Jerald Finney Churches under Christ Ministry

Contents:

Introduction

1. Analysis of False Reasons Given
   A. Romans 13, 1 Peter 2:13, and other verses require believers and churches to “obey every ordinance of man.
   B. A church must incorporate or become some other kind of legal entity in order to hold property.
   C. They want to be “practical.”
   D.  Answer  to  a Bible  College  Vice-President’s  Article  on  Church  Incorporation:  “To  Incorporate  or  Not  To  Incorporate?”
   E. Links to an analysis of a variety of other false reasons (limited liability, etc.).
2. Links to resources which analyze and reveal the truth about other false reasons given by Pastors, some “Christian” lawyers and others for church legal entity status.

Introduction

This page links to resources which analyze false reasons for betraying our Lord in church organization, goal, doctrine, and practice. They embrace and preach a social gospel, not a Bible gospel. They treat churches as businesses, according to the traditions of men as opposed to the principles of God.

Except for God’s remnant, pastors, so-called Christian attorneys, Bible College, divinity school, and seminary presidents and “professors” give a lot of excuses for violating New Testament church doctrine and example. They believe that a church in America must follow man made tradition and doctrine; that they must do things differently than did New Testament churches. They give a lot of reasons for their betrayal of our Lord:

These people claim that the modern church cannot operate Like New Testament Churches did, that churches must, for example:

A. be able to own property;
B. be able to enter into contracts, as opposed to honoring God’s relevant Bible covenants and commandments;
C. be able to go into debt;
D.  organize so that the church can sue, be sued, and act legally;;
E. provide a way for members to sue—in a civil court where Bible arguments will not be heard— each other, the pastor, the church, the state, etc.;
F. limit liability of members to those who might be injured on property belonging to the church;
G. guarantee a tax deduction to those members who give to the church corporation;
H. pay the pastor a salary (make a hireling of him); I. operate like a business, using business, not Bible, methods.

Their methods include:

A. finding out what the people in the community want (community surveys) and giving it to them in return for the people filling the corporate coffers (which they describe as building the kingdom);
B. providing worldly entertainment such as “Christian” rock music and concerts (which they call “worship) in a nightclub atmosphere; sports (basketball, softball, etc.) facilities and competitions;
C. orming elderly, youth, sports (basketball, softball, etc.) other groups each of which can be provided with entertainment and activities which appeal to the group;
D. teach and practice “philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of man, after the rudiments of the world” (they entice by advertising: “experience God, find community, fulfill your purpose”).

They claim that they must obey  every ordinance of man since Romans 13 and other Scriptures require them to do so (even though the highest man made laws in America,  First Amendment to the United States Constitution and corresponding state constitutional provisions, protect religious freedom and churches who wish to do things God’s way.)

 1. Analysis of False Reasons Given

A. Romans 13, 1 Peter 2:13, and other verses require the believer and the church to “obey every ordinance of man.”

The primary false reason for corporate 501c3 status or related types of organization, given by many pastors and believers, is that Romans 13 (or some other verses such as 1 Peter 2.13) requires them to do so. They will say, for example, “We believe in obeying civil government as required by Romans 13.” First, no law in America requires a church to organize as an established entity, an entity under man’s law. In fact, the religion clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the highest law of the land, mandates that churches can organize any way they wish, even as spiritual entities under Christ and Christ alone according to New Testament Church doctrine.

To understand the history and meaning of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, see The History of the First Amendment, Course on the History of the First Amendment; An Abridged History of the First Amendment.

The Romans 13 and related arguments – such as “We should obey civil government,” and “We do not want to fight civil government.” Paul, Peter, and all the apostles except John, who was exiled on the isle of Patmos were martyred because they would not bow down to civil government when the highest power, God, required them to act contrary to the rules of civil government. What about Elijah, Moses, Daniel, Shadrach Meshach, and Abednego? See the following for thorough analysies of these false arguments:

• Render Unto God the Things that Are His: A Systematic Study of Romans 13 and Related Verses (Online version, downloadable PDF, Kindle)
• Does God and/or Civil Government Require Churches to Get 501(c)(3) Status?(March 2010 essay)
• First Amendment Protection of New Testament Churches/Federal Laws Protecting State Churches (Religious Organizations)(February 2010 essay) 
• Is Separation Of Church And State Found In The Constitution?(February 2014 essay)
• The Romans 13 Authority Issue (Links to various resources)

