On Collections
Consider authority for giving, or collecting money for some work of the church. It is common to observe the example of 1 Cor. 16:1-4 as authority for collecting money for the work of ministering to poor saints. This money was sent to the church and most likely entered a treasury of sorts before being dispersed among the needy of God's children. However, God has given the church other duties to perform, such as supporting evangelistic efforts, and such as require funds that the church must acquire. God, in revealing but one way for collecting money (and that for a specific work) evidently intended the church to raise its funds in the same manner for all its works.
Being motivated to authorize practices of churches sending funds to other churches for various works, many false teachers among us draw this conclusion: since the money in the N. T. example was gathered for a work which involved sending that money to another congregation, we may conclude that any work requiring the gathering of funds may be performed by sending these funds to another congregation. This constitutes an unwarranted conclusion; or, more plainly, this is wishful thinking. Notice how the above statement condenses to: authority for gathering money authorizes the destination of the money. Thus the discussion resolves to the question, "what authorizes what?"
Let us go to a point of obvious agreement. In order for there to be a scriptural collection, there must be a scriptural work. Likewise, before there can be a scriptural destination there need exist the same scriptural work. Generally speaking, we may say that both the collection and the destination of funds are dependent upon and authorized by the existence of an authorized work. Is it more correct to say that the collection authorizes the destination, or that the destination authorizes the collection? Common sense says that to say one way or the other is to draw an unwarranted conclusion.
God has specified only one method of collecting funds, which thereby becomes common to all authorized works. However, when one and only one destination has been specified for a work, it becomes presumptuous to assign to that work the destination of funds ascribed to another work.
The quest for authority for existing practices tends to lead towards unwarranted conclusions. Every man is susceptible to this tendency, but a false teacher who is sincerely, but stubbornly, mistaken seems to be more easily hardened in his determination to be right whether he is or not. An attitude to be desired is one of seeking for truth, for only in truth can a man be right, and only by recognizing truth can error be avoided.
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