Online work is new. Often people consider blogging a hobby. Maybe you’re scared to make your own products. Scared to ask for payment. Or even weighted down by guilt.
I believe online work is honest labor. The Bible has a lot to say about the value of work. For men and women! So let’s get started.
Three Biblical Reasons You Deserve Payment For Your Work + One Big Reason Not To Work For Free
1. “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” 1 Timothy 5:8
Many of us are making it month-to-month on one income. But at the cost of cutting corners.
You’re not able to tithe or donate as much as you’d like. You’re not saving for long-term needs like retirement, college, or the care of a disabled family member. Your mortgage or student loans feel like a millstone around your neck.
Providing for the needs of your household is vital. But it’s also thrilling. When I first transferred thousands of dollars to our disabled child’s savings plan, I bawled like a baby. Scratch that, I still cry every time. These working years are my years of plenty. It’s my duty to save up grain for the famine years to come. (Genesis 41:36)
2. “She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.” Proverbs 31:6
Are you burdened by a guilt not found in scripture? The nuclear family with a non-earning wife is a flash in the pan. Before white American families of postwar abundance invented the wife-as-consumer role in the 50s and 60s, every woman was a diligent producer.
Agrarian societies like those of Bible times depended on everyone’s labor. Everyone was a producer, not merely a consumer. In, around, or near the home, men and women both engaged in God’s glorious work of creation.
The virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 works from the dark hours of the morning through the dark of night. She tends her household—feeding and clothing them. But also travels the city to buy, sell, trade, invest, and turn a profit.
This is a woman of noble character. Work and earning doesn’t diminish her femininity. It is praiseworthy to profit from your honest labor. Making your own product is a work of creative, feminine genius.
This is the advice of a queen to her son, the king. Work and earning are queenly activities!
3. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:9-11
God does not want you to just have the stones of online business. The tech struggle, the haters, the hackers, the late nights and early mornings.
Our Good Father wants to feed us too. Let’s get this bread!
4. “If readers can find this information for free, why would they pay for it?”
You give away so much for free. The next free PDF or video is just a Google search away. But without some skin in the game, your customers won’t give their all.
Think about all the free PDFs you have piled up. I have folders full. My inbox is full. I am up to my ears in free content, that I’ve never used.
But the courses I’ve paid $100+ for? I finish every module. I come back to them again and again. I ooh and aah over each course update. I DM the course creator to let her know how I’m using her advice.
I have a real relationship with that paid course and its creator. I’m determined to wrest every piece of value out of my purchase. I implement, re-read, and realign again and again. Because I’ve invested in that creator and her course.
Isn’t that the relationship you want to have with your readers?
