Lesson 11: “Stewardship and Mission”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! |
Adventist, when you hear the word “stewardship”, what do you think of? In your mind, how is “giving” connected with “mission”, and what IS the mission your giving supports? What does the Bible say about stewardship inside the “church”? What is the difference between stewardship in the old covenant and in the new—and does Adventism even know what the new covenant teaches about giving?
Assumptions Drive Interpretation
This lesson seems especially tedious, using the time-worn Adventist arguments about learning to give generously as we follow Jesus’ example of self-giving. The lesson reflects the Adventist view of “stewardship” and assumes the readers all know the Adventist arguments about generously returning tithes and offerings to the church as a means of furthering the mission of Adventism.
Again, the texts chosen from 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 are used selectively and juxtaposed with each other to support the Adventist goals. On the surface, while there are sentences that reveal the underlying assumptions, the message is more tedious than outrageous superficially. Because the lesson is not straightforward in expressing the Adventist doctrine of stewardship, we will refer to the book Seventh-day Adventists Believe to help us reveal what the author of the lesson is supporting without overtly revealing the cultic intention of Adventist stewardship.
Saturday’s lesson sets the stage and connects Adventist mission with Jesus’ example, a marriage of ideas that delivers a message that contradicts Scripture so cleverly that the average Adventist reader would never see the problem with a superficial reading:
This week we will see that the concepts of stewardship and mission are deeply rooted in the example of Jesus. Indeed, stewardship and mission are inseparable. Stewardship provides the church with financial and human resources to fulfill God’s mission.
This paragraph reveals the Adventist assumption that “the church”—which in context means the Seventh-day Adventist organization—IS the medium of carrying out God’s “mission” on earth. The Adventist mission, every member understands, is to teach the “Sabbath truth” and the Three Angels’ Messages” which call people to come out of the Babylon of Sunday churches so that they will not receive the mark of the beast.
When Adventists read those words, “stewardship provides the church with financial and human resources to fulfill God’s mission”, they understand that they are supposed to give generous tithes and offerings to fund Adventist proselytizing efforts to make Adventist converts.Bringing people into Adventism, in the Adventist mind, IS the fulfillment of God’s mission.
Further, this lesson uses Jesus’ humbling Himself to become a man, scorned, rejected, and crucified, as the great Example they are to follow. His willingness to suffer and sacrifice Himself in the face of human scorn is the model they are to follow as they fulfill God’s mission and make Adventist converts.
While Paul does refer to Jesus’ willingness to give Himself for the ransom and redemption of the world by offering Himself as the sacrifice for sin, and while Paul does remind the Corinthian believers that they are also called to self-sacrifice for the sake of their suffering brothers and sisters in Christ, he does not tell them to follow Jesus’ example of self-sacrifice as a model to follow as they give until it hurts to fund their “church”.
In 2 Corinthians Paul does not teach stewardship for the sake of funding a mission organization. Rather he is asking the Corinthians to follow the example of the Macedonians who gave even more than they could afford in order to provide food for the famine-ridden church members in Jerusalem.
Once again, the lesson utterly misses the context of these passages in 2 Corinthians. Paul is writing to born again believers who have left their identities and social circles for the sake of Christ. He is teaching believers to trust God and to help support one another because they are in Christ’s body.
Paul is challenging the Corinthians to trust God and watch Him provide what they need as they provide for each other.
The lesson, however, teaches that one’s offerings should go directly to “the church”. The church will decide how to spend the money; the members is simply to be obedient and give generously to the church for the mission of Adventism. Here is what Thursday’s lesson says:
Second Corinthians 8–9 indicates that the offerings should be given to people appointed by God through the church. The phrases “all the churches” (2 Cor. 8:18, NKJV), “chosen by the churches” (2 Cor. 8:19, NKJV), and “messengers of the churches” (2 Cor. 8:23, NKJV) suggest precisely that. Thus, the following exhortation is not surprising, “Give proof before the churches of your love” (2 Cor. 8:24, ESV).
Bringing offerings to the church—God’s appointed instrument on earth—promotes unity and, at the same time, is the result of a sense of unity (2 Cor. 8:13, 14). Money can be a great unifier. On the other hand, if people’s eyes are not single to the glory of God, money can create division, as well.
The context of 2 Corinthians is not about giving to church leaders, but rather it’s about collecting a gift for the church in Jerusalem, and Paul explains how he will provide accountability from well-known men who will accompany the gift so the people can be sure it is cared for and reaches its goal intact.
