Church Leadership

By Don Clements

I went to the doctor’s office the other day to seek treatment for a sinus infection. I get them every winter and all I needed was a prescription for an antibiotic.

My regular family practice doctor was in Africa on a mission’s trip. So I had to see a fresh-caught Physicians Assistant. She walked into the room, and as far as she was concerned, I was a blank page. She didn’t know me from the man in the moon. After making some small talk, during which she determined I’d been a patient at this particular group practice for over 10 years, she turned on the computer in the examining room. A few clicks and – Voila’! – she had my medical history for the past 10 years. See? There is a lot of value in history – I got my antibiotic!!

The website of Tulane University’s History Department has a very good description of the value of history. You can read the full definition at http://history.tulane.edu/

In our search for meaning, we examine the meanings that others found. In our contemplation of the historical record, we encounter a broader spectrum of human behavior and values than that which we encounter in our own everyday lives. In doing so, we may develop a wiser understanding of who we are, of what potential we have, of what dangers threaten individuals, families, communities, and nations, and finally what we see as the meaning of life.

But our topic is Church history. We can’t just turn on the computer and learn 10 or 100 or 1000 years of church history, can we? Well, yes we can – but I’m not sure how much of it is of great value to us. Certainly ministers of the Word who attend seminary have to take Church history classes. But not everyone needs that much. Besides, who’s got the time?

One facet of Church history that I have found very useful for my needs was that, immediately upon arrival at a new church, I would dig out all the old Session minutes and read them, at least those for the past thirty years. Amazing what you can learn about a church just from reading all those dusty old Session record books.

But there are aspects of Church history that are of value to just about every church member, at least to those in leadership and teaching positions. One of my favorite pastimes over the years has been reading biographies. Lot’s of people like reading biographies and never realize that they are reading history books. Particularly in the past few years when I have not been preaching regularly and had more time for things of interest, I have made it a practice to try to have at least one biography on my reading table at all times.

But what about Church history in general? Does it matter if I know all that stuff about Martin Luther and John Knox? Does it matter if I know what has happened in the PCA for the past 30 plus years? All I really care about is my own local church and my own personal ministry – and I just don’t have time to worry about all that other stuff. Let me suggest that “all that other stuff” is part and parcel of what ultimately produced your local church, and for that matter, most likely your individual ministry.

Suppose you are a Sunday school teacher? Do you even know who invented Sunday school? And what its original purpose was supposed to be? Perhaps you could better evaluate your ministry by studying the history of John and Charles Wesley and the Methodist movement from which our modern Sunday school design has evolved over the years.

Let’s stick with the Sunday school teacher illustration for a while. What about your curriculum? Where did it come from? Why is it set up the way it is? Why does it teach the specific things it teaches? The lessons here could greatly affect your teaching. To learn the early history of GCP materials, if that is what you are using, and to learn the battles that the men and women who originally formed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church had to go through when they left the liberal Northern Presbyterian Church in the 1930’s and their immediate need to find Biblically based Christian Education materials, you would be thrilled.

Or have you ever heard how GCP went through years of financial struggle and was near to closing their doors when they approached the PCA to ask us to join in a cooperative agreement to keep the presses running?

How about your local church? Does it have a history? Does that history have any effect on you and your family? How has your church history shaped the way it deals with members, on what the preaching from the pulpit is like, how the church is organized, and dozens of other things affecting the church in so many ways that many of us never see? Your church did not just appear one day. It became the way it is today because of events that happened in the past. And those events are what we call church history.

Every individual church has a history. Many of them are written down. Check around and see if you can find yours. If not, check with the PCA Historian at http://www.pcahistory.org/.

And every Presbyterian church has a broader history. The PCA is less than 35 years old, so our history is pretty short. But we will be celebrating the Tri-Centennial of the founding of the first Presbytery in the colonies that became the “good ole US of A”. Wow, a lot of history there. And perhaps a lot of it won’t apply to your particular church. But there are certainly parts of all that history that are important. Where did your church come from? Was it from the old Southern Presbyterian Church or the old Northern Presbyterian Church or from some other small group of Presbyterians? In that history you’ll find a lot of answers to that list of questions I just asked a bit ago.

