Appendix 1 gives links to resources which explain why church incorporation, federal tax exempt status, and other statutory or legal status of churches betray the love relationship between Christ and His churches.
Jerald Finney
January 17, 2023
Acting without knowledge, understanding and wisdom is not prudent for the believer who loves, or says he or she loves, the Lord. A believer and a church cannot love and glorify God by just following what someone else says. Sadly, most churches and believers act on the matter of church organization without thinking and as instructed by unthinking pastors, Bible Colleges, Seminaries, “Christian” media, and/or “Christian” lawyers and law firms. They act on misinformation without checking it out against the Word of God. Before organizing a church, they should fully answer and understand answers to questions like:
- Does God desire union of church and state or separation of church and state?
- What is church incorporation and federal tax exemption?
- Do church incorporation and federal tax exemption establish unholy alliances with another lover?
- Do church incorporation and federal tax exemption violate Bible principle and displease our Lord?
- What is the Bible Trust relationship with property?
- Is the Bible Trust relationship with property Biblical?
- And the list goes on. For a thorough look at answers to all the above and many more relevant questions, see the resources linked to in Appendix 1.
Local church use of the Bible Trust for holding and managing properties given to God for use according to His will comports with New Testament Church Doctrine. The heavens, the earth and all that are in them belong to God.[1] God entrusts man with all His earthly property, and he entrusts His children with all things spiritual. An individual, a family, a nation, and a church are to hold and manage God’s property for his glory. A church should do a thorough Holy Spirit led study of the Word of God concerning God’s principles for church organization, and the Bible Trust Concept and its application.
This Section will explain God’s Bible Trust Doctrine. The Bible Trust does not organize a church as a trust. it is nothing more than a fiduciary relationship with property which is recognized, but not created, by man’s law Although it is not a product of man’s law, a court will entertain a petition by an interested party involving trust affairs or misuse. If jurisdiction of such a matter is accepted by the court, the court will look to the common law and/or statutory law for guidelines in deciding the issues raised.
Chater 6. The Bible Trust Relationship with Property is Not Something New: It was God’s plan starting with Adam and Eve covers the concept of God’s Bible Trust and its application by New Testament churches. For example, no church in the New Testament owned property. Why? Because those churches were eternal spiritual organisms made up of children of God indwelt by the Holy Spirit, not temporal worldly organizations.[2] Never were they told to put Caesar above God as to heavenly matters, those things having to do with their relationship with God. As to those matters, they were to “obey God rather than men.”[3] Of course, they were also worldly citizens of their nation, but their duty to the nation was temporal. They were instructed to be ideal earthly citizens who also, as members of local churches, were to go out of their churches into all the world and perform a spiritual heavenly mission, the preaching of the gospel.[4]
Oh, that we believers could have the attitude, actions, and goal of the Apostle Paul expressed in Philippians 3:7-14:
“7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. 8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; 11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. 12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Footnotes
[1] See, e.g., 1 Chronicles 29:11; Psalm 24:1; 89:11-12; Jeremiah 32:17-24; 2 Corinthians 5:18-20; Colossians 1:16;
[2] See, e.g., Ephesians 4, and 1 Corinthians 12.
[3] Acts, 5:29. See, Render Unto God the Things that Are His: A Systematic Study of Romans 13 and Related Verses (https://jeraldfinney.com/god-betrayed/books/render-unto-god-the-things-that-are-his-a-systematic-study-of-romans-13-and-related-verses/).
[4] Romans 12:17-21, Romans 13:8-10, 1Peter 4:12-19 (the actions of the believer toward those who temporally persecute them for being Christians); Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47-48; Acts 1:8.
Simply Church: God's Prescribed Relationship Between Church and State 