Mission Work
In a book entitled "Christ and His Church" J. C. Roady has two paragraphs under the heading "MISSION WORK", pages 41,42. I thought they were worthy of repeating. I have emphasized different statements.
"We are often asked if the Church of Christ believes and practices mission work. We wish to make it very plain that we do. We believe that it is a command of God and that it must be obeyed if we are to be the Church that Christ built. But we do want to say that we do not believe in a missionary society. There is not a thing the Lord has commanded to be done that can't be done through the Church. God does not intend for his work to be done through human institutions. When we do that then that institution takes the glory that belongs to the Church. The Church is the only institution that was bought with the blood of Christ (Eph. 5:25-26-27). The Church is the only institution that has Christ as its head (Col. 1:18). The Church is the only institution through which we are to give glory to God (Eph. 3:21). Mission work is to be done through the Church. Please read this statement from the pen of Apostle Paul in 1 Thess. 1:8: For from you sounded out the word not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad: so that we need not to speak any thing. It is the duty of the Church to sound out the word. It is the duty of the Church to see that people have a chance to hear and believe the gospel. We often hear some one say, 'That preacher is not doing much mission work'. That belongs to the church and for the preacher to take upon himself has only helped to encourage the Church in her neglect of duty along that line. I read again in Eph. 3:10: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. It is the Church's place to make that known.
"But some might ask why be opposed to missionary society? For more than one reason. In the first place, a missionary society robs the Church of the glory that belongs to it. They stand up and say, 'Look at what we have done,' and the result is the Church is kept out of it. Another reason is why is it necessary to keep up the middle-man? The Church of Christ sends money to do mission work, every cent of which goes to the place where the work is to be done. There is no middle-man to be paid. That is not true where the money is placed into a human organization. Everyone knows that the organization has to be taken care of, and knows that it takes money to do that. Therefore, part of the money paid in for mission work stays with the organization to keep it going. The Church sends out the word. The Church does the mission work. The Church gets the glory for it, and every cent that starts out to do missionary work gets there. That is the Lord's plan, and there is none better. The money is raised for mission work as we raise it for other purposes: give as we have been prospered on the first day of the week (1 Cor. 16:1-2-3). If the Lord's plan fails, then we are not to blame. But we are to blame if we put up a plan of our own and use it and put the Lord's plan into the background. Mission work is plainly taught in the 'Bible and we must carry it out as taught."
WRITER'S SUGGESTION: This writer suggests that you re-read the last paragraph of the above article substituting the word "benevolent" where brother Roady has used the word "mission" or "missionary".