Churches' Support of Preachers
by Gene Frost
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Churches' Support of Preachers by Gene Frost |
First appeared in the Gospel Anchor, June 1983.
"Please publish this proposal in the Gospel Anchor at your earliest convenience.
I propose a plan by which many projects of the past, which have been opposed as unscriptural, may be accomplished. We all recognize that church cooperation through a ‘sponsoring church’ arrangement or through a human ‘institution’ is wrong. I propose that the good objectives, which these arrangements have sought, may be fulfilled through an arrangement we all can accept. Here is my proposal.
I am asking that churches send me a ‘working fund’ out of which I can preach the gospel by radio and television nationwide. There is no organization involved, no human institution and no sponsoring church. Churches will send directly to me.
I plan also to publish uniform Bible lessons, which I will distribute free of charge to all the churches. I see great advantage in this arrangement. I can select the best Bible class material available, and by printing in hundreds of thousands I can reduce the cost per book for far less than churches are now spending on class literature. This will save the churches money. I will then distribute uniform Bible lessons to all the churches so that all our people will study the same thing. By studying the same thing, we all will think the same thing, and this will promote unity.
Of course, efforts in these various areas will be implemented as funds are available and I can set them up. I have some priorities. I would like to begin with the literature, the uniform Bible study. Then I can move into radio and television. To promote each project and to keep the churches informed, I will publish a newsletter, which also will carry some sound Bible teaching.
Brethren, we can do great things for the Lord by working together. And we can show the world that we can do great things in a scriptural way, by churches sending directly to the preacher, without human institutions and sponsoring churches. I would like to be in correspondence with interested churches immediately." (Name and address withheld.)
In response to this proposal, I question: Is this the "scriptural way"? May churches indeed send funds to a preacher beyond his wages?
The role of the individual in relationship to the local (functional) church is apparently a subject of some confusion today. An idea often expressed is that though the churches are restricted in their cooperative efforts, there is no limitation upon the individual. To the contrary, it may be pointed out, God’s authority does indeed place strictures upon him. Sadly, brethren are divided in sentiments. Yet this is a problem that should have been settled, at least in the minds of conservative Christians, with the debate over institutionalism. Though this particular problem was involved, it was overshadowed by the church cooperation issue, and perhaps this is the reason the one is fairly well settled while the other is yet confused. It, as church cooperation, needs to be settled once for all.
The role of the individual in cooperation with other saints in an effort to propagate the gospel may be considered in two aspects: (1) cooperation or fellowship with other individuals, and (2) cooperation or fellowship with churches. We have before examined the historical problem and scriptural teachings relative to cooperation of individuals. We also need to consider the role of the individual in propagating the gospel with the support of a church or churches.
Churches clearly may have fellowship with an individual who is engaged in the teaching of the gospel of Christ. (2 Cor. 11:7-9, Phil. 1:5, 4:15-16) The question is, to what extent, in what way, to what end, may churches send funds to the preacher? What has God authorized in the support of preachers?
This problem was brought home to this writer some twenty-six years ago, when we were embroiled in controversy over the church cooperation question. I was scheduled to debate this issue in Houston, Texas in September of 1957. The first proposition to be debated, I denied:
"The Scriptures permit churches of Christ to contribute funds to other organization (such as the Gospel Guardian and Boles Home) for purposes of evangelism and benevolence."
This proposition affirmed that churches may contribute to a human organization for the preaching of the gospel. It was the old "missionary society" concept! (Strange that brethren will defend old concepts when clothed in new names.) How would my opponent defend it?
The debate was called off by my opponent one week before the debate was to have been held. Still interested in how this concept could be defended, I sought opportunity to discuss the question. Having made contact with my respondent, who had been called in from Abilene, my first question was, "How were you going to defend your proposition?"
