Truth Magazine

By Mike Willis

Numbers For Number’s Sake

One of the charges which I have made against the bus ministry is that it places an inordinate emphasis on numbers. During the reading of the literature on the subject, I have become even more convinced than ever that this is true. I base this charge on the following evidences:

1. The methods used for attracting riders. The reward motivation method of attracting riders emphasizes numbers for the sake of numbers. It does not seek to attract people through the appeal of a dying Savior; it seeks to attract children with bubble gum. It does not appeal to the spiritual man, but to his carnal desires.

2. The statements to that effect. Consider the following quotations from the literature on the bus ministry:

You are always interested in numbers-large numbs! Think Big and you will get big numbers (Russell L. Sample, op. cit., p. 7).

Some “cannot see afar off” (2 Pet. 1:9) when it comes to bus evangelism. They want to start in as small a way as possible, so they go and purchase as small a van as they can find and plan to have few workers and riders. . And that is exactly what they do have for they do not have the room. For a congregation to purchase a little van for bus evangelism is a splendid way to announce to the community that there is a lack of vision in this congregation and we want to do just as little as possible. It also says we do not believe we can get, many to ride to our services. Brethren do not start a bus program unless you are really serious about it. You will do more harm than good to the cause.

We need to learn to think big like Jesus. Jesus was the world’s greatest optimist when he gave the great commission to that small band of men. A failure to think big and act big retards the growth of the church. Often we exhibit more faith when it comes to our own personal matters than we do in the work of the church (Albert Hill, op. cit., pp. 28-19).

When one adds to those, quotations the number of “success stories” included in these books, he will see that there is too much emphasis on numbers.

3. The problems connected with the bus ministry. Practically every booklet on the bus ministry warns of problems to be faced. The problems cited show that the persons attracted are not attracted to the Christ but to the prizes. Therefore, this causes the following kinds of problems: (1) Disorderly conduct, (2) Damage to facilities, and, (3) Playing “hookey.” Furthermore, promotional contests are necessary for both the children and the workers. All of these problems emphasize this: the bus ministry emphasizes numbers above spirituality.

Part of the Social Gospel

The bus ministry also leads a church further down the social gospel trail. Those who conceive of the benevolent responsibility of the church to be toward non-Christians relate how the bus ministry involves the church in greater benevolent works. Consider the following quotations:

When you start the bus ministry in a successful way, get ready to enlarge your benevolent work (Albert Hill, op. cit., p. 60).

The bus program improves the benevolent program of the average congregation. Where the bus work is begun, cases of benevolence are frequent, as the routes are worked and boys and girls are invited and urged to ride the busses.

Many children, in poor neighborhoods, will not have proper clothing. Families that are truly destitute will be located on routes. This provides the church a marvelous opportunity to provide the necessities of life for those families needing assistance and thus practice pure and undefiled religion (Jas. 1:27) (Ibid., p. 90).

As you get more and more into the Joy Bus Program, you will come more and more into contact with poor, needy people-children and adults. They have pride and do not want charity. But they will respond to loving care and concern by Christians who do their duty and see to the needs of others less fortunate than themselves. A Joy Bus Program will do more than any other thing to spur a church on to being “Good Samaritans”. Then we can show the children the parable in living color! Provision should be made to store furniture, clothing, food, toilet items, etc., for use. Two to five or more men should be assigned to work with the bus captains and director in seeing after benevolent contacts. BE SURE SUCH WORKERS ARE COMPASSIONATE, DEPENDABLE AND TACTFUL! A man who thinks he is working with “beggars” should never be allowed to take even one sack of groceries to anyone! LADIES-should have regular sewing group meetings each week, probably during the day, to repair, mend and sew, sort and fold, and iron donated clothing. Ladies are more able to determine clothing sizes and should accompany men in making contacts to the needy. Be a Dorcas, ladies! (Carl W. Wade, op. cit., p. 42).

The church, according to these brethren, is some sort of Salvation Army out to clothe and feed .the world. Of course, I am not opposed to helping indigents. However, I am opposed to involving the church in a social gospel type of ministry.

Financing

Though the financing of the bus ministry frequently does not violate the Scriptures, that is not always the case. Albert Hill suggested the following methods of financing the program:

Take up a special contribution to purchase busses and thus allow many to be involved financially.

A Sunday School class may want to buy a bus or busses as a project. Also, help maintain the vehicles purchased.

A little bank bus, painted like the church busses, may be placed in the vestibule and people urged to give generously to support the bus program. The bank can be easily constructed out of plywood.

Contributions may be taken up in classes to support the bus program (Albert Hill, op. cit., p. 81).