Perhaps you are part of a much younger congregation formed after the PCA was founded. What was the history of its founding? Why did the leadership back then decide to unite with the PCA? That history will also answer a lot of those questions. You see, past decisions and past events in your church have developed into a story all their own, a history of your church. Likewise, past decisions and past events in the PCA have developed a history of the denomination.

When I was a student at Covenant Seminary, Dr. Will Barker became our Dean of faculty and Professor of Church History. I was in his classroom on his first day of teaching. As he went around the room that first day, he asked each of us to introduce ourselves briefly, especially telling a bit about our background and studies in the field of history.

When it came to my turn, I said something like this: “I have had 3 hours of Western Civ and 3 hours of History of the Old South and they were probably the two most useless classes I ever had as an undergrad!” With that pleasant, comforting smile that is invariably on Will’s face, he said something like, “Well, Mr. Clements, I’ll consider that a challenge to make this one of the most important classes you will have!”

And, wouldn’t you know it, I can honestly say it may have been exactly that – the most important class of my seminary education. It certainly was one of the prime factors that led me to understand the Reformed Faith. You see, learning a little Church history, gives you perspective, from which you can even better understand your church’s doctrine and beliefs.

I recently had a conversation with a young professor of church history at one of our seminaries. We were discussing the importance for all Christians, not just seminary students, to study church history. Many people wonder why they can’t just study the Bible without being concerned with something so seemingly dull and dry as church history.

In the book reviews, we have reviewed a book entitled Pocket History of Theology by Roger Olson and Adam C. English. As I read that book, anticipating writing this column, I was reminded afresh about the importance of knowing our history and tradition. I was also reminded of the time when I did not see the ongoing importance of history or tradition, other than to acknowledge their existence. I remembered how as a seminary student my church history professor, Dr. William Childs Robinson helped me understand differently. However, I must admit that I still had negative leanings regarding tradition because what I had known as tradition was that it referred to something antithetical to Scripture. I had also heard that tradition was often placed on the level of or even above Scripture, especially by the Roman church and that was part of the reason for the Protestant Reformation.

I am so grateful that God later led me to see that while Scripture is our only rule of faith and practice, we do not study the Bible in a vacuum. We need to know about the development of those great creeds, confessions, and doctrines. Men actually gave their lives to formulate some of those doctrines contained in our church creeds and documents we profess to believe. Pocket History of Theology opens up some of those early church people and events that formulated our Christian faith, and some of which was done prior to the accessibility to the written Word. The teaching and tradition of the Apostles, and later church fathers, were essential transmitters of the Christian faith.

In his new book,Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church, D. H. Williams, professor of religion in patristics and historical theology at Baylor University, explains that both Scripture and tradition are necessary for the process of orthodox teaching, and there is a reciprocal relationship between theology and the life of the church.

“Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church” gives a thorough introduction into the development of theology in the early church. It does so in a way that highlights the fallacy of those who would say the Bible, and nothing else, is the only necessity for a Christian life. While many of the contemporary churches have failed to use things such as the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed, and others fail to see the importance of the confessions of faith developed over the years, those who do include them in their church’s life and ministry often fail to appreciate the ingredients that went into their development and take the time to explain the process of development to the people.

We have heard the claim that Protestant Christians, in contrast to Roman and Greek Orthodox Christians, are not interested in history and tradition. However, as Williams states, “to be deep in history for evangelical Protestantism need not be and should not be oxymoronic.”

Because discipleship, passing on the faith to the next generations, and teaching the Bible and its doctrines in a life-oriented way are Christian Education and Publications’ missions in the PCA, this book is especially important to us because it explores how the early church catechized Christians and those interested in becoming Christians. Williams observes that while many churches carry on their worship empty of content and without historical significance, those who do incorporate content with historical significance find their worship deepened and enriched by understanding the Scriptures in their historical setting and how that touches our lives.