He replied; "I was going to argue that a preacher may go to Mexico to preach, and churches could support him. You would agree. The preacher would put on a radio program with the support of the churches. The program, let us say, was well received and responses were more than he could handle alone. So he hires a secretary to help answer the letters and questions that come in. Even so, the program is so popular and the responses so great that he cannot keep up, and he brings in another preacher. With the work fund provided by the churches three persons are involved. Now they incorporate." At this point, he grinned and remarked, "I guess you are going to say they are wrong when they incorporated."
My reply was, "No, I would have stopped you when you had the preacher receiving one dime more than wages. (2 Cor. 11:8) Wages are authorized. Now you show me authority for anything more than this."
How would you have answered the argument? May churches send an individual unlimited funds with which to preach the gospel?
This is not a new question. The churches of Christ had before been solicited by an individual who professed an interest in evangelizing the world. Don Carlos Janes solicited thousands of dollars from churches across the land. Though some questioned the practice, the error of this arrangement was not brought home until his death and the revelation that he still held over seventy thousand dollars then bequeathed to E. L. Jorgenson for the propagation of premillennialism. It was a scandal that shocked the churches. The fallacy of churches sending money to an agency, whether a board of men or one man, was recognized. Cecil B. Douthitt wrote in the Bible Banner, quoted by Foy E. Wallace in Torch, vol. 1, no. 10 (Aug.-Sept. 1951):
"While Don Carlos Janes lived and was in good health I wrote an article in the Bible Banner of December 1941, in which I tried to tell the brethren that Janes was keeping the money which the contributors intended for the missionaries. ... After the Will was published in the papers, I decided to say nothing more about the Janes one-man-missionary-society, believing that no one would ever rise up in defense of Brother Janes’s money-getting methods as revealed in the Will."
In 1949, Foy E. Wallace, alarmed over the support some were giving indirectly to premillennialism, once again alerted brethren to the Don Carlos Janes concept, as he wrote concerning "The Issues Before Us." (Gospel Guardian, vol. 1, no. 1 (May 5, 1949), page 3.) Others through the years have done likewise.
In the institutional fight of the 1950’s the concept was again raised, as in the proposed debate in Houston. It was raised in the Cogdill-Woods debate in November 1957. Guy Woods charged Roy Cogdill with believing in "preacher-oversight versus elder-oversight." He presented a chart (no. 53) with two parts: one showing churches sending money to the preacher who had the oversight of the program, and the other showing churches sending to a church (elders) who had the oversight. He reasoned:
"This is what Brother Cogdill upholds. He’s taken the position that it would be right for churches to send money to a preacher in order to operate a radio program. Now over at Corinth, Mississippi, sometime back there was a radio program conducted over there which some of us thought was exactly like the Herald of Truth, but when this matter was introduced in the Tant-Harper debate in Abilene, it was insisted that the money was not sent to the church but rather to the preacher and that the preacher operated independently of the church, and that it was not a church program but was simply a program directed by the preacher … Suppose that the elders of the Highland church go back to Abilene and report to the others there, there are three of them here, and seven others at home; suppose that these three elders go back over there and report to the other seven that there’s a way to reach harmony and that is to take this program out from under the oversight of the elders in the Highland church and place it under the control of Brother Harper. Will you cease your objection? Now then, put it down, will you cease your objection? If this program is taken out from under the control of the elders and placed under the control of the preacher, will you cease your objection?" (Cogdill-Woods Debate, pages 326-327).
Brother Cogdill clearly set forth the New Testament principle involved in churches sending to a preacher:
"But how did they support the gospel in New Testament days? Why, they sent contributions. Paul said, ‘From the first day until now ye have had fellowship with me in the furthering of the gospel.’ In Phil. 2:25, ‘Ye sent Epaphroditus as your messenger.’ In Phil. 4:15-17, he said the church had fellowship by sending once and again to his necessities, supplying that which was lacking." (Page 279.)
"When the preacher’s need is met, that’s the stopping place. And he ought not to get another dime." (Page 308.)
"Congregations, in the New Testament day contributed to a work of preaching the gospel only by sending out preachers and sending wages directly to the preacher whom they were supporting to supply his need, Philippians 2:25, 4:15 and 17, 2 Corinthians 11:7 and 8.
