Truth Magazine

By Tom M. Roberts

One of the ongoing battles that confronts each generation of Bible students is that of determining items of faith, as distinguished from items of opinion. Some claim that there is no conceivable way of determining, decisively, which is which short of allowing a denominational heirarchy or papal decree to establish a canon of accepted creeds. Of course, this is the denominational way and the catechisms, manuals of faith and creed books are formal attempts to establish a distinct body of faith for each sect. Advocates of New Testament Christianity reject such organizational attempts to catalogue the Scriptures. However, relying on our individual consciences and/or congregational consensus to determine which part of the Bible we will allow to fall into an area of faith and which will be regarded as opinion (judgments) results in much contradiction and confusion.

Those with a rebel mind relish this situation and capitalize on it by saying that there is no way that anyone can determine such a difference and seek to relegate all matters into the realm of opinion. Inconsistency, however, contradicts their attempt at a universal liberty of the conscience when they demand that the deity of Jesus is the one matter of faith that is absolutely essential. Never mind that this lone bastion carries with it no more warranty that it is a matter of faith than another subject. Never mind that no criteria have been established upon which we may, uniformly, distinguish faith from opinion. We are told that the deity of Jesus is the only matter of faith which would limit fellowship; everything else is opinion. On the one hand, the faith is demoted to the plane of human opinion, resulting in abandonment of sound doctrine; on the opposite extreme, every opinion is elevated to the plane of the faith and churches are fragmented, having no basis for unity.

Are we thus bound to such a chaotic condition in determining matters of faith/opinion? Are there no guidelines to follow, no rules to help us? Are individual consciences or congregational consensus the only factors, short of manuals of faith, which provide assistance in this vital subject? Some propose that we should “preach the man and not the plan,” but we are right back to the extreme “deity of Jesus only” proposal and still have not learned anything about why we let this single item be a matter of faith and everything else be matter of opinion. Is the matter hopeless and must we be condemned to a spiritual life of chaos because God has not provided an answer to this dilemma? Or is it possible that the Bible itself provides the answer if we will allow it to address the question? Can we tell the distinction between faith and opinion? Let the Bible speak.

Definition of “Faith”

Vine says that “faith” is “firm persuasion, a conviction based upon hearing” and “by metonymy, (that) which is believed, the contents of belief, the faith” (p. 71). He lists Acts 6:7; 14:22; Galatians 1:23 and Jude 3 (among other passages) to illustrate the fact. Thayer adds that it is “objectively, the substance of Christian faith or what is believed by Christians” (p. 513). Since we are “to contend for the faith once for all delivered” (Jude 3), be “obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7), and can “continue in the faith” (14-22), it follows that the faith can be identified, understood, separated from extraneous matters, taught, contended for and followed. The faith is a body of truth given to us by God that identifies the content of our belief. Such belief is not subjective, open to individual approval of conscience, vote by committee or authoritative only by papal bull. The faith is objective truth, to be received as and when we accept the author of the faith, God himself. Personal faith and the faith are so closely identified that one word encompasses both and the distinction is maintained only by context. We can no more relegate a portion of “the faith” to opinion than we can relegate the existence of God to opinion. God exists whether we believe in him or not. The faith exists whether we acknowledge it or not. The parameters of the faith are not diminished because some of its tenets do not coincide with my notions.

In Acts 15, the question of fellowship with Gentiles caused much “questioning” (vv. 2,7). The Holy Spirit, along with the elders at Jerusalem and the apostles “considered” (v. 6) the matter. God’s will was declared (vv. 7-21) and the ensuing decision, reached by “accord” (v. 25), was circulated to all the churches as “these necessary things” (v. 28). Now, would “these necessary things” be equated with matters of I ‘the faith’ I or of “opinion”? When Paul rebuked Peter over this same issue (Gal. 2:11) and said that he I ‘stood condemned,” was it over the faith or opinion? When he warned against perverting the gospel of Christ into a “different gospel; which is not another gospel,” (vv. 6,7), was he respecting what had been declared in Acts 15 to be God’s will or was he binding his own opinion on his brethren? Obviously, “the faith” concerns “necessary” things which have been so designated by God and the result of accepting the will of God is accord, rejoicing and peace (vv. 25,31,33).