B. A church must incorporate or become some other kind of legal entity in order to hold property.

• Another Lame Excuse for Contracting with Civil Government for Church Corporate Status: Church Property Ownership (Short essay)
• Spurious rationale for church incorporation: to hold property (Longer analysis)

C. They want to be “practical.”

Many believers – in deciding church organization and doctrine – ask, “Is it pragmatic [or practical.”  The question should be, “Is it biblical,” not “Is it practical” or “Is it pragmatic.”  Click here to go to a sermon by Evangelist Randy Keener gives an excellent analysis of “pragmatism” versus “biblical doctrine.”  Violation of the New Testament Church Doctrine sooner or later brings negative consequences for the cause of Christ. This is especially true when churches violate the principle that Christ should be the only authority over His churches and that things should be done God’s way. Look at the history and state of “churches” and “Christianity” in America, except for a small remnant, for proof. The Church as the Glory of Christ, another sermon by Evangelist Randy Keener, is also very instructive.

D. Click here to go to  ANSWER TO A BIBLE COLLEGE VICE-PRESIDENT’S ARTICLE ON CHURCH INCORPORATION: “TO INCORPORATE OR NOT TO INCORPORATE?”

E. A variety of other false reasons

are examined in Separation of Church and State/God’s Churches: Spiritual or Legal Entities? The reasons examined in that book are:

• Spurious rationale for church incorporation: limited liability/incorporation increases liability of church members
• Spurious rationale for church incorporation: to hold property
• Spurious rationale for church corporate-501(c)(3) or 508(c)(1)(A) status: tax exemption and tax deductions for contributions OR Tax reasons given for church corporate 501(c)(3) or 508(c)(1)(A) status: a biblical and legal analysis
• Spurious rationale for church corporate-501(c)(3) status: one’s convictions
• Spurious rationale for church corporate-501(c)(3) status: winning souls is more important than loving God/The Most Important Thing: Loving God and/or Winning Souls?

2. Resources which reveal the truth about false reasons given by “Christian” lawyers for church legal entity status:

1. More lies of “Christian” law firms and lawyers concerning church organization and the common law trust as a means of establishing a church under Christ alone outside civil government law (021120). Some “Christian” lawyers and law firms are eager to explain to inquiring pastors why a church common law trust is not Bible way of organizing a church under Christ alone and the necessity of church legal status (church organization as a non-profit corporation, charitable trust status, business trust status, Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) or 508(c)(1)(A) status, etc.).  This paper clearly proves to the open minded believer who will study it out that those firms and lawyers do not have any understanding on these matters.
2. Click here to go to the answer to a question regarding a lawyer’s false statements concerning church corporate 501(c)(3) status on September 22, 2018 
3. My reply to pastor teaching on Matthew 16.18 and Ephesians 1.22 thereafter questioned by accountant about church non-taxable status and the First Amendment (011419)
4. Legal answer to Pastor’s inquiry concerning whether a potential donor of substantial gift can claim a tax deduction under IRC Section 508 even though the church will not give an IRS acknowledgement
5. Believe it or not, another false reason by some unlearned believers for church establishment (corporate, 501(c)(3) or 508(c)(1)(A) tax exempt status, charitable trust status, or any church status created, defined, and controlled by man’s law) is: “The Bible does not say that a church should not incorporate, get tax exempt status, or organize under man’s law.” Another pastor stated the same argument in a different way this way: “We are Bible believers. If the Bible says do not do something, we do not do it.” The following short essay addresses that frivolous argument: According to the Bible, God Grieves when a Church Chooses to Organize Under Any Law of Man (Non-Profit Corporation Law, Federal Tax Exempt Law, Charitable Trust Law, Etc.).
6. A Biblical and Legal Analysis of the Helping Hand Outreach Publication, “WHY ALL CHURCHES SHOULD BE A 508(c)(1)(a).”
7. The False and Misleading Teachings and Advertisements of StartChurch, Another Spiritual and Legal Deceiver (091212)
8. More StartChurch deception: Every church member can be sued if the church is an unincorporated association. Therefore, every church should incorporate. Wrong. (091322)
9. Questions and Answers on Various Topics (Starting 070118)
10. Answers to Letters and Questions from Pastors and Others (Before 070118)

Jerald Finney
Copyright © March 6, 2015

1 John 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

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Wondrous Love

Welcome to the website that shows churches who love the Lord how to organize so as to keep themselves completely out from under civil government control. The one theme of this website will be how to organize churches under Christ, churches of Christ. Unrepentant churches who have heads other than the Lord Jesus Christ are not His churches. See Matthew 16.18; Ephesians 1.22; Colossians 1.18.