One segment of the book explains the importance the early church placed on catechizing and discipling. Williams writes:

Evangelicals can learn much from the ancient church’s focus on catechesis, that is, on carefully instructing converts or those preparing to join the church in the biblical and doctrinal fundamentals of the Christian faith. In the preface to his manual of Christian instruction, Gregory of Nyssa declared:

Religious catechism is an essential duty of the leaders ‘of the mystery of our religion’ (I Tim.3:16). By it the Church is enlarged through the addition of those who are saved, while ‘the sure word which accords with the teaching’ (Titus 1:9) comes within the hearing of unbelievers.

….This need for equipping cannot be displaced in favor of simply giving one’s own testimony anymore than a personal experience of faith can be substituted for a reasonable grasp of that faith. If the church, as the apostle phrased it, is ‘the ground and foundation of the truth’ (I Tim 3:15), then, the church’s leadership must not shirk from the critical and time-consuming job of imparting Christian truth or catechizing those who profess to be Christian (154-55).

While reading Williams’ book, along with Pocket History of Theology, I was impressed again and again with the importance that was placed on understanding both the content and practice of the Christian faith for those in the early church. While many of the early believers did not have the Bible and were taught by the catechism method of passing on the tradition of the Apostles orally, this was done with much care and fervor because those Christians were living in a pagan environment where Christians were blamed for all kinds of wrong. As I read, I was reminded that we are living in a non-Christian culture, though there are remnants here and there. If this is true, how much more we need to prepare and equip our covenant people to believe and understand the doctrines of the Christian faith and how to live in a non-Christian environment where there is little to encourage us “to think God’s thoughts after him.”

As you read, you will find obvious comparisons to the early church and our contemporary church. You will also observe the different results in the different methods used, plus you will be reminded that principles such as: “sola Scriptura,” “sola fide” or “priesthood of all believers” are not understood in a vacuum.

God has given us his Word as his revealed will, but has also given us hundreds of years of church history to help us better understand and apply his Word to our life and world. The Apostles passed on that tradition to the early church and through the church to us today. We do not worship in a time warp. We are not existentialists only focusing on the present moment. As evangelical and reformed Christians, we realize that we worship with saints of all the ages and we stand on the shoulders of giants of the faith who have preceded us. Even as we continue to do our theology today, we do so being able to reflect on what has been done in the life of the church and kingdom. And, if we are to pass on the faith to the next generations, we need to have some understanding of how it was passed on to us.

I conclude with a repeat comment from our “Welcome” article in this issue because of its importance today. Recently, I read a comment by Collin Hansen from the Christianity Today Library online that hit me squarely between the eyes. He said, “Evangelicals sometimes don’t know what to do with history…We use history as a euphemism for churches that let allegiance to the past snuff out the Spirit’s work today.” That reminded me of a question in the book One Faith, the Evangelical Consensus, by J. I. Packer and Thomas Oden: “Are evangelicals fragmenting into ever smaller divisions, as some fear?” I quickly researched some of my major works on “evangelicalism.” It dawned on me, while there are general topics dealt with on God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, etc. in those outstanding books, the topic of the church (ecclesiology) is strikingly absent. Is it any wonder that there are so many para-church organizations, denominations, and a lack of understanding of the church? Could that be contributing to a lack of appreciation, love, and importance of the church for Christians today?

In a recent weekend seminar focusing on making Kingdom disciples, I encountered several questions regarding how the church is to be in the world but not of it. In Making Kingdom Disciples, A New Framework, I give a framework for being in the world but not of the world. The framework requires knowing the Word, knowing what we believe and why, and knowing the transforming effect truth is to have upon our lives. Included in the framework is the need to understand the world–not only to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, but also to know how to better communicate God’s truth in this world. Still, through my study, experience, and analysis I have a number of concerns about the church’s current involvement in our world.