"Now you know he deals with the idea of a preacher having a radio program under him, sending to the preacher in order that the preacher might use some other means out here somewhere. Last night I told you that the sending to the preacher ought to stop when the preacher’s need stops." (Page 339.)
"Give me chart No. 51." (This chart depicted churches sending funds to a preacher who oversees preaching the gospel over radio.)
"Here’s a preacher now. This church is sending money to the preacher in order that the preacher might have oversight of a program of preaching the gospel. That he might oversee a program. Well I don’t read in the New Testament about preachers overseeing a program. Nor do I read in the New Testament about churches that sent to a preacher funds with which to oversee a program of work. … I said that that thing’s not right. I wouldn’t endorse it. Why? Because the New Testament churches stopped sending to a preacher when they supplied his need." (Pages 374-375.)
Some nine years later, in 1966, the issue was raised in the Willis-Inman Debate. Clifton Inman asked, "Would it be all right to have a nationwide broadcast or telecast if money were sent directly to the preacher?" In reply, Cecil Willis said:
"He wants to know in the fourth place, would it be all right to have a nationwide broadcast or telecast if the money were sent directly to the preacher. No, Brother Inman. It would not. It surely would not be. There is no Bible authority to activate the church universal through any kind of single agency, period! There just is not any Bible authority for it, and if you tried to activate the church universal and put on a Herald of Truth through sending it to a preacher, you would have the one-man missionary society. That is what you would have then. Now you have just the sponsoring church missionary society, but if you were to send it to a preacher and make him the agency through whom 2000 churches were going to act, then you would have a one-man missionary society. So that would not be all right. In 2 Corinthians 11:8 the apostle Paul said, ‘I robbed other churches taking wages of them that I might do you service.’ The only thing I know of in the Bible that is scriptural to send to a preacher is ‘wages.’ You cannot make him a brotherhood agency." (Willis-Inman Debate, page 95.)
And so you see, the issue is not new. Yet neither has it been resolved in the minds of some for we still have those who advocate sending preachers more than their "wages," funds which are not theirs personally but which must be spent in meeting the needs of other individuals or churches as designated by the contributing churches. The preacher is an agent of the churches through whom a work is done; he is the overseer of the responsibilities that belong to the churches. He stands precisely in the same role as the missionary society; instead of being a society, he is one man. Is it Scriptural to send to one man funds for him to oversee in publishing and distributing literature, conducting a radio or television program, et al., but unscriptural to send to a group of men? (Is the judgmental oversight of one superior to the combined wisdom of the group?)
The issue is easily resolved when human wisdom and emotions are excluded from the solution, and we look simply to the New Testament. The passages are few.
Writing to the Philippians, Paul expresses thanks to God "for (their) fellowship in the gospel" (Phil. 1:4). They had sent to relieve his wants, at least on one occasion by Epaphroditus. (Phil. 2:25) More than once they had given to meet Paul’s necessity. (Phil. 4:14-18)
The words "want" and "necessity" are the same in the original text and are descriptive of "the condition of one deprived of those things which he is scarcely able to do without" (chreia; Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon, page 671).
In writing to the Corinthians, Paul informs us that he refused to accept support from them, brethren from other places supplying his need. "I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service." (2 Cor. 11:8) Here Paul employs two military terms. He "robbed" i.e. spoiled other churches. By this he signifies that he received from others without giving service in return. They had fellowship with him in the preaching of the gospel, from which efforts the Corinthians were the beneficiaries. The Corinthians received a service which they had not supported. What Paul received he designates as "wages." This refers primarily to "a soldier’s pay, allowance," pay in rations or provisions and/or in money. (Thayer, page 471.) It came to be used of "the pay of any workman." (A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures, vol. 4 page 143.) This significance may be noted in other references in the N.T.: Luke 3:14, 1 Cor. 9:7 ("charges"), and Rom. 6:23.
