Why I Don't Support Faith Promise Missions Giving

If I would title this anything it would be “Faith Promise Missions Giving”

Philosophy and traditions starving the Body of Christ at home to win the lost abroad

“Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord Deceitfully...!”

I can say with absolute surety, that giving in the word of God is intertwined with early and modern day Christianity in the NT. Let it be emphatically stated that giving is not in question whatsoever.  What I am examining is our methods and principles of giving.

Faith Promise has become so wrapped in Fundamentalism, and such a part of church traditions, if supporters of it were not making it a mandate or doctrine of the local church, the fuss would be minimal.  But this is not the case!  

I am straining at this gnat because people have made this “gnat” doctrine!  And they are nothing more then works and ideas of men. They say they are not forcing any one to give, but they say things like “we don’t require you to practice it but all our members do it”.  It is the join or die mentality.  And this is why I choose to deal with such a dividing topic!

It has been chronicled in A.B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement:, by Charles W. Nienkirchen that A.B. Simpson, the man with the original idea of “faith promise giving” was a full blown Pentecostal, which explains the hold they have on the Christian Missionary Alliance today. He also largely emphasized world wide evangelism in his preaching.  

Because of his influence and is fund raising prowess, many Nazarene churches, Church of God churches and Pentecostal churches today use “faith promise giving” largely in their missions giving techniques as equally and as long as Baptist churches have.  We all use the same phrasing, handouts, teachings, Faith Promise cards, etc. So how Independent are we really?

Questioning Commissions Not Commitments ~ Part 1

What is the Great Commission?  What do those words mean? What do they mean to you?   What do those words mean to the body of Christ? Where did the term come from? What does it typically mean to the masses in the modern churches today?  Is the Great Commission to be commanded? Is it to be mandated? Is it to be revered and used as much as we do as a collective body?    

The Great Commission is generally believed to be, according to many “one of the most significant passages in the Holy Bible. First, it's the last recorded personal instruction given by Jesus to His disciples. Second, it's a special calling from Jesus Christ to all His followers to take specific action while on this earth.” This position is highly and widely regarded among the local churches.  “A special calling from Jesus?”

The “Great Commission”, though not a specific Bible phrase, is a phrase that Christians have long used to describe certain things found in select portions of the word of God.  The word “commission” shows up once in Acts 26:12 and it was a commission of death and imprisonment.  That is interesting to say the least.  

That commission was Paul’s “commission” to waste the church, quite literally. His commission produced waste.  The only connotation in the word of God regarding the word “commission” involves death, lawlessness, unrighteousness, terror, fear, and panic, to imprison and deliver unto death those who believe in the “new way”.  Paul’s commission was to waste the body. The chief priests had authority and a commission, too.  They gave it to Paul to carry out, and he received it.

In the case the of the synoptic gospels, these passages are where many men see their special, selective calling, mandate, charge or order for their ministries and they call the passages “the Great Commission”.  Many men believe this message to be directly relevant and absolutely connected to our preaching, outreach, worship, and how we conduct our service styles today in Christianity.

Questioning Commissions Not Commitments ~ Part 2

The fact remains is that men have long made it a practice to use the word, and I cannot stress enough how serious I mean to say, “use the word of God” for private agendas and to further their private kingdoms.  For the common good or whatever lies they have to tell themselves these days, many just continue on, examining others, never examining themselves.  Men will privately interpret passages for private reasons.  It is a common practice displayed among decent and devious men  alike and has been in the works since the time of Christ. 

Missionaries and preachers have long claimed unfounded and loose interpretive callings for ministerial nonsense and money grabbing shakedowns by way of using the Great Commission. They have long found, as the definition of commission states, their doings, performing, perpetuating, sending, act of entrusting, duty; and it is now their proper authority and warrant for exercising certain powers, administrations, and duties in the Great Commission passages.  

These passages in the gospels have been used for centuries to solicit services and funds from among Christian bodies.  Sure their is gain, but no one ever discusses the other spectrums of disorder. To use these passages to solicit service, or even funds and offerings is unscriptural and dangerously close to adding to his word.  

In many cases now, I can only see it as defraudation or using guile and gimmicks to obtain an desired affect.  By applying a teaching or doctrine to these scriptures, then saying they are directly for the body of Christ is adding to the doctrinal position of the passage.  To do so, one must ignore the scriptural integrity of Gods book.  There is a very specific reason for men to deny that there is any disorder.

You will see variations of this in every evangelistic, Baptist church you can find. It is the big idea that is fully entrenched in well fortified Baptist traditions and preserved by some mafia like omerta! It is why there is never a real discussion or theological sit down over it.  Men will look at you like a two headed dragon just for suggesting this may be an off base position. They act this way because the great commission is the prominent “big idea” that many Fundamentalist, and Evangelical, Bible Believing Christians have in their minds for the reasons for doing much of what they do.  Who would ever dare question it right?

Genocidal Maniacs or God Called Men

Much of our talk of callings here and there is nothing more then men using God and his Book as their authority and justifications for whatever kind of orthodoxy they invent in their own minds! But sufficed to say, and without going into a full blown expose on Fundamentalism in the 19th and 20th centuries, a lot of our talk and terms are just that, talk, and terms! 