First, as a church, do we completely understand our present situation? Much is going on in our world that is chaotic, fragmented and disconnected, causing us to trivialize the situation and see it has a passing fad. Yet, this very chaos is shaping our lives and culture. Second, if we do understand that what is happening in our world is shaping our culture and lives, do we know what to do about it? Are we prepared to give an explanation for what we believe and why, as the Apostle Peter instructed I Peter 3:15? Third, the church is battling two extremes. One is an indifference to the world around us, demonstrated by caving in to today’s irrational ideas of tolerance and political correctness. The other is capitulating to the world’s culture, busily embracing postmodernism’s pop cultural, market-driven focus where there is more form than substance. This has required a rewrite of Jesus’ Great Commission to read, “as you are going into the world, hold on to your faith but do not challenge others with that truth because after all, who’s to say you are right? Practice your religion in your private world, but do not bring it into the market place lest you be viewed as arrogant, dogmatic, and condescending to those who do not share your beliefs.

Also, as you are going into the world, be careful the topics you talk about lest you offend your neighbor and erect a barrier between you.” Growing out of that discussion and the subsequent questions, I coined a word for that context with which I tried to demonstrate how not to be offensive with our words. The word I flashed on the screen was “indolecism.” I did not want to offend anyone with the word lazy or slothful, but I suggested that I believe one of the reasons the church is ineffective is because Christians are lazy. They are not willing to expend the energy and time to study the situation, which at best produces a Christianity that is focused on me and mine rather than God. We have not understood what has gone before us in history and especially church history; therefore, we continue to fall into the same traps where our very survival is at stake. We would rather embrace the ways of the world to do our thing, even in the name of Jesus, than we would to think with a transformed mind about the world. I say, shame on us; God deserves better than that. Church history is strewn with wreckage of so many attempts of the church to buy into the world’s mold and ideologies, only to run aground and break apart. If we do try to pay attention to history, our tendency, because of the world’s influence, is to see it as simply one event after another with no connecting thread to help us make sense of those incidentals. Hence, we conclude history is relative and what is happening now is about the best I can try to understand, which of course you cannot do in a vacuum. In our seminar on modernity and its impact on our North American situation, I developed a one page schematic beginning with 1600 AD on to 2000 AD. One of the question posed was how North America moved from such a high standard of ethics and morality, which reflected a Christian consensus, to today’s street corner ethics and marketplace morality that has little or no semblance of Christian truth. Again, I concluded with the above group that I did not mean to be simplistic with the charge of indolecism, but we need to commit ourselves to being kingdom disciples who understand the Word and the world, to be thinking with a transformed mind in order to know what God would have us to do.

Those comments led me into a new book by David F. Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, Christ in a Postmodern World. Wells has already instructed us in the past with other books. This fourth and final volume concludes the series. As I read Above All Earthly Pow’rs, I was encouraged that I was not alone in my concerns as to what is happening in evangelicalism in general and within the evangelical churches in particular. I was reminded of Os Guinness’s challenge in a book we reviewed this year, Prophetic Untimeliness. In our attempt to be up-to-date and make the Gospel relevant, we are actually becoming more and more irrelevant. The church has lost is salt and light on the world today, as a result. We cannot be like that which we challenge and make an impact. David Wells understands today’s world and how we have reached our present circumstance. He demonstrates over and over how we have negotiated, trivialized, or rewritten, by careful editing, the truth of the Gospel all in our attempt to be relevant. What this has done, according to Wells, is to challenge the church’s integrity with its message, therefore asking, does the church have a missional future? Wells clearly demonstrates how the church is not being the church today because it is buying into a spirituality that makes truth peripheral at best. The church, in its paranoia about being relevant has taken on “postmodern habits of thought and even unbelief.” Wells points out that we have jettisoned our Christian orthodoxy by tailoring our message for the new consumer audience.