Hill apparently sees nothing wrong with contributions taken at other times than the Lord’s day or with treasuries for the Sunday school classes. Who oversees those treasuries? The elders? If so, why have a special treasury? Why not put it in the common fund? When brethren think up unscriptural ideas, they find it hard to use scriptural means of running them.

Additional Usages of the Buses

The buses are not only used for bringing people to services, they are also available for other programs as Albert Hill explains:

Use the busses to take young or old on picnics, skating parties, retreats, etc. It is good when groups can be together on the bus and learn to know and appreciate each other more (Albert Hill, op. cit., p. 86).

Many of us have seen “Church of Christ” painted on buses at a number of recreational spots. This involves the church in more church sponsored recreation.

Conclusion

Thus, my brethren, the bus ministry is much. more than merely providing transportation to the services for those who have no other way to attend the services. It was borrowed from denominationalism; it uses denominational tactics; it further leads the church into the social gospel; it has too great an interest on numbers for tfie sake of numbers; it attracts people through reward motivation rather than through the death, burial and resurrection of the sinless Son of God. The great results which those involved in the bus ministry are bragging about having are not nearly so permanent as they think. When the reward motivation ceases, the crowds will quit coming. They come because of the “loaves and the fishes.”

Truth Magazine XXII: 21, pp. 339-340
May 25, 1978

By Leslie Diestellcamp

Sooner or later, and sometimes repeatedly, tragedy must come to every family circle. The attitudes that prevail then-under the stress and the emotional impact of emergency conditions-may vary well determine the course of the future for many and even the eternal destiny of all who are concerned and involved.

Of course there are so many events that occur in our homes that seem, to us, to be real tragedies. But in these brief articles, I shall not try to even mention most such things. Suffice it to say, that if one is able to cope with any great crisis, he may be able to also respond properly to every such calamity. Therefore, for this study, let us consider four common tragedies that often occur:

Financial Ruin

Usually this is not a great problem for people who have always been very poor. The greater problem comes to people who have had plenty and then find themselves nearly destitute. For many otherwise good people who have lived in luxury, when poverty comes in at the door, love .flies out the window. The husband may become dejected, melancholy and even bitter. Blaming himself as a failure, he adds to the woes that are imposed by poverty by becoming sad, down-at-the-mouth, mad-at-the-world. Likewise the wife may become a neurotic recluse because she is so embarrassed and humiliated.

But financial troubles should not cause serious family problems. In fad, with proper attitudes, families may be drawn closer together as they struggle to overcome such disaster. Money is not evil, but “The love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6:10). And, love for money may manifest itself in greed, selfishness and materialistic pride.

One of the hardest lessons some Christians may have to learn in these affluent times is that “godliness with contentment is great gain” and that having food and clothing, we should be therewith content (1 Tim. 6:6, 8). The best admonition I can give to any of God’s people upon whom financial disaster has come is to read Mt. 6:19-34. Jesus directs that we lay up treasures in heaven, that we put out trust in God instead of material things, that we consider the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air (and God’s care for them), and that we “seek first the kingdom.”

Financial ruin will certainly cause inconvenience and it may indeed require great sacrifice. But it is not the greatest calamity that can befall a family and with scriptural attitudes that include faith in God, hope for heaven, love for companions and humility of heart, families can survive such material failures and press on in a joyful bond of togetherness and a happy devotion to the greater objectives of spiritual accomplishments in Christ. (Warning: Sometimes wealth, not poverty may be the greater disaster. I do not doubt that prosperity may have wrecked more homes than has poverty. We must be wary of Satan’s devices to use the lack of money or the abundance of it to destroy our family circles.)

Going Home From The Cemetery

Some will say that the trip home from the graveyard is the greatest tragedy of all, but as I shall point out in the next article in this series, I do not believe it. Yet death is a terrifying word and an empty chair in the family circle is cause for a natural arid a proper sorrow. To small children who lose a parent and to a husband or wife who lose a companion, there are no words that can dry every tear and no consolation that can soothe every ache in the heart. But we must not become morbid, sullen, bitter people. Most of all we must not blame God for our misfortune. God is not killing people today — he does not kill our children, our companions or our parents. He does allow the incidental circumstances of life to take their toll. He does not prevent death when those earthly conditions combine to bring the grim reaper to our door.

