faith for faith

With the ferocity for which it is argued, it is not difficult to surmise that the matter of Christian Giving is not a light one. And more often than not, when the subject is brought up in Christian circles, Christian Giving is synonymous with the tithe, i.e. ten percent of one’s pre-taxed income given to one’s local church. It is a principle that has been with many churches for a long time, and as such it has been one that has become foundational and nearly irrefutable. Many churches have been so enamored with the tithe that it has become to them as unquestionable as the deity of Christ, his virgin birth, the Trinity, etc. Therefore, when questions are raised which offer the slightest hint of opposition to the antiquated ordinance, the church arms itself as it would against heresy and casts the labels of rebellious and liberal upon those who would seek to understand Christian Giving in a different manner.

And as such, it matters very little that opposition against the principle of the tithe is brought with the desire for biblical fidelity, for it is to them foundational and irrefutable. Therefore, for those who seek to establish a biblical pattern of Christian Giving with their own lives that is not necessarily opposed to tithing (that is, not opposed to tithing for the sake of being opposed to tithing without Scriptural warrant) but is desirous to live lives that accord with God’s Word in all matters of life including giving, the battle is for them an uphill one. For it is not (in many cases) a matter of “Let us search the Scriptures for understanding,” but it is rather a matter of “Why do you break the traditions of the elders?” And as such, one might quote and discern Scripture till he blue is in the face, and yet he will gain little ground in the battle for common understanding.

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Contrary to what you may think, Calvinism is not the most explosive issue in the American church. Neither is it the drinking of alcohol, the acceptance of homosexual clergy, the Emergent church, or building funds. All of these issues pale in comparison to what I believe is the most explosive and controversial issue in the American church, namely the use of American wealth. For of all the issues that face the American church, the improper use of American wealth is the most ubiquitous, for it is an issue that transcends all doctrinal lines, plagues every denomination, and will anger the soul of ninety-nine percent of those to whom you address it.

And as such, it is the least addressed of all the issues that plague the American church. For few are convicted of the improper use of American wealth (since we have been about explaining it away in our religion for decades), and even fewer are willing to suffer the lashes that come with its address. Yet, now is time, as the apostle Paul writes, to “awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:14b,15).

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Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality (Rm. 12:12, 13).

The three–rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer–if any are to be fulfilled in the life of a Christian, each must rest upon the other. For patience in tribulation will not come apart from rejoicing in hope, nor will it come apart from incessant prayer. However, our hope will not come apart from tribulation, for the apostle says earlier in his letter, “We rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rm. 5:3-4). And incessant prayer will not come apart from rejoicing in hope and patience in tribulation, for hope and patience are the wellspring of godly supplication. The three are a three-stranded rope, where together the three are strong and stay a Christian’s life, but remove even one, and the others’ strength is diminished.

And when these three are found in the life of the Christian, it overflows practically in the contribution to the needs of the saints and the showing of hospitality. For the one who rejoices in hope of his future Inheritance by necessity does not rejoice in the world’s temporal pleasures and thereby uses his resources for the needs of the saints rather than for worldly gain. Also, the one who is patient in tribulation, because of his own suffering, sympathizes with the plight of his fellow brothers and sisters and seeks to aid them in their need and suffering. And, finally, the one who does not cease to pray to the Lord, is constantly fixed upon doing the will of the Lord, which is to love his brothers and sisters in the same manner that Christ loved him, suffering even unto death for sake of the saints. Each of these–hope, suffering, and incessant prayer–hold the Christian fast and overflow in a wellspring of generosity to the needs of the Church.

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By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks (Heb. 11:3).

The first witness that is presented to testify in the courtroom of the Greatness of the Inheritance of Christ, is the righteous Abel, who offered to God a better sacrifice than did his brother Cain, and was killed by Cain because of the jealousy provoked by his better sacrifice.

Typically when the work of Abel is examined, it is concluded that the sole reason that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted and Cain’s was rejected is because Abel had faith and Cain did not. While it is indeed true that Abel had faith whereas Cain did not, Abel did in fact offer a better sacrifice than Cain did, for we know that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (cf. Heb. 9:22). Would the situation have been reversed, had Abel offered up to God a sacrifice of fruit rather than of blood, Abel would not have received the same commendation from God regarding his sacrifice.

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I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (Rm. 12:1).

The appeal by the apostle rendered, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers,” is a translation of the word “parakalo” which is the verb form of the noun “paraklete,” which is used elsewhere in Scripture to describe the office of the Son as our Advocate and Comforter–as one who, literally, is “called along side” a soul (“para” beside, “kal” call) (cf. Jn. 14:16, 25, 15:26, 16:7). That being said, the point of the apostle in employing the term is not to call to memory the office of Jesus Christ (though he does do that at times in his previous discourse, viz. Rm. 5:1; 8:35, etc.), but to issue a call to those who are in Christ to live in a particular fashion beside or in light of what the apostle has already taught, put simply as “mercies of God.”

