Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 22
February 18, 1971
NUMBER 39, PAGE 1-2

Forty Years Ago-And Now

James A. Allen

(Editor's note: The following article was published in the Gospel Advocate, May 1, 1930. Brother Allen at that time was editor of the journal. Original title for the article was "The Way The Apostles Did It.")

It seems that few have any conception of undenominational Christianity. They think of "the church, which is his body" (Eph. 1:22, 23), in terms of a man-made organization and want to carry on the work of the church in a denominational way. Unless they organize the human machinery of a man-made denomination, they complain that nothing is being done and that the church is generally no good. They have no conception of personal effort and individual activity simply as Christians and as members of the body of Christ, "which is the church." (Col. 1:24).

The "big business" of denominational machinery is raising money. Human ingenuity is taxed to devise schemes and ways to raise money. One would think that the success of the work is based on money and that a man without money cannot serve the Lord. Where one word is said on personal purity, individual consecration, and personal activity, a thousand are said on money. Men will not "go" and preach unless the money is in sight, and nobody wants to personally help the poor, but everybody wants to start a "drive" to establish a manmade institution to do work that God commands them to do personally, simply as Christians. Selfishness, a wish to pass the work to others, is at the bottom of it. Personal contact, personal piety, and individual activity are left out of it. The thing is, Money!

It is true that a full treasury is one of the first fruits of an earnest church. Those baptized on the day of Pentecost and immediately afterwards were so in earnest that they gave their all — themselves and all they had. They sold their property and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. "For neither was there among them any that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto each, according as any one had need." (Acts 4:34, 35.) The full amount given was personally distributed to those in need, not doled out in the form of cold and heartless machine charity by "swivel-chair officials" whose only interest in the poor is the money they themselves get out of it. Today the men who are dispensing machine charity would not be in the work except for the salaries they receive. Stop the salary and they give up the work. The public, which furnishes the money, would be amazed to learn what part of the money they think they are giving to the poor is used up in high salaries and luxurious "overhead," and what part ever really gets to the poor.

Undenominational Christianity is cast upon a different basis. Without man-made machinery and overhead, its work is done personally and individually. The only organization known is the local congregation, and there is nothing of what the world calls "organization" about that. The orgy of organizing and of building up institutions is of the world and worldly. It is not in the New Testament, but is the way the world goes at it. Worldly-minded Christians feel that they can do nothing except by imitating the world. The apostles set no example to be followed in so doing, but taught each Christian to personally and individually do his uttermost, all laboring together with God. There is no good work that God commands men and women to do, but what they are commanded to do personally and individually, simply as members of the local congregation.

The schemes and plans that institutions resort to in efforts to raise money brand them as human. They must devise some plan of assessing people or signing them up. Large denominational churches have the index system and a salaried collector whose only daily business is to wring money from the membership.

"Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I gave order to the churches of Galatia, so also do ye. Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no collections be made when I come." (1 Cor. 16:1, 2.) This is the way the apostles and early churches filled the treasury of the local congregation. Without overhead or underhead, the whole of it went directly into the hands of the poor. It was delivered personally and individually to those in need through the elders of the local congregation in the famine district. (See Acts 11:27-30.) In cases of helping preach the gospel, each congregation sent the money direct to the preacher in the field. (See Phil. 4:15, 16.) There were no salaries, promoter's per cent, or overhead, taken out, but, on the personal and individual basis upon which the early churches did their work, the whole amount went directly into the hands of the preacher.

But human organizations cannot thrive on the divine plan. The divine plan does not fit them. They must get up some way to put the screws to the people, to bind them and obligate them. Wealth and power cannot be centralized in a rich and powerful institution on the apostolic plan. The apostles themselves, who did more charity work than is done by any millionaire today, remained personally too poor to cut any figure on the board of such an institution.

The Scriptures are very plain in saying that money for the service of God must be a freewill offering, laid by in store "upon the first day of the week." Instead of being assessed, taxed, or signed up, each is commanded to give "as he may prosper." "Let each man do according as he hath purposed in his heart: not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver." (2 Cor. 9:7.)

All agree that the church cannot run an ice-cream festival, operate a clothing store, or go into any other kind of business. All money so raised by such means is a profit and loss basis. and is not God's plan for financing his work. It cannot go into the school business or the business of running anything but its own individual self. Anything more than this cometh of evil. The evil may be hidden by an outburst of zeal without knowledge, but the evil is there and the day of reckoning will come.

A solicitor goes out to raise money for some institution that is not a local congregation, but that proposes to do the work that God commands the congregation to do. He paints a glowing picture, artfully uses the most sacred things to touch the noblest and tenderest cords of the heart. He is doing it, not to make the one he solicits a better Christian or do his duty better, but purely to raise money. He either gets a salary or receives a percentage of what he gets people to give. Is that the apostolic procedure? Sometimes what he gets people to give is barely enough to pay his salary, and the institution for which he solicits gets nothing. In a recent case where the solicitor raised only enough to pay his salary, the head of the institution was asked: "What does the institution get out of it?" He replied: "The advertisement." Is that the way the Bible teaches us to give to the Lord?

The brethren will have to excuse us for wanting to adhere to the old, apostolic way. We do not see any use for the Bible if it is not to go by. If a thing is not in the Bible, that ends it. We cannot put human wisdom against God's wisdom. The approval of human wisdom, the commendation of all the world, is nothing. God reveals in His word what He approves. A test of man's faith in God is will he take God at his word, and will he abide in God's word? To try to carry on the good work of the church of God with the institutional machinery of human denominationalism is to try to mix the divine with the human. To so do is to burden the good work with a white elephant that will keep it milked dry and be a blight upon it until thrown off. To do nothing is horrible and bad. To do the wrong thing is worse. "For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up." (Ps. 69:9.) "His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for thy house shall eat me up." (John 2:17.)