The Christian who is a parent and is left without a companion certainly has additional obligations, but not impossible ones. In this case it is not fair to the children to assume that failure is inevitable. A one-parent family can indeed overcome the natural obstacles and can be a truly great family, characterized with joy and righteousness. The death of a spouse will leave a void that will never be filled, entirely., But the surviving spouse can overcome despair by: (1) Looking back upon precious memories — they can be as ointment upon a wound. (2) Looking forward to opportunities to help others, to determined efforts to keep the faith and to keep anticipation of a home in heaven.

In such times of sadness, to look inward with self-pity brings despair, but to look outward with unselfish interest in others brings satisfaction and serenity. And remember, there are worse tragedies than death and we shall consider two of them in the next installment in this series.

Truth Magazine XXII: 21, p. 338
May 25, 1978

By Irvin Himmel

Reuel Lemmons submitted the following in an editorial in the Firm Foundation, Aug. 2, 1977:

“We have developed an ‘eldership.’ There were elders in the New Testament church but where do we find an ‘eldership’? . . .The average reader will be astonished to learn that you cannot find the term ‘eldership’ In the New Testament. Many elders do not even know that it is a non-biblical term . . .

Norman L. Parks, writing in the Ensign Fair, Dec., 1977, makes a similar assertion. Says Parks,

“There were elders in the assemblies of the Lord established by the Apostles but no ‘eldership’.”

Classifying the word “eldership” as an example of “Americanese,” not pure English, Parks thinks the term misrepresents Biblical truth. Here is how he states his feelings about the word “eldership”:

“It is true that one may find the term ‘eldership’ in such dictionaries as Websters which accept ‘Americanese’, but in such authoritative ‘pure’ dictionaries as the great unabridged Random House Dictionary of the English Language it just does not appear. It does not appear in the Bible. It misrepresents Biblical truth just as the word ‘fellowship’ does when used as a verb. We need to follow Campbell’s claim that we should call Bible things by Bible names . . . .”

To reason that a congregation may have elders but not an eldership is like reasoning that the church may have members but no membership!

Our English word “elder” is used to translate the Greek word presbuteros. Sometimes the Greek word is Anglicized (spelled with English letters and given an English ending) to make it “presbyter.” Some English translations of the New Testament speak of “elders” and others speak of “presbyters,” depending on the preference of words employed by the translators. For a parallel, some English versions use “baptism” (an Anglicized word) and others use “immersion.” As an illustration, in Acts 14:23 in the King James Version it is stated that Paul and Barnabas ordained “elders” in every church. Moffatt’s translation says they chose “presbyters.” Either rendition is correct.

In 1 Tim. 4:14 the King James Version uses the word “presbytery” for presbuterion. Timothy had received a certain gift “with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.” If “elder” is an appropriate English term to translate presbuteros, “eldership” is equally appropriate to translate presbuterion. Such translations as Anderson’s, the American Bible Union, the Geneva Bible, the Bishops’ Bible, and Young’s use the word “eldership.”

Parks says, “It is true that one may find the term ,eldership’ in such dictionaries as Websters which accept `Americanese’, ” but not in “pure” works like the “great unabridged Random House Dictionary.” He does not bother to tell his readers that before the first English settlement was made in America (Remember Jamestown and the year 1607?) there were English translations of the New Testament that used the word “eldership.” The Geneva Bible appeared in 1560 and the Bishops’ Bible in 1568. It is strange that both these versions which were in use before the King James Version appeared in 1611 used “eldership,” a word belonging not to “pure” English but to “Americanese.” Startling! How did this “Americanese” find its way into the vocabulary of English scholars before the first English settlement in America? Strange indeed!

According to Parks if we would but use the “pure” style of “the great unabridged Random House Dictionary” the word “eldership” would be gone. Lemmons finds the word equally out of place, but for some strange reason he blames the Random House people! In a Firm Foundation editorial of Nov. 15, 1977, he objects further to “eldership,” especially the “ship” part of the word, and offers this comment:

“Brethren have swallowed the Random House Dictionary definition hook, line and sinker. They are forgetting the Bible definition.”

Brethren, I need help in figuring this one out! How is it that the Random House Dictionary definition of “eldership” is the bad thing that brethren have swallowed hook, line and sinker, yet the “pure” Random House Dictionary does not use the word “eldership.” Parks uses Random House to sink the “ship in “eldership,” but Lemmons blames Random House for the “ship” idea’s floating around in our minds.

Leaving the Random House fight in the hands of Parks and Lemmons, I direct your attention to another matter. The word presbuterion used in 1 Tim. 4:14 means a “body of elders” (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon), “the elders or bishops in a local church” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary), “the college of elders” (Hendriksen), or “elderhood” (Berry’s Interlinear). The English word “eldership” expresses the idea well.