There is little doubt that the apostle is calling to mind everything that he has taught up to this point (viz. Rm. 1-11), for in it is the exposition of the Gospel which is the revelation of the “mercies” of God to men. For from the beginning of the apostle’s discourse, we see him proclaiming without shame the Gospel, which is the revelation of the righteousness of God from faith for faith, viz. “the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe” (cf. Rm. 1:16, 17; Rm. 3:22). For in it, we see the dire state of all of humanity in that no one, neither Jew nor Greek, is better off than the other, for all are under sin and therefore “fall short of the glory of God” (cf. 3:9; 3:23). However, justification has come to men through Christ’s righteousness, which is received by faith (cf. 3:24; 4:24, 25), so that no one may boast in his state of righteousness and subsequent salvation (cf. 3:27; 6:20-23).

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For anyone who has read even a few of my blog posts, you probably have noticed a trend in them: I do not think too highly of the present state of the American Church. In fact, I believe that our state is so terrible that even those among us whom we would label as the “best” of Christians are unwittingly ensnared by money and materialism. Our problems as a Church are exponentially compounded in the South where tradition regularly trumps Scripture and where we have been explaining away our disobedience to the Word so shrewdly for so many decades that we do not even view it as disobedience any more. This indeed is a great tragedy—that we sincerely believe that our disobedience is obedience and our loving the world is loving Christ.

But rather than perpetually play the role as diagnoser of the American Church’s ills and never offer a cure, God through his Word has convicted a number of us locally to form a group that we haved called “The Acts Forum” that is seeking to address two foundational doctrines of Christianity that we believe the American Church has crassly ignored: 1. The selling of possessions and living impoverished lifestyles for the sake of Christ and 2. The daily gathering of saints for fellowship, prayer, and the “breaking of bread.” My hope in writing this post today will be to challenge your minds to think outside the box of the materialism of American Christianity and to encourage those of you with similar convictions to submit your thoughts, talents, funds, and even your lives to help make this a possibility in our country and hopefully, by the pleasure of God, spark a revival to obedience in the American Church.

1. The Selling of Possessions and Living Impoverished Lifestyles
One of the clearest teachings in Scripture is God’s demand for his creature’s to delight in him over the riches of the world. This is even more explicit in the Gospels where every instance that Jesus Christ mentions the action of “storing up treasures in heaven” it is directly tied to the action of “selling all that one has.”¹ Also, whenever Christ mentions the phrase “store up treasures in heaven,” it is not clearly distinguished from salvation in general. As in the case of the rich young man of Matthew 19:16, the man asks, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life,” and Jesus replies, “Sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” And in Matthew 13, in the parable of the hidden treasure, Christ says, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

As I mentioned before, these are texts that we as American Christians have been shrewdly explaining away for decades. We first throw out the “This command is applicable only to the rich young man” excuse, forgetting that most of us probably have more possessions that the rich young man ever did. Then we throw out the “This is a works based salvation” excuse, when James clearly writes, “Faith without works is dead.” And then we conveniently ignore passages like Luke 12:32, 33 where Christ says, “Fear not, little flock [i.e. poor disciples in the context and the Church in the greater context], for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.” Or we ignore examples like the Macedonians who gave joyfully to the saints out of their own extreme poverty (cf. 2Cor. 8:1-6). The testimony of Scripture is there, if we have ears to hear it.

Now I will get to the point, for I know that I am, for the most part, preaching to the choir. What we have seen in the Acts Forum in these Scriptures is not the selling of possessions just for the sake of getting rid of them (though that would be a great start), but it is the selling of possessions to give them to the poor and thereby demonstrate the love of Christ. Because of this, our chief focus is to minimize our consumption so that we might maximize our giving. Looking at all of our budgets, we determined quite easily that the highest percentage of our income goes to housing, and therefore determined that our first project would be to come up with ways to live as cheaply as possible. We have since tossed about ideas that have included the affectionately named, “Church Trailer Park,” and other similar ideas that involve constructing a Church community on a donated piece of land made up of low cost living structures that would cost not a penny more than $30,000 a piece (preferably less). This price point is set for several reasons: 1. To allow people to give more to the Church and to the spreading of the Gospel, 2. To allow people to work less so that they might serve more, 3. To make it so that a mother can stay home with her children instead of having to work to help pay a mortgage, and several others.

2. The Daily Gathering and Communion of the Saints
You might have already picked up on this aspect in the “Church Trailer Park” concept, and it is the idea of a community that consists of members of the Church. In an age of freeways and long commutes, it is quite often the case that we live so far away from other members of our local church that we only see them once or twice a week. The Acts Forum seeks to remedy this by making the Church those whom we go home to not the place where we go on Sunday. In such an environment, accountability and edification would be daily occurrences and would be constant reminders to us that our home is not in this present age.

I would like to challenge you to pray for us who make up the Acts Forum—to pray that God would provide the means and the ingenuity to glorify his Name in America and in the nations through the giving up of material wealth for the sake of the Church and the spread of the Gospel. I would also like to challenge you to get involved with the Acts Forum. We meet weekly (for the most part) on Saturday mornings at Hephzibah Baptist Church in Wendell, North Carolina for a time of prayer and discussion about the Kingdom. You can stay up to date with the Acts Forum events by joining the Facebook group linked here. Thanks and God bless.

¹ Matt. 6:19,20; 13:44; 19:21; Mark 10:21; Luke 12:33; Luke 18:22