The problem today is that “truth” appears to have no market value to the non-churched audience and even to some within the church. One example says Wells is how sin is preached, if in fact it is preached. Sin is presented not as an affront to a holy God but that which “harms the individual.” And in some churches, he says all we need to complete the picture of our worship, cast in light entertainment, is “popcorn.” Wells uses statistics to show that America’s belief in God is slipping because we are not giving people something solid to hold to. All is relative or pragmatic and not only is that what the pop culture around us is saying, but that message is reinforced within the evangelical community. He points out that the emergence of postmodernism and growing interest in religion and spirituality define the American culture and neither in themselves should encourage us. The way we are being taught to engage culture is by being like it. He further points out that our task “is not only to understand the nature of biblical truth but also to ask how that truth addresses the issues of the day.” Churches have a God-given assignment to help the people see truth in its preaching and teaching but also to help Christians understand how to engage the world around us. Being a kingdom disciple requires our thinking about God, the Word, the world and especially, as Wells says, the things that the world imposes on us-the workplace, appointments made, people we will meet, and jobs that must be done.

As I read Above All Earthly Pow’rs, I was reminded of a quotation that I have frequently used, “it is not what we think we are–what we think, we are.” Wells says that we do not think enough about the world and why it is as it is, and he is right. For example, I have heard some leading evangelical preachers talk about the revival of spirituality today uncritically, instead of first explaining how today’s interest in spirituality is so different from how the Church has understood spirituality in the past. Wells addresses that very cogently throughout this book. Preachers, teachers, parents, Christians, this is the kind of book we should be reading in our effort to think and live like kingdom disciples. We cannot go with the flow and embrace a form of Christianity without the substance and make a difference. The great commission in Matthew 28 calls us to make a difference, to make kingdom disciples. What we may be hearing in some circles of evangelical may sound relevant, exciting, new, and we are tempted to applaud, but the real question is, does the truth have a life-transforming influence on us and are we making any difference in our world, as a result?

In summary:

Martin Luther is credited with the statement, “You can’t preach the gospel unless you preach it in the light of the issues with which men struggle.” If this is a true statement then stewardship would certainly fall into the struggles category for many people, even born again people. The Barna Group surveys show that people give away enormous amounts of money and churches receive the largest amount. The survey taken in 2004 also shows “The average amount of money donated to churches was $895 per donor in 2004. On the face of it, that sum appears healthy: it is substantially more than the average amounts over each of the past several years. However, when inflation is factored in, the current dollar average is actually less than the amount that houses of worship received in the late 1990s.” In tracking the practice of “tithing,” which is giving at least ten percent of income, the survey showed only 9% of born again adults tithed to churches in 2004.

One issue that makes stewardship a struggle for Christians is the culture of postmodernism. Dr. Albert Mohler wrote, “The postmodernists reject both the Christian and modernist approaches to the question of truth. According to postmodern theory, truth is not universal, is not objective or absolute and cannot be determined by a commonly accepted method. Instead, postmodernists believe truth is socially constructed, plural, and inaccessible to universal reason.” There are ways in which this thinking has impacted the church’s view of stewardship.

Jill M. Hudson has written a book entitled, When Better Isn’t Enough: Evaluation Tools For The 21st Century Church, published by the Alban Institute. She describes the postmodern culture this way, “No longer are the rules and principles that formerly governed society understood to be passed down through families, religious groups, or community norms. Morals, ethics, and values are created and re-created out of personal experience. Relationships become the crucibles in which values are collaboratively constructed.”

Statistics tell the church there is a problem with stewardship. The philosophy of postmodernism which is permeating our culture shows there is a problem with the people’s worldview. Though our reformed churches may think and feel we are not influenced by such a worldview as described above, we may be unaware of just how much we are. Stewardship presents several challenges for the church and its leadership. Is stewardship something that personal experience can decide? Does the Bible set principles for giving or leave it up to the individual? What about tithing? Has postmodernism affected your views on stewardship?