This website is the result of the desire to Glorify God by teaching a church how she can show her love for her creator by honoring Bible precept concerning church organization. A church who loves the Lord will want to do so (see below). Love cannot be pure absent trust. Believers and churches should trust God. God also has trusted us with all that He has given us, both spiritual and material.

This website contains a wealth of information. It not only provides resources which are free (some books can also be ordered, if desired), but which also cover both the principles and the application of those principles by a New Testament church. Pages and articles cover, for example, the doctrines of church, state, and separation of church and state,; church incorporation and 501(c)(3) status; the history of religious freedom in America, church betrayal of God through incorporation, 501c3 and 508 status, etc.

The Love Relationship between Christ and His Churches

See The Love between Christ and His Churches as Depicted in Song of Solomon for an understanding of how deeply Christ values that relationship.

This website is the product of a love story; a love story between Christ and his local churches and between Christ and the universal church which will be established at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

I, Jerald Finney, was a hopeless lost sinner until Christ saved me from my sin. When he did that, he freed me from the condemnation of sin and the fate of eternal death in the lake of fire. He made a new creature of me. I was so thankful for what he did, I said to him in my heart,

“Even now should I die and go to hell, I would be getting exactly what I deserve. But thank you Lord that because you paid the price for my sin, I have been spared the fate which I deserve. Because of that, I will serve you forever. I will love you forever, dear Lord.”

Of course, I still commit sins, but not nearly as many; and I do not wallow in sin because the Holy Spirit which lives within me convicts me of sin. When I sin, I confess, get back up, and go forward for Christ. You see, I am a new creature in Christ Jesus.  “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,  Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;  Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” (Titus 2:11-14).

I want the church I am a member of to strive to be espoused to one Husband, to strive to present herself as a chaste virgin to Christ. “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty,” that our minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

The Bible teaches that no matter what one says, one does not love the Lord if he does not value and preserve the purity of the relationship between Christ and his church.

After all, the church is called the bride and wife of the Lamb. “Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled” (John 3:28-29; see also, 1 Corinthians 11.1-4 which speaks of the church as a virgin espoused to one husband and Ephesians 5.23-33 where Paul, under inspiration of God, likens the relationship of Christ and His Church to that of Husband and wife.).

Loving God is preeminent for a believer and for a church. One does not love God by just asserting that he loves God. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14.15). The greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matthew 22.37; Mark 12.30; Luke 10.27).

Love is action. This love between Christ and his church is seen in the Song of Solomon:

• The Song of Solomon, “[p]rimarily, is the expression of pure marital love as ordained of God in creation, and the vindication of that love as against both asceticism and lust—the two profanations of the holiness of marriage. The secondary and larger interpretation is of Christ, the Son and His heavenly bride, the Church” (2 Cor. 11.1-4, ).
• “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly contemned” (Song of Solomon 8.7). “Contemned” means “despised, scorned, slighted, neglected, or rejected with disdain.”[i] God despises, scorns, slights, neglects, or rejects with disdain all that a church does, whatever professions of love she makes, if those acts and/or professions are without love. A church who does not honor Christ as a wife is to honor her husband, her bridegroom, by remaining pure and chaste, does not display love for the Lord. Thus, loving ones neighbor by witnessing to him, sending missionaries to him, helping him materially or any other way in obedience to the second commandment—“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”—is vanity in God’s eyes if one ignores the greatest commandment.

This fact is also articulated in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus is jealous over his church.  If we do not love the Lord Jesus, he despises all the “Christian” work we do and the money we put in the offering plate:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (I Corinthians 13.1-3).