Definition of “Opinion”

While we have been using the word “opinion” as the common term describing that which is different to “the faith,” it is readily acknowledged that “opinion” is not a New Testament term. One of its equivalents would be found in Romans 14:1: “scruples” (ASV) or “doubtful disputations” (KJV). Here, Vine states that the word denotes “a seeking, then, a debate, dispute, questioning” (p. 322), and gives Acts 15:2 as an example of an unsettled questioned (though it was about to be settled). In Romans 14:1, it obviously refers to a matter of no consequence to God (though it may be a matter of consequence to men who differ regarding it). We should emphasize, perhaps, that our zeal concerning a “scruple” does not make it a matter of faith. In this passage, “judging” is prohibited by men and deferred to God since we should not “set at nought thy brother” (v. 10) over matters of indifference to God. One can quickly see that there is a vast difference between a matter of “the faith” and a matter of “indifference.” This is further illustrated in 1 Timothy 1:4 where Paul exhorted Timothy to avoid subjects that “minister questionings, rather than a dispensation of God which is in faith,” a clear distinction between faith and opinion. The same word is used in 2 Timothy 2:23 where the same young preacher is to refuse “foolish and ignorant questions, knowing that they gender strifes.” To Titus, he admonished: “shunning foolish questionings, and genealogies, and strifes, and fightings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain” (3:9).

The Problem Addressed

We have constant and recurring problems distinguishing between matters of faith and opinion. Yet, as can be readily seen, there is a vital and observable difference. Matters of faith have to do with revelation, the will of God, the expression of truth, necessary things. This truth is knowable, identifiable, and complete as a body or unified whole. It is uniform in every age (since its revelation), applicable to every society and circumstance and able to be obeyed by every accountable creature. God will hold us responsible for our treatment of it (Gal. 1:6-9; Jude 3; Eph. 5:17; 3:4; etc.). But with opinion, we enter the realm of human judgment, faulty reasoning, biased conclusions and traditions “handed down from the fathers.” As the Jews came to hold their traditions on a par with God’s revelation, men today are jealous of their opinions and insist on their practice as though they are matters of faith. Are we thus to be torn constantly between these poles, unable to “understand the will of the Lord”? I know that one church cannot speak for another church or for all churches. Nor may one person speak for another or for all others. But can we not agree on the fact that the difference between faith and opinion is discernible? Can we not study to learn if there are principles in the Scriptures themselves which help us identify matters of faith that affect and limit fellowship? If this is possible, and I for one believe that it is, we will not be so quick to bind matters of opinion or to loose matters of faith, confusing ourselves and those whom we would teach.

Matter of Faith

Matter of Faith	Matter of Opinion
Baptism: Matt. 28:18-20; Mk. 16:16; Acts 2:38; 1 Pet. 3:21; et al. Immersion in water for remission of sins. Violation of the faith to promise salvation on other terms.	Use a baptistry or not; wear shower cap or not; only preacher baptize; use “baptismal formula” when baptizing.
Preaching: Matt. 28:18-20; Rom. 1:16; Gal. 1:6-9. Violation of the faith to use anything other than the gospel to bring to Christ.	Travel by boat, plane or ship; use TV, radio, or press; use gospel meetings, VBS, etc.
Lord’s Supper: Matt. 26:17-30; Acts 2:42; Acts 20:7 (cf. Exod. 20:8); 1 Cor. 11:23-28. On first day of week in assembly of saints with unleavened bread and fruit of vine.	Number of containers on table; time of supper in worship; time of day.
Work of the Church: Preaching (1 Tim. 3:15); Benevolence (1 Cor. 16:1-2; 2 Cor. 8, 9; Acts 11:27-30); Edification (Eph. 4:11-16); etc. Violations of the faith include instititionalism, centralized control, and social gospelism.	Amount of aid to be given to needy; give goods, service, or money; how long to continue aid; number of classes; who teaches the class; age divisions; what kind of literature.
Singing: Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16; Heb. 2:12, etc. Vocal music is plainly a part of the faith but instruments are another kind.	Whether to use a tuning fork or pitch pipe; kind of book; who is to lead; how many songs.

Conclusion

Many of the items listed above as opinions are not of the sort that have divided churches, although some of them are. These are listed as illustrative of the differences many fail to make. Many of the things currently being labeled as opinion are clear violations of the faith (cf: institutionalism). Their introduction as opinion creates a problem to those who see them as violations of the faith. And herein lies the problem. Without a doubt, determining the difference between faith and opinion will continue to be a challenging task and one that is fraught with many dangers for fellowship among disciples. But, at least, let us approach this study with an attitude that accepts the proposition that God has made a distinction between the two and that it is discernible. The alternative (that faith and opinion are essentially the same) is ludicrous and elevates the ideas of men to the level of divine wisdom. It is axiomatic that those who hold the faith in common will walk in the same direction while those who elevate opinion will splinter and divide. Let us determine to “contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered unto the saints.”

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 5, pp. 140-141
March 1, 1990

By Charlie Reese

There is a greater danger that the United States is becoming more like the Soviet Union than there is a possibility that the Soviet Union will become more like the United States.