We have mixed some mysticism with all the talk of a “call of God” and have made ministries out of the blue, by distorting passages.  There is a constant barrage of pressure among Fundamentalist and Baptist circles to “be called” to something!  It’s why we create all these diverse ministries, people have to have a calling or a position to fulfill.  And they have to be fully supported as well in their endeavors, to funnel and propagate the working systems. So men just keep inventing new tactics and ways to get that support.  Hence, things like faith promise and other gimmicks.

Who needs faith anyways?  We have Bible Colleges, Bible Institutes, and Bible schools pumping out 1000 young 20-somethings every year, running everything like a business, or a corporate engine, perpetuating the machine as their teachers taught them.

Let me ask you this; concerning our calls of God that we claim, how are we different from some North African Jungle warlord who claims he had directive from God to commit his genocide?  How are we different from some Cameroon warlord who thinks God told him to perform ethnic cleansings?

"Established in the Faith"

There is only one place in the entire word of God where people are said to be “established in the faith”!  It is found in Acts 16. After the councel in Acts 15 at Jerusalem, where the decrees were carried to all the churches.

Jews or Gentiles are not considered established in the faith until Acts 16. In Phillipians 4:15, Paul refers to his leaving Macedonia, which correlates historically with Acts 16, and this is referenced to being “as the beginning of the gospel.”  

This is not the beginning of the body of Christ, but the beginning of the gospel, Paul’s gospel, the gospel of grace!  Here, it was established.  It is where it began to be accepted by all the churches, after it was decreed and delivered by Paul!

Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only.

The gospel of grace was set into motion, so to speak, in Acts 15 with Peter before the councel in Jerusalem.  He declared that mans salvation was by grace through faith.  The decrees were delivered of the elders to the churches, and the gospel of the grace of God was finalized and began in Acts 16.  They were established in the faith in Acts 16!  I make this point to say that the gospel was NOT established in the great commission passages and early Acts.  

Free will, Seed Planting and Fruit Bearing

I Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. ~ No on is predestinated.  One has to choose.  Free will has always been the kicker.  Men choose NOT to believe in God of their own free will.  You know why multitudes of grown men and women aren’t coming to Christ like they were in the Reformation and Great Awakenings?  They don’t want Him!  That was then, and this is now. 

You know why they are not coming to God on the street corners, in bus ministries, huge evangelistic meetings, Gospel Blitzes, at the football games, gay pride parades?  They don’t want Him! They want lucre.  They want sin.  They want pleasure.  They want gratification.  They want drunkenness.  They want drug binges.  They want carnal desires

The religious don’t want him either.  They want buildings and temples.  They want salaries.  They want their own lives.  They want education. They want man made ministries.   They want systems.  They want status.  They want position.  They want religion.  They want a form of godliness.  But they don’t want Him!  I heard a wise man say once, Men are seeking fulfillment at every source but the direct source.

Our Lord said, Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Matthew 7:14 Many times in our ways of doing the public ministry all we really do, if truth were told, is find a sinner who is at his wits in, tired of drugs alcohol, and the affairs of this life. All these names and phrase we have for things we do! I.e. soul winning, gospel blitzes, passing out tracts, street preaching, door to door visitation.  We are all reforming!

God didn’t draw them, nor did they seek him, they repented after worldly sorrow.  Maybe they wanted to simply change their ways.  Maybe they had a horrible day at work and took it as a sign! Maybe they wanted a change of luck.  I have witnessed some that just wanted the preacher to shut up and leave!

Skilled Swordsman or Drunken Lumberjack?

The WHOLE Armour of God.  All the items in Ephesians 6 are for our complete armour, not just selective armour.  Not just the sword of the spirit alone, no matter how much some preachers love to draw blood with it, but ask your self a real question sir!  Are you combat proficient or a blood-letting psychotic killer?

We are told to take the whole armour.  Not just a sword.  The spirit is associated with the sword, “salvation” is associated with the helmet.  Our minds and our heads must be protected.  It takes our minds to win the hearts of a lost destitute soul.  Without a sound mind one cannot have sound doctrine.  If a man does not understand salvation he cannot be saved, nor lead others to salvation.

We often forget about the shield.  Funny how we are told to take this above all isn’t!  Our faith, surely, will be tested in this life as a Christian. The world and the devil have been at it for a long time.  Long before any of us showed up.  We are in the most corrupted age, well beyond Genesis 6 in my view!  The only reason we aren’t drowned again is because God promised he wouldn’t do it!  Fiery darts of the wicked stick into things.  We need that shield.

Arrows go into our shields, mingle with our reason, cloud our faith.  Our faith is our protection.  What we can’t see with our eyes is our power.  Our shield of faith is to quench not to deflect.  We are to stand, having done all to stand. It needs to be mentioned here as well, that the sword of the spirit is the only offensive element.  One offensive item listed in six.  Loins girt about with truth; the Breastplate of Righteousness; our Feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; the Shield of Faith; the Helmet of Salvation; and the Sword of the spirit.

Our feet need to be preaching the gospel of peace.  How can we give peace to others, by going for the execution stroke at first contact?  The fatal blow to the neck with our big 66lbs broadsword.  Our authority and our training in the book can be our downfall through pride and arrogance.  With all this in mind, let me talk to you bold Bible Believing preachers out there.

We are to use the word of God carefully.  Not “handling the word deceitfully”.  Approaching sinners with the truth and not pride.  This should be our manner. We are ambassadors to the world.  We should be well versed in how we conduct ourselves in every facet of life. The servant of the Lord must not strive.  It carries with all men.   Especially so; if one is going to attempt to “suit up”, play the part, and preach the gospel to the masses at the town square.