BY WHAT AUTHORITY DO WE PREACH?

[In past articles we have seen the New Testament authority for our various acts of worship. We now turn to the work of the church: evangelism, edification and benevolence.]

The primary charge of the Lord’s church is to preach the gospel to all nations (Mt. 28:18-19, Mk. 16:15-16). “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” applies to every Christian that has ever lived by virtue of the requirement: “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Mt. 28:20). Since Jesus commanded it to them, He commands it to us.

Clearly every Christian cannot go everywhere and preach to every person. This is not practicable, and it does not follow the pattern given in the book of Acts. Neither does the language demand this. Rather, “all nations” and “every creature” refers to the fact that we are not to restrict our preaching to any nationality or race (see 1 Pet. 2:9).

Recognize that churches do not preach; individuals preach (2 Tim. 2:2). However, the church is authorized to support the preaching in two ways: (1) locally, by supporting local preachers (1 Cor. 9:3-14) and otherwise providing the environment in which preaching can be facilitated (Acts 20:7-12), andlor (2) by financially supporting preachers in other areas.

The method for this second is given in Phil. 4:14-18. The money from the church at Philippi was sent directly to the Apostle Paul. There was no organization or other local church through which it was sent. This places the responsibility for assuring the integrity of the use of contributed funds with those Christians at the source.

Man’s wisdom has questioned whether this method can have any impact on today’s world. Faith in God’s way leads us to state that it is the ONLY method that can have any impact, as it did in the first century (Acts 17:6, Col. 1:23). When we build evangelistic organizations not authorized by God, we cannot help but evangelizing these organizations, not the gospel. History has demonstrated this all too well.

On the other hand, if each one of us would recognize our own personal responsibility, God will be glorified to the maximum extent. If each Christian would convert just one soul per year, and that new Christian in turn also converted one soul per year (2 Tim. 2:2), in about one generation (30 years) the entire world would be converted.

God’s way is always best.