Here we have authority for preachers of the gospel to "live of the gospel." (I Cor. 9:6-14) The only authority is "wages." Wages become one’s own possession, to be spent as he deems best. Once received, the giver no longer has control over the funds, to designate how or for what they may be spent by the wage-owner.
When churches send funds to the preacher, not his wages, to be converted in the service of teaching (as in the purchase of time on radio or television) or in the medium of teaching (as the printed page), the elders thereof relinquish their oversight to the preacher. This is the same error as in sending to a "sponsoring church," where the receiving elders oversee the funds of other churches. (Need we develop this principle?) The elders, as the episkopois – those "charged with the duty of seeing that things to be done by others are done rightly," Thayer, page 243 – are to see that the funds of the church are converted into the proper service. They cannot do this by the mere transfer of funds. When they thus deliver the funds to either other elders or to a preacher, that they or he may convert them into a service – to print literature or purchase time on radio or television, and oversee its production, – they have failed their duty and have relinquished it to others to fulfill. This was wrong under "sponsoring elders" and it is wrong under a "sponsoring preacher"!
One may possibly be thinking: "The churches may send whatever they please to the preacher, funds enough for him to publish and distribute literature, etc., and call it ‘wages.’" They can do that, but it will not make it so. And the difference is easily discernible. One’s wages are his own, to spend as he sees fit, and the wage-giver has no control over them, either directly or indirectly. If the giver has a voice in how the funds are spent, then they are not wages. When churches send a preacher his wages, they have no voice or control in how the money is spent: what amount goes for rent, for utilities, for food, for clothing, for recreation, etc. However, if a church sends a preacher enough to finance a radio program as his "wages," if he decides to spend the funds to purchase a new automobile or to take a vacation, does the church have any cause to complain? If so, then the funds were not "wages," regardless of what they were called. If they were indeed "wages," then the preacher had complete control of his funds to spend according to his pleasure without giving an account to the church. To call funds, which are not the preacher’s, "wages" is deceptive . . . but only to the one’s so doing; the Lord is not deceived. The responsibility of converting funds into the service of teaching is the elders’ responsibility – they are to have fellowship with the preacher (wages), purchase or publish the literature, contract with the radio station, etc. They may not send these funds to other elders, or to preachers, or to a preacher, to convert for them.
"But, if they send money to the preacher ear-marked for him to use in specified areas, would this not be right?" This churches did in the "sponsoring church" arrangement; did it make it right? The question is, whose is it? Who has the oversight? Take, for example, a radio program. If every church in a city sent funds to Preacher "Blank" so he specifically could put on a radio program, whose program would it be: a church’s, the churches’, or Preacher Blank’s? If Preacher Blank began to teach false doctrine, what control would the churches have? All they could do is cut off the funds. But as they could be supplied by those in sympathy, the program would continue uninterrupted. It was Preacher Blank’s program. He contracted with the station, paid for the time, was responsible for the content of the program. It was his. And so what faithful churches supplied to create and develop – a popular and influential program – now becomes an instrument of error ... and they have no control. Never did.
On the other hand, a church in the city contracts with the station and pays for the time each month. They have Preacher Blank to do the preaching. Now he begins to teach false doctrine. What control does the church have over the program? Full control, and they can ask Preacher Blank to cease speaking on the program and replace him with another speaker.
As long as churches send preachers "wages," funds for his personal use, there is no problem. For this we have Bible authority. For more than this, where is the Scriptural authority?
The letter at the beginning of this article is not a single request; rather it is a composite of several proposals made within recent years, and not only proposals but actual practices. (We have refrained from making specific references in order to protect the guilty. We prefer Bible study, thereby allowing those whose practices are in error to make correction without scandal and embarrassment.) Who can justify it? Who can justify churches sending funds to a preacher in order that he may print and distribute a uniform Bible study to be used in the Bible classes of the churches? or so that he may conduct a national radio or television program? or so that he may publish a monthly journal for free distribution among Christians (or non-Christians)? Who can justify sending to a preacher more than "wages"?