Truth Magazine

By Ron Halbrook

“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (Jas. 1:27). This passage tells “himself” or “oneself” (AV) the personal responsibility which he has to help the needy. During the battle over church-sponsored institutions, this passage has been used to justify churches building, maintaining, and sending donations to institutions which care for the needy. Detailed arguments have been made on the passage, pro and con, but sometimes a man’s experience in life gives him insight into what a passage teaches-and why.

In 1926, brother Carson Isenberg’s father died, leaving a wife and six children. Individual Christians in the Mud Lick (Tompkinsville), Kentucky area aided this family in their needs for about three years. They brought corn, sacks of flour, and other staples of life from time to time, visiting the fatherless and a widow in their desperation. Finally, someone proposed that the children be put in Potter’s Orphan Home at Bowling Green, Kentucky and just let a nearby church send about $10.00 per month in order to visit the fatherless and widows! So, about 1929-30 brother Isenberg stayed at Potters for six months; he was ten years old. The children were split up according to age. Carson remembers that when the officials were too busy to give leis three-year-old brother personal attention, they kept him out of trouble by penning his gown under a bed post.

After several boys had run away and been returned, the officials called everyone together and offered to send anyone home who was thinking about running away. Carson knew that his physical needs were being met but also knew that institutional care was no substitute for mother and home. Seeing an opportunity to return to his loved ones, he claimed that he was considering running away. He then lived with his grandparents, while his other brothers and sisters stayed at Potters.

Carson Isenberg obeyed the gospel in 1952 and about ten years later began to face the institutional controversy. Although he had never thought these problems out before, the expression, “Let not the church be charged,” kept coming to his mind. But something else made an even deeper impression on his conscience. “I looked at what the Christians started out doing around Mud Lick and at what they ended up doing. They took their individual duty and shifted it to Potters Orphan Home, with the idea of letting the church send periodic donations of money. The individuals who started out visiting the fatherless and widows as James 1:27 teaches ended up not visiting the fatherless and widows. ” Brother Isenberg saw that institutionalism was destroying the personal dedication and service of Christians. In view of his own experience, such a movement could have no attraction to him. “Once we were in the Orphan Home, not a one of the people who had been helping us ever came to see us.” Fortunately, the church in question repudiated institutionalism some years later.

We have been told over and over for the last 25 years that James 1:27 tells us the responsibility and that we may choose any way, method, means, or expediency to discharge it. The work and function of the human institution is “how” the church fulfills its duty, we are told. No, actually, the human institution is selecting its own “how” and the church is sending donations to finance the institution, while individual Christians are relieved of the work which they must do to be pure and undefiled. These church-supported human institutions are not the “How” of James 1:27. They are rather the “how” in how to not visit the fatherless and widows.

When brethren lose the spirit of zeal, sacrifice, and unselfishness, they lose interest in pure and undefiled religion. They pass to the church that work which belongs not to the church but to themselves. Rather than do that work, the church then passes the buck to some human organization. This is how to not practice pure and undefiled religion. This is how to look into the perfect law of liberty and how to not continue therein. How to visit the needy is not the problem. The problem is that some brethren have learned how to not visit!

Truth Magazine XXII: 44, pp. 714-715
November 9, 1978

By Earl Robertson

Unity is not only “good” and “pleasant” (Psa. 133:1), but it is demanded by the Lord. This unity is among brethren. There is no teaching from the Lord demanding that His people be united with denominationalism; to the contrary, He demands separateness. The unity the Bible teaches is unity among God’s people based upon divine truth.

The unity among the followers of Christ is based upon what the apostles taught (John 17:20, 21), We are to be “one” as the Father and the Son are one. Unity cannot and must not be in the absence of truth. Should a “union” exist without the truth of the Lord, that is all it would be-union. Jesus prayed for unity-unity based on apostolic teaching.

Christ is one; the body (church) of Christ is one, and so must Saints then know the essential need for oneness (1 Cor. 1:13; 12:20). Division is condemned by the Lord. The word used by the apostles in their condemnation for disunity is schisma, and properly means a cleft or rent. It is used metaphorically to mean dissension or division. Every Christian should realize both his ability to serve the Lord and his responsibility to contribute toward oneness among God’s people upon the sacred trust of truth. Paul says, “. . . there should be no schism in the body . . .” (1 Cor. 12:25). The problem of division existed in the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 11:18), and it was because of carnality (1 Car. 3:3).

Yes, unity is demanded by the Lord. However, He never wants unity among His people at the expense of truth. We are commanded to “speak the same thing . . . that there be no divisions among you . . .” (1 Cor. 1:10). Opinion is not the basis for unity, but rather the word of God. In opinions, we must give deference. In opinions, we can afford to sacrifice our own to get along with others, but we cannot sacrifice truth to get along with anyone.