Parks says we need “to follow Campbell’s claim that we should call Bible things by Bible names.” I am not interested in following Campbell, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, or any other man except as he follows Christ. Calling Bible things by Bible names is included in the principle laid down in 1 Pet. 4:11, “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God,” and I am solidly for that principle. “Eldership” is but a synonym for “presbytery” (just as “immersion” is a synonym for “baptism”) and is in fact a Bible name for the “body of elders.”

Interestingly, when Campbell published a translation of the New Testament which he considered to be an improvement over the old King James Version, he used Macknight’s version of the epistles, and (with our sincere apologies to Random House) it has “eldership” in 1 Tim. 4:14! Obviously, Campbell did not think the word “eldership” was contrary to calling Bible things by Bible names. In the appendix to the Living Oracles translation, Campbell says presbuterion (commonly rendered “presbytery”) is “applied to the eldership of the Christian congregation” in 1 Tim. 4:14. Such scholars as Macknight and Campbell did not know that the term “eldership” is “Americanese,” and, fortunately, they had no occasion to either praise or condemn Random House!

The New Testament teaches that local churches should appoint elders when there are men who are qualified to serve. It is right to refer to these men collectively as the “presbytery” or “eldership.” Abuses in the eldership are no justification for attempting to leave elders stranded on the high seas with a sunken “ship.”

Truth Magazine XXII: 20, pp. 330-331
May 18, 1978

By Glenn Jones

For many years I had heard the term “state religion” used, but I never was confronted with it personally until I came to Germany. The state religions of Germany can be divided basically into two major affiliations, namely the Catholic and Protestant Churches. The employees of these institutions have the same status and benefits as do government employees, and the churches are supported by “church taxes” deducted from the earnings of their respective members. As a whole, one’s religious affiliation is determined at birth by his parents, who generally follow the family tradition. There are those who faithfully attend the services of these churches, but for the most part church life is reduced to a few major social events: christening as an infant, confirmation or first communion, marriage, and one’s funeral. For some people these occasions are the only times they ever enter the church building.

For over one hundred years Germany has been the home of very liberal theology which denies the divine inspiration of the Bible and presents God’s Word as a collection of legends. Such theology has resulted in various humanistic and political philosophies which see the improvement of man’s physical welfare as the basic goal of Christianity. Consequently, the state churches are heavily involved in the social gospel, including the support and operation of medical, educational, and charitable institutions throughout the world. This liberal theology coupled with the post-war prosperity in Germany and with the miserable historical record of the church and its clergy has caused many people to view the state religions as useless institutions. As a result, an ever increasing amount of Germans are officially withdrawing their membership from these churches and turning their backs on Christianity altogether.

These circumstances present a rather bleak picture for those of us interested in New Testament Christianity. However, recent experience has shown me that I ought not to give up too soon. Having known that most Germans reach conclusions about Christianity on the basis of virtually everything except the Bible, I was curious to see how they would react to a quick and simple reading of the life of Christ (Luke) and of the origin of the church (Acts). I designed a Luke-Acts reading program whereby one could read Luke in six sittings and Acts in seven. This program was not intended to be a detailed exegesis of these books, but rather a brief introduction to the Bible for those thousands of Germans whose knowledge of the Scriptures is very weak. I asked several of my German friends for their help in this reading experiment, and received enough positive responses to keep me booked up almost every night of the week. I believe the response was positive for several reasons. First, I came as one seeking to learn from them, and not as a preacher trying to push conversion upon anyone. Secondly, the fact that I came with the Bible, as opposed to my own study outlines, helped diminish the fear that I was trying to press some American sectarian system upon them. Thirdly, it was clear that every reader would be free to reach his own conclusions after investigating the text, although there would be a responsibility to defend his positions. Finally, some viewed this program as a challenge to make an intellectual judgment about the Bible, while others responded to it out of curiosity, desiring to see what is in the Bible.

From the standpoint of my own learning this program afforded me invaluable insights into human nature and into the problems of people in understanding the Bible. From the standpoint of teaching others, the Biblical text itself gave me opportunity to bring up numerous fundamental points of the faith, including Christian evidences, the authority of Jesus and the Scriptures, sin, judgment, salvation in the gospel, the cost and rewards of discipleship, and many other items. Although we are not yet certain of the outcome of this reading program, we are having more opportunities than ever before to plant the seed and are seeing people seriously considering their eternal destiny. If we had more workers, we could find even more willing to read the Bible with us. For this reason we want to make a special appeal for faithful workers to come to Germany. There is much to do, and the Lord needs you here!

Truth Magazine XXII: 20, p. 330
May 18, 1978