Wesley K. Willmer has written a book God and Your Stuff, and he writes, “The topic of faith and possessions is explosive-like walking in a snake pit or across a minefield. It is a no-no in many churches. We like to think that what is in our pocket, wallet, or purse is our own business-no one else’s” (pp. 8-9). Do you hear the voice of postmodernism in this statement?

Stewardship is a spiritual matter and should be kept as one of main disciplines of the Christian life. Richard Halverson has often been quoted as saying, “Money is an exact index to a man’s true character. All through Scripture there is an intimate correlation between the development of a man’s character and how he handles money.” Many people don’t like to hear such statements. Randy Alcorn makes the point, “In the Christian community today, there is more blindness, rationalization, and unclear thinking about money than anything else.” (Money, Possessions, and Eternity, p.27).

Where to begin regarding stewardship? The only place for the Christian is the Bible– which does not teach relative, non-absolute truth. Rather it teaches in Francis Schaeffer’s words “true truth.” When it comes to stewardship the first truth is:

I. God Owns It All

Psalm 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” Psalm 50:10-12, “For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.” This is the framework for stewardship. The Almighty God is Lord of all and owner of all. This truth is foundational and not open to question or debate. From the farthest planet in space to the most remote nation of the earth, all belong to the Creator. From these verses stewards learn they can offer nothing that does not already belong to God. As He says in vs. 12, “If I were hungry I would not tell you.”

The risen Lord Jesus Christ said in commissioning His disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Even such a clear statement about the universal authority of the Lord will be questioned by the postmodern culture. The vain philosophies of the world will seek to give their own interpretation. Remember they are under the arch enemy Satan who challenged God’s authority in the beginning and used it with Adam and Eve.

What follows from this foundational framework is:

II. Man Is A Steward In The Kingdom Of God

In a most poetic fashion God speaks about man’s position as a steward over all creation. Psalm 8:4-9, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

The glory of man who has been created in the image of God is given by God to exercise dominion over the works of God’s hands. He is a vice-regent here on the earth. But man must realize this does not make him the center of the universe so that all things revolve around him. The psalm closes with the words, “O Lord, our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth.” It is not man’s name that is majestic. The Lord’s name speaks of his person; He does not share that majesty with any other.

Another area of man’s stewardship is taught by the Lord in Matthew 25:14-30 in the parable of the talents. A master was going on a journey so he called his servants and entrusted to them his property. This was a significant amount (some have said a talent could amount to twenty years in wages.) He divided his property (money) according to the ability of each servant. Then after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. This parable supports the stewardship principle that Christians are servants/stewards, not owners, and are going to be held accountable for how they have discharged their responsibilities to their Lord and Master. This story deals directly with financial matters. The master says to the slothful servant, “You ought to have invested my money with the bankers so that I could have received what was my own with interest.” Stewards are called to be industrious and productive in their stewardship. The Lord wants you to be the best you can be for His glory.

The question for Christians is What are you doing with the Lord’s money? Does your life testify to the foundational principle that the money you have is really not your own, but belongs to the Lord? Do you see yourself as a steward of the earnings you make, or do you see them as yours to do with as you please? One writer has said, “Stewardship is nothing less than a complete lifestyle, a total accountability and responsibility before God.”(Ronald Vallet, Stewardship Journal). This is reinforced in Mt. 24:45-51 where the Lord describes a faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household and cares for the needs of others by giving them food at the proper time and does not squander the master’s possessions.

III. The Culture Of The World Denies The Scriptural Teaching on Stewardship

When the world tries to deconstruct truth, (by rejecting any universal, absolute, objective truth) then people can look upon themselves as totally free agents who can determine and decide for themselves what is right or wrong. There is no standard outside themselves by which to determine morality and values. They cease to see themselves as stewards and now they see themselves as owners. There is no accountability as epitomized in the old bumper sticker, “He who dies with the most toys wins.”