The latter will not happen. Why it won’t and can’t happen I’ll leave for another column.

But how are we becoming more like the Soviet Union? Well, a woman in Madison, Wis., who declined to accept a lesbian as a roommate, was hauled before the city board, which declares such a private decision a public violation of ordinances forbidding discrimination. As part of her punishment, the lady was required to attend re-education classes conducted by a lesbian organization.

This incident is as significant as it is bizarre. The American tradition, the essence if you will of our free society, is that the government concerns itself with protecting rights by punishing behavior that harms people. Here, however, the government is concerned not merely with behavior but with thinking. The woman must not only cease her behavior, declining to have a lesbian as a roommate, but she must change her thinking about lesbians.

This, of course, is the essence of the communist society and the difference between a common, ordinary dictator and a communist dictator. The ordinary dictator doesn’t care what you think, only what you do if it threatens him. The communist, however, considers what you think a threat and does everything he can, from propagandizing to killing, to control your mind. This tendency to view thoughts as crimes is growing in the U.S., and the danger is not from fundamentalist Christians but from hip liberals in the elite institutions. It is they who increasingly are beginning to view thoughts as unacceptable. They increasingly show a desire to punish people for being what they define as sexist or racist or homophobic even in the absence of any actions that injure anyone.

The poor baseball executive, neither a philosopher nor a professional debater, who expressed his opinion that perhaps blacks did not have the stuff to be executives lost his job, even though no one ever accused the man of doing anyone any wrong. His “crime” was an opinion that differed from the orthodoxy established by the elite.

The American tradition has always been that your thoughts and expressions of those thoughts should be guided only by your conscience and your reason. With four exceptions – libel, slander, incitement to riot, and obscenity — thought and speech are declared off limits to government by our Constitution. There is no requirement in the Bill of Rights that speech or thought be correct or fashionable in order to qualify for protection.

So this is one way we are beginning to resemble the Soviet Union – by viewing any thinking we don’t agree with as dangerous and punishable.

The other foundation of our free society is private property. This too, is becoming less and less a value among the American intelligentsia. Increasingly people are willing to restrict the use or even effectively confiscate private property in the name of so-called greater public needs.

The most obvious example is the restriction of advertising billboards because someone in government thinks they are aesthetically offensive. They may be, but a bedrock of America was that private property rights are a higher value than aesthetics.

The key control mechanism in the Soviet Union is the absence of property rights. With no private ownership of anything, people can never be independent.

We had better be much more concerned about the evolution of our country and the thinking of its elites than we are about the Soviet Union. We can’t control or influence the Soviet Union. We can save ourselves – from ourselves – if we rediscover our American values.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 5, p. 136
March 1, 1990

By Lewis Willis

I suppose you have heard about it by now. Almost every news broadcast of any length at all reported the news. In man’s quest for good health, many heard the best news possible to hear. A medical research panel concluded that those who drink two beers a day are healthier than those who do not drink.

The Chief Executive Officers of every brewery in the country leaped for joy. I suspect they commissioned a delivery to be made to every member of the medical panel who issued the report. Visions of escalating sales raced through their minds. No doubt they wondered how many new breweries would have to be built to accommodate the demands for their products which the population would make. It would probably be hard to imagine the number of congratulatory telephone calls, telegrams and letters which were sent to the Canadian brewery which authorized and financed the panel’s research.

Imagine that! If you drink two beers a day you are healthier than if you drank none at all. I wonder what would happen if you drank four beers a day. Would you be twice as healthy? I am not a researcher, and certainly not a medical researcher, but one of my first questions was how healthy was t e “two beers a day” group before they started drinking? What was the general health condition of those who did not drink? Is it possible that those who thought themselves so much healthier had lost their capacity to evaluate their general condition. I’ve seen a lot of fellows lying in the gutter who were “feeling no pain.” Or, is it possible that the findings of the panel might have been slanted in the direction of the interests of the brewery who paid for the research? Something must have been “fishy” about the research for many medical authorities questioned the validity of the panel’s findings.

It is significant that the conclusion drawn involved the consumption of two beers a day. Almost every state in the Union has legislated that if a person’s blood alcohol content is 10, he is considered to be legally drunk. By Ohio law that means a mandatory three day jail sentence for those who are caught, that is, if the judges have enough guts to enforce the laws. Of course, the jails would be so overflowing that those convicted would have to be housed like cord wood And the guys on the bottom of the stack would commission the American Civil Liberties Union to file suit over their treatment while in the drunk tank.

