she gave “all that she had, even all her living” (Mark 12:41–44).
No New Testament passage sets a percentage for Christian giving. Paul asks each believer to set money aside “as God hath prospered him” (1 Corinthians 16:2), and churches apply the teaching in different ways. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 2043) says the faithful “have the duty of providing for the material needs of the Church, each according to his abilities.” The Southern Baptist Convention’s Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (article XIII) says Christians “should contribute of their means cheerfully, regularly, systematically, proportionately, and liberally.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asks members to pay “one-tenth of all their interest annually” (Doctrine and Covenants 119:4).
Why did Jesus drive the money changers out of the temple?
All four Gospels tell how Jesus drove traders out of the temple, and Matthew, Mark and John say he overturned the money changers’ tables. John’s account says he found people selling oxen, sheep and doves, “and the changers of money sitting,” drove them out, “poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables,” and said, “make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise” (John 2:13–16). In Mark he joins words from Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11: “Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Mark 11:15–17).
His complaint was trading in the temple. He did not object to offerings there: in the same temple, he praised the widow’s gift (Mark 12:41–44).
What did Jesus teach about wealth?
Jesus warned often about the pull of money. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,” he said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19–21). “Ye cannot serve God and mammon,” meaning wealth (Matthew 6:24). “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15).
He told a rich man who asked about eternal life, “go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.” The man “went away grieved: for he had great possessions,” and Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:21–25). Yet he did not ask the same of everyone. When Zacchaeus promised to give half his goods to the poor and to repay fourfold anyone he had cheated, Jesus said, “This day is salvation come to this house” (Luke 19:8–9).
Many of his parables turn on coins, wages and debts: the talents entrusted to three servants (Matthew 25:14–30), the woman who searches for one lost piece of silver (Luke 15:8–9), the two debtors who owed “five hundred pence, and the other fifty” (Luke 7:41–42), and the rich man who built bigger barns and was “not rich toward God” (Luke 12:16–21).
In Acts, Paul quotes a saying of Jesus that the Gospels do not record: “remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
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