What is it in the culture of the twenty-first century that denies the biblical principles of stewardship, and tempts Christians to buy into its philosophy? Democratic capitalism in its humanistic form which exalts the individual and his own self-interests has led many to turn away from serving the Lord’s work and helping others. We no longer seek the common good by loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Western Christians struggle with a wealth factor that boggles the mind. We are the wealthiest generation of people who have ever lived. The productivity of our western world is far beyond anything ever seen in history. What are some results of such progress and productivity? C.S. Lewis has pointed out one result: “Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him.” The productivity of the industrial revolution led to supply side economics. We can produce more than the demand of people’s needs. This in turn led to the advertising industry built upon the premise to sell more by influencing people to buy more, even if it was not needed. Advertising created in the minds of people more needs, and want of things they did not even know they wanted. TV commercials are a good example of this. And so materialism has invaded the hearts and lives of people so that their self-esteem is tied to how much they have in the way of possessions. In their worship they see themselves as owners and not stewards. What does a man have that he has not received of the Lord? How often should a person ask himself that question?

Along with materialism comes the sin of consumerism. Today economists have developed the consumer price index (cpi) which measures how much things cost and thus affects how much people buy. Here is the way one writer describes consumerism, “Normally, however, consumerism is lamented as a significant behavioral blemish in modern industrial society. It suggests an inordinate concern-some might even say an addiction-with the acquisition, possession and consumption of material goods and services. Even more seriously, consumerism suggests a preoccupation with the immediate gratification of desire. It implies foolishness, superficiality and triviality, and the destruction of personal and social relationships by means of selfishness, individualism, possessiveness and covetousness.”

David Myers reports in a survey that few of us would say “yes” to the question, “Does money buy happiness?” But to the question, “Would a little more money make you a little happier?” many would reply with a smile and nod. “What would improve your quality of life?” Most answered, “More money.” J.D. Rockfeller, Sr. said a long time ago in response to how much money it takes to make a man happy, “Just a little bit more.”

IV. The Church Needs Always To Be Reformed And Reforming In Its Understanding and Practice of Stewardship

This means getting back to Luther’s comments about preaching the gospel in light of issues where men struggle.

• The answer to accumulation is giving to the Lord what is rightfully His. This begins with tithing. The Scriptures teach this in both the O.T. and N.T. by example and by instruction. (Gen. 14:20; Gen. 28:22; Lev. 27:30,31; Deut.14:22-27; Mal. 3:8-11; Mt. 23:23; Lk. 11:42).
• The answer to materialism is preaching that stewardship means you cannot serve two masters, you will love the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon. (Mt. 6:24). In II Cor. 8 and 9 Paul teaches how sacrificial giving to those in need would manifest their love for Christ and others.
• The answer to consumerism is preaching what it means to “hunger and thirst after righteousness,” Mt. 5:6; and Phil. 3:7,8, “whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ…all things I count as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.” Jim Elliot said in 1956, “He is no fool who gives away what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
• Another answer to consumerism is contentment, Phil. 4:11,12, “…for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” Add to Paul’s example I Tim. 6:7ff, “Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.

Finally, the reformation of the church depends on how well it heeds the charge of Paul to Timothy in I Tim.6:9,10;17-19. It will take courage for elders and deacons to know the postmodern culture in order to instruct believers the desire to be rich can lead one:

• to fall into temptation,
• to wander from the faith,
• to pierce themselves with many pains.

Those who are rich should be charged:

• not to be prideful nor set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches.
• The only real riches are those stored in heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy. John Wesley said, “I value all things only by the price they shall gain in eternity.”
• To set their hope on God.
• To be rich in good works.
• To be generous and ready to share.

Paul wrote these words for Timothy to preach because even Christians are prone to succumb to the temptation of desiring riches. It takes courage to preach and command such things in a materialistic and consumerist culture. May God give strength and courage to pastors and leaders to call the church to practice biblical stewardship.