Blog
“Unintended Consequences”
Categories: Sermons
As I continue to make my way down my ever-growing list of sermon requests, the next is for a sermon on authority, especially about the way that the church is authorized by the New Testament to use its money. In summary, what we see in the Scriptures is that the first-century church spent money on a limited number of works: evangelizing the lost, edifying the saved, and providing for needy saints. Many other works that seem good to us, like helping the world’s poor or providing a space for Christians to eat together, do not appear in the word as works of the church.
Many brethren find this analysis unsatisfying. On the one hand, they see all the good that the church might do, and on the other, they see the arguments against the church doing those things as legalistic quibbling. I respect those brethren, and I get where they’re coming from, but I think there’s something they’re missing. Once we depart from the first-century pattern, we start losing touch with the first-century church, not only in those departures, but because of the ripple effects of those departures. We can’t change things up according to our wisdom without losing something vital in the process. This morning, then, let’s consider authority and consequences..
The first problem that comes from adopting human institutions is that IT WILL LIMIT THE SPIRITUAL GROWTH OF BRETHREN. By way of illustration, let’s look at the words of the Israelites in 1 Samuel 8:19-20. The Israelites have a problem. They are idolatrous and wicked, so God keeps sending the nations around them to conquer them and oppress them. The Israelites could fix this problem by choosing to become righteous, but they don’t do that. Instead, they look to their neighbors for inspiration and demand a king. The king will fight their battles for them. He will protect them so that they will be safe without having to become righteous! What a great idea!
Of course, things do not work out the way the Israelites expect. Because they do not repent, God continues to punish them, and eventually, they are carried into exile along with their king. The worldly solution does not fix the spiritual problem.
There’s a very real sense in which, when we turn to institutions for solutions, we are doing the same thing. We see a spiritual problem: for instance, we think the Christians here don’t spend enough time showing hospitality to one another. Our hearts are not open to our brethren. Like the Israelites, we consult our neighbors for guidance, and we decide to build a fellowship hall like the churches around us. We think that will fix things.
Sadly, though, the fellowship hall isn’t solving the right problem, just like the king wasn’t solving the right problem. The king didn’t fix the hearts of the Israelites, and a fellowship hall won’t fix the hearts of Christians who don’t want to be hospitable. You’ve got an apparent solution, but it isn’t the solution that Christ wants to see in us, and indeed, it will discourage us from becoming more like him.
Second, bringing in those human institutions will HINDER THE WORK OF THE CHURCH. To summarize that work, let’s look at 1 Timothy 3:14-15. Here, Paul tells us that the church is supposed to be the pillar and support of the truth. That priority is reflected in the way this congregation spends its money. Pretty much, that spending is divided into three main categories: spending on the building, so we have a place to assemble, teach and learn; spending on local evangelists, Clay and me; and spending on foreign evangelists, men like Ronald Roark, who is baptizing people by the dozens off in Africa. All of it is connected to the truth.
Now, though, we introduce that fellowship hall. I doubt you could get one built for less than seven figures, so we’d have to take out a mortgage to do it and then service the debt. You’ve got to furnish the thing, you’ve got to buy food, and you’ve got to pay for the extra insurance. For some reason, church buildings with kitchens burn down more frequently than church buildings without!
All that takes money, and now you have to make your budget balance. In practice, let me tell you how it’s going to go. All the money for building upkeep will continue to be spent. The local evangelists will continue to be supported. However, men like Ronald Roark are going to get letters from us telling them that we can’t afford to support them anymore. Maybe souls in Africa will continue to be saved, but we won’t have anything to do with it. Is that the bargain that we want to strike, brethren—more convenience for us at the cost of denying others the opportunity to hear the gospel?
In theory, I suppose we could increase our contributions so that we can afford both Ronald Roark and the fellowship hall, but if we could give that much, why aren’t we giving it now? The elders turn aside men every month who are asking us to support them. If we had a larger contribution, we could do that. However we wriggle, we can’t escape the conclusion that a fellowship hall means less support of foreign evangelism. I don’t think that’s something any of us want to accept.
Finally, human institutions tend to MAKE THE CHURCH ABOUT MONEY. Let’s look at the Biblical pattern here in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2. Have you ever noticed, brethren, how the giving of the church is adequate to sustain the work of the church? As long as a congregation limits itself to the Biblical pattern, unless something has gone badly wrong, the church will be able to support itself.
However, as we observed above, all the human institutions that we might come up with, from fellowship halls to church colleges, come with a price tag. The more you have, the pricier it gets, and the less able you are to support them on the freewill offerings of the saints. It’s like putting a Prius engine in a semi body. There’s just not enough power to get the job done.
That’s why churches start departing from the pattern on giving too. I guarantee you that every church that preaches tithing does it because they have human institutions to support. The same holds true for bake sales, yard sales, and bingo nights. Those churches start grasping for income because they have to.
Let me tell you about where all that ends up. Back when I was a starving young preacher trainee, Lauren did temp admin work so we could have things like health insurance. During that time, she spent a couple of months working for the Diocese of Beaumont. While there, she learned that the only thing, literally the only thing, you have to do to remain a Catholic in good standing is to fill out your yearly pledge card and send it in. You don’t ever have to show up. Give them money, and they’re good with you.
That sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? Well, guess how the Catholic Church ended up there? It’s because of all the institutions they have to support. We might argue, I suppose, about how far we could safely travel down that road. For myself, I’d rather not even start down it.
