Having been in the ministry for close to 20 years, including the years that have taken to do my theological courses. I have come across many Godly people and leaders in life and all those who have played a very vital role in life and growth in the Lord.

Now I have become an Independent servant of the Lord, but this does not mean that I stopped depending on the Lord. But what I mean to say is I have chosen to follow the burden that the Lord has given me, to pursue and work all by myself, because others do not have the same what the Lord burdened with. Therefore in order to do that, I have to do it all by myself and that is what I say now, that I am an independent servant of the Lord.

As long as you work under some organization and mission, you have a promised salary and facility as you faithfully carry out the objectives of the organization or the mission. I had the privilege of working under an organization for more than a decade. As long as I was working I had some earthly hope that if not on time otherwise sooner or later I would receive my payments, so I had the so-called hope of meeting my needs.

But once you become independent you are not aware of how and from where you are going to be provided for your needs. You depend on the gifts, donations, or help from family, friends, and people who have made commitments or perhaps give you from time to time. Another possible way of meeting your needs could be if you have planted something of your own and you have been blessed by the same plantation now and that has been the source for meeting your daily needs and the ministry.

Now the paradox that which I am talking about is this, should a servant of God take up some secular or outside job in order to meet his personal, family, and ministry needs? And vice versa should a secular or outside job holder be called a servant of God or I mean to be called a minister of the Gospel? And to me, this is a real paradox. Let me give you my standpoint on the basis of a few practical and biblical examples.

1. Living examples to consider as a paradox:

I have known a number of people from India and even abroad, those that have left their secular jobs or outside jobs to get into ministry. And I am sure you have been also experienced the same way, I mean to say that you must have heard of people who left their secular jobs to serve Christ in a better way.

On the other hand, there are also people or servants of God, who have taken the outside job to support the ministry needs. And to add to this point there are many in Christian countries, where we see a number of servants of Christ, taking up outside jobs to support the mission or help the mission.