“In a theological sense, [‘charity’] “includes supreme love to God and a universal good will to men. 1 Cor. xiii. Col. iii. 1 Tim. i.”[ii]  Love is an act of the will. A church refutes its proclamations of love for the Lord when it wholly or partially takes the church from under the headship of her husband, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Love “[r]ejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (I Corinthians 13.6). Iniquity means “Injustice, unrighteousness, … [w]ant of rectitude [rightness in principle or practice], … a sin or crime; wickedness….”[iii] Bible truth makes clear that the love of Christ for his church is immense, that he wants to be the only head and companion of the church who is likened to his wife and bride, and that for a church to even partially put herself under or associate with another entity is a great wickedness and repudiates all professions of love for the Lord. As is shown in Separaton of Church and State/God’s Churches: Spiritual or Legal Entities?, the church who incorporates and secures a 501(c)(3) tax exemption puts herself partially under another head, commits a wicked sinful act in violation of biblical principle, and rejoices in iniquity.

The Lord Jesus gave a warning to the church at Ephesus:

“I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent” (Revelation 2.2-5).

As Dr. J. Vernon McGee teaches us, this warning was for every church who has lost her love for the Lord Jesus:

“It was a warning of danger of getting away from a personal and loving relationship with Jesus Christ. The real test of any believer, especially those who are attempting to serve Him, is not your little method or mode or system, or your dedication, or any of the things that are so often emphasized today. The one question is: Do you love Him? Do you love the Lord Jesus? When you love Him, you will be in a right relationship with Him, but when you begin to depart from the person of Christ, it will finally lead to lukewarmness. The apostate church was guilty of lukewarmness. It may not seem to be too bad, but it is the worst condition that anyone can be in. A great preacher in upper New York state said: ‘Twenty lukewarm Christians hurt the cause of Christ more than one blatant atheist.’ A lukewarm church is a disgrace to Christ.”[iv]

As the Lord Jesus Christ is jealous over his churches, so should pastors and church members be jealous, with a godly jealousy, over the church they belong to, just as Paul was: 2 Corinthians 11:2-3: “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2-3).

“For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.  For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him” (II Corinthians 11.2-4; Luke 18.8; II Timothy 3.1-8).

The church who really loves her husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, will seek to maintain her purity, to be subject to her husband in all things. All the professions of love, all the good deeds, the hymns sung, and the messages preached by a church who does not totally submit herself in all things to her husband, are contemned by the Lord.

A church who takes a 501(c)(3) tax exemption, an incorporation, a license, or any type permit from the state, or puts herself under the state in any way, becomes an earthly legal entity subject to the jurisdiction of an earthly power, the civil government. Such a “church” is in fact a two headed monster. Such a “church,” in spite of any professions of love for the Lord, according to her acts shows that she does not love the Lord Jesus Christ. Should you question this, study the Bible principles of government, church, and separation of church and state. Then study the law to see exactly how incorporation (includes corporation sole) or any kind of legal status and Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) status for a church violate God’s principles.  In depth studies of these matters are included on this website.

Endnotes

[i] AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, NOAH WEBSTER (1828), definition of “CONTEMNED.”

[ii] AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, NOAH WEBSTER (1828), definition of “CHARITY.”

[iii] AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, NOAH WEBSTER (1828), definitions of “INIQUITY” and “RECTITUDE.”

[iv] J. Vernon McGee, Revelation, Volume I (Pasadena, California: Thru the Bible Books, 1982), pp. 121-122.

JERALD C. FINNEY
BAB, HB, BBA, JD
801 Elgin St.
Amarillo, TX 79118
Phone : (512) 785-8445
E-MAIL: jeraldfinney157@gmail.com

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Wondrous Love

There are no charges for services of this ministry, ever. No pleas for donations either. This work is motivated by a love for the Lord Jesus Christ and the goal is the glory of God. The Lord has given me a burning passion for this work, and it is an honor and privilege to be or service.

Give me a call for any reason. Should you wish to organzed a New Testament Church according to God’s principles, I will work with you to accomplish that goal.

I am a lawyer licensed in Texas.

JERALD C. FINNEY
BAB, HB, BBA, JD
801 Elgin St.
Amarillo, TX 79118
Phone : (512) 785-8445
E-MAIL: jeraldfinney157@gmail.com