Sometimes brethren demand what the will of God will not allow and this forces conscientious brethren out. Through the years faithful brethren have had to leave where they worshiped for years simply because some interjected works or relationships which the Bible neither authorized nor sanctioned. This division is sinful. Make efforts to contribute to Bible unity among brethren.

Truth Magazine XXII: 45, p. 731
November 16, 1978

By George T. Eldridge

That philosophy exists in too many minus today. We live in an age of prosperity and abundance. Our country is not engaged in a shooting war with any other country. We have leisure time. We have available to us doctors, hospitals, and pharmacists to handle our health problems. We, in fact, have people that are available to help us with our free time. What has God done for me?

Whether I recognize my problems and difficulties or have a ton of them, God loves me. Even though I am of good report among my neighbors, creditors, fellow workers, and community, God loves me (Acts 10:22). Whether I am a fornicator, an idolater, an adulterer, effeminate, a homosexual, a lesbian, God loves me (1 Cor. 6:9,10). Even though I might be a blasphemer, a persecutor of God’s church and everything that is righteous, and injurious to God’s children and classify myself as a chief sinner, God loves me (1 Tim. 1:13,15).

Why does God love all sinners, even though I might not recognize myself as one? He “is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (1 Pet. 3:9). Yet, “despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?)” (Rom. 2:3). Repent.Change your life. Give yourself to God as He teaches in the Bible. Permit Jesus of Nazareth to control you. Walk the pathway of life with the one that has conquered death.

God Sends His Sun and Rain

Every sun that rises on the evil and on the good, God sends it (Matt. 5:45). Without the sun, there cannot be photosynthesis. Life cannot exist without the sun, yet its warmth and benefits comes to all. God sends “rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). God’s rain waters the earth for the benefit of all righteous and all sinners. God’s rain quenches my thirst, washes my clothes, and bathes my body.

God’s action in this world is the action of unconquerable benevolence. “Rabbi Joshua ben Nehemiah used to say, ‘Have you every noticed that the rain fell on the field of A, who was righteous, and not on the field of B, who was wicked? Or that the sun rose and shone on Israel, who was righteous, and not upon the Gentiles, who were wicked? God causes the sun to shine both on Israel and on the nations, for the Lord is good to all’ ” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1, pp. 174-175).

Final Word

What has God done for me? The Psalmist expressed it: “The eyes of all wait upon Thee; and Thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest Thine Hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing” (Psalms 145:15,16).

In God, there is this universal benevolence and love even towards men who have broken His law and broken His heart! Will you not come unto Jesus? Let Jesus give you rest from your labor and heavy loads. Take the yoke of Jesus and learn of Him, the Son of the living God. He is “meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls” (Mt. 11:28,29). Jesus’ “yoke is easy and” His “burden is light” (Mt. 11:30). What has God done for me?

Truth Magazine XXII: 44, p. 711
November 9, 1978

By Earl Robertson

Christ built His church (Psa. 127:1; Matt. 16:18). There was divine aim or. purpose for the church (1 Tim. 3:15). The church of Christ is the body of Christ (Eph. 1:22, 23). Christ is the only head of His church (Col. 1:18; Eph. 1:22). Whatsoever, therefore, the church might do it must have authority from the head to act. Christ has a work for it to perform and that work it must do.

The work of ministry and edification are the works perfected saints perform (Eph. 4:12). Claptrap and gimmicks are carnal and are engaged by the worldly minded. Human efforts utilizing cheap gimmicks supported by churches is a “drift” from the divine way, and the apostates responsible will inevitably face the Lord for their presumption.

In late 1942, Brother N. B. Hardeman, then President of Freed-Hardeman College, preached a series of sermons in the War Memorial Building in Nashville, Tennessee. Discussing the “Mission and Work of The Church,” he said, “Again, I say to you, with caution and thought, that it is not the work of the church to furnish entertainment for the members. And yet many churches have drifted into such an effort. They enlarge their basements, put in all kinds of gymnastic apparatus, and make every sort of an appeal to the young people of the congregation. I have never read anything in the Bible that indicated to me that such was a part of the work of the church. I am wholly ignorant of any Scripture that even points in that direction. Furthermore, it is not the work of the church to try to adjust labor troubles, or to supervise our social conditions.”

Hardeman spoke the truth thirty-five years ago! It is the truth today! But the efforts then were nothing as compared to what is today being done by the churches. Some churches feign to have respect for the teaching of Hardeman, but have no ethical principles that inhibits their actions in the very things he condemned as being without divine authority. Why can’t churches of Christ be satisfied to do the work today that churches of Christ did in the first century? Take your stand upon New Testament authority.

Truth Magazine XXII: 43, p. 709
November 9, 1978