To reach this blood alcohol content of 10 at which one is legally drunk, a 150-pound person would only have to consume two 12-ounce beers in one hour. Therefore, if this person were to follow the medical panel’s advice of drinking two beers a day and drank his two beers in one hour, if he were stopped by a State Trooper, he could be charged with DWI and sentenced to jail. I wonder how healthy it is to spend three days in jail with a bunch of other drunks?

Can you imagine the mess on our highways if every driver followed the panel’s advice? The state tells us that their research has shown one’s vision, thinking capacity and ability to react to possible danger is noticeably impaired when the blood alcohol content is 10. These folks think they are healthier, but in reality they are legally drunk! Which brings me to my point.

When we have 200 million drunks on the road, you might like to join me when I go shopping for my next car. I’m going to shop at an Army Surplus lot – I want to buy me a Sherman tank! With seat belts, of course. Can you get a tank with radial tires? If all of us teetotalers were driving tanks, the drunks would watch out for us instead of us having to watch out for the drunks. That sounds like a pleasant thought to me. And, considering the number of innocent people killed on our highways in alcohol related accidents, driving a tank would be more healthy. Perhaps we should get an Army Surplus organization to convene a panel to research the effect on the national health if we all drove tanks.

A lot of parties are conducted throughout the country. More and more we hear of those who claim to be Christians participating with the crowd in consuming alcoholic beverages. In all seriousness, brethren, you can get drunk before you know it. Of course, you will just think you are feeling good, but the State says you are drunk! If you get in your car and start driving in that condition, you may injure yourself in an accident. Or, you may injure or kill some innocent person. Or, you may have to spend some time in jail, with all the embarrassment that entails. But, most important of all, you will have sinned against Almighty God! Galatians 5:21 says that “they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” When you decide you can engage in this kind of worldliness when the evidence of the Scriptures and medical facts are arrayed against you, you are deceiving no one but yourself with your social drinking. For each of these little episodes, the social drinker “shall give account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:12). I was just thinkin’, we need our best abilities, unimpaired by alcohol in our system, to safely get around in a world filled with social drinkers and other drunks! Let none of us be deceived by such nonsense as that which says we are healthier if we get a little drunk each day.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 5, p. 135
March 1, 1990

By Mike Hughes

Every year after December has come and gone the season most of us dread rears its weary head. The dreaded Tax Season. We as preachers are in a unique situation when it comes to filing of our taxes. There are some tax advantages that will help us with the tax bite if we know enough about them to take full advantage of what the tax law allows. I would like to look at some of these situations that might be of help to you in reducing or eliminating your taxes altogether!

Generally there are two ways that preachers approach their taxes. One way is to be considered as an employee. With this method any expenses you incur would be considered as employee business expenses.

The other method and I believe the most advantageous is to consider yourself a business. The main reason to consider yourself as a business can be seen very quickly if you examine a copy of IRS Schedule C. Any of your expenses you can get on a Schedule C comes directly off of your Adjusted Gross income amount, the amount that your tax is based on prior to taking your Standard or Itemized deduction and your dependence deduction. Let me show you what I mean.

First of all it is very advantageous to have a work agreement with the congregation with which you work. What this agreement does is specify how the salary that the church pays you is broken down for tax deduction purposes. Let me explain what I mean.

We all know that we are allowed to have a “parsonage allowance. ” But do you know what is allowed to be taken on a parsonage allowance? Most preachers know that a parsonage allowance consists of things like Rent or House payments, Utilities. But did you know that furniture costs, the cable TV bill, cleaning supplies for the house, items for lawn care can also be taken as parsonage allowance? On a work agreement you can also declare your auto expenses, insurance and business expenses. The way you do this is to write a form letter declaring the various amounts are allocated for each; then the remainder of your salary is what you base your taxes on. Doing this you keep a copy and the church treasurer files a copy. Every quarter you file a quarterly report giving the amounts you spend on each item. I would be happy to send you a copy of these agreements for a SAE.

If you don’t have a work agreement set up, don’t despair you can still save money on last year’s taxes using Schedule C. If you enter your Gross Salary on line la called Gross receipts or sales. Then drop down to the Part II section called Deductions and figure up the amounts of any of the items you might have that would come under any of these categories. For example the subscription price you pay for this magazine would be one item that would go under line 13 dues and publications.

There are other advantages we have not written about that would help reduce the tax bite. Others I can think of are filing for exemption to Social Security. Taking depreciation on or writing off the full price of the new computer you might have purchased last year.

One final caution. Not a Tax Preparers are fully knowledgeable of preacher’s tax returns. I have heard a lot of stories where a preacher didn’t get to take all the deductions he was allowed to take. because of lack of knowledge about them.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 4, p. 114
February 15, 1990