The lesson takes texts out of context and creates an argument that the readers are to bring their gifts to the church because God has set up “the church” (read that “Adventist organization”) as His “appointed instrument on earth” for handling people’s money and for using it to get converts.
Official Stewardship Statements
Fundamental Belief #21 is entitled “Stewardship”. Embedded in the belief statement are these words:
“We acknowledge God’s ownership by faithful service to Him and our fellow human beings and by returning tithe and giving offerings for the proclamation of His gospel and the support and growth of His church.”—Seventh-day Adventists Believe, third edition, 2018, Review and Herald, p. 307.
Right there we see that Adventism teaches the giving of offerings AND tithes. The New Testament never teaches the giving to tithes; tithe was associated with the Mosaic covert and is not a new covenant requirement. Generosity that exceeds a bare minimum is taught, but new covenant giving does not include tithe because the structure of the new covenant is not national. It is all about the blood of Jesus and the gospel of His atonement and resurrection. The new covenant applies to born-again believers who are scattered throughout the nations.
Denominations are never taught in the New Testament, and while they are not sinful, they are not part of Paul’s New Covenant teaching. Christians give because they want to support fellow believers wherever they are in need, including the needs of missionaries and evangelists if they are teaching the true gospel. But New Covenant giving is not structured around an organization.
Notice these words from Seventh-day Adventists Believe in the chapter explaining Fundamental Belief #21:
One restriction was placed on [Adam and Eve]. They were not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil. This tree provided a constant reminder that God was the owner and final authority over the earth. Respecting this restriction, the first pair demonstrated their faith in and loyalty to Him, until they fell prey to Satan.
After the Fall, God could no longer test through the tree of knowledge.
But humanity still needed a constant reminder that God is the source of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17). To remind us that He is the source of every blessing, God instituted a system of tithes and offerings.—Ibid, p. 309.
Notice the foundation of Adventism’s teaching on Stewardship. The system of giving tithes and offerings is God’s way today of TESTING humanity. It is the reminder that their wealth comes from HIM, and are they going to obey Him and give their tithes and offerings, or not?
Adventism has made the issue of “stewardship” the means of God’s testing humanity. It is the replacement of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and it reveals whether people are obedient or not! It reveals their hearts as eating or not eating the fruit revealed Adam and Eve!
They further admit in their explanation of their official beliefs that they get their tithing system from the Old Testament. Here is what is stated on page 309 of Seventh-day Adventists Believe:
Seventh-day Adventists have adopted the Levitical model as a sound, biblical method for financing a worldwide outreach of the gospel. God has ordained that sharing the good news is to be dependent on the efforts and offerings of His people.…While the ceremonial laws regulating the sacrificial offerings symbolizing Christ’s atoning sacrifice ended at His death, the tithing law did not.—Ibid., p. 309, 310
The chapter expounding the doctrine of stewardship ends with this summary words:
The adoption of the biblical plan of stewardship is indispensable for the church. The continual participation of its members in giving is like exercise to the human body—it results in a strong church body, involved in sharing the blessings Christ has bestowed on it and ready to respond to whatever needs there are in God’s cause The church will have adequate funds to support the ministry, to expand God’s kingdom in its immediate vicinity, and to extend it to the remote places of the earth.—Ibid., p. 314.
This Sabbath School lesson is less direct than the official book expounding the organization’s 28 Fundamental Beliefs. Yet the lesson clearly endorses and teaches this same mindset. The Adventist reader is reminded that he is to give generous offerings as well as tithes, and that his Adventist Church is the only appropriate recipient of his offerings. For example, Tuesday’s lesson ends with this discussion question:
How faithful are you with tithes and offerings, no matter how rich or poor you are? What excuses do you use to hold back from giving when you know that you can do more?
The reader is, once again, guilted to give. No matter how poor the reader, he is reminded that he can give more. In fact, any reason he may use to explain his level of giving is to be questioned and seen as an excuse. He can do more—the lesson assumes that the reader will be able to admit that he or she is making excuses to limit giving!
Even worse, he is being guilted to give to an organization that is not even part of the new covenant church! Adventism teaches a different gospel. It uses Jesus’ death on the cross as an example of supreme self-sacrifice. Jesus is held up as the ultimate example of meek obedience and willing suffering. Adventists are supposed to squelch their cognitive dissonance and submit to what Adventism tells them the gospel is. They are to give themselves to the cause of the seventh-day Sabbath and the health message, sacrificially giving their time and their money to an organization that is making converts to a false religion teaching an incomplete atonement on the basis of a false prophet!
In fact, the last thought question at the end of Friday’s lesson asks the reader:
In addition to giving systematic offerings, what other things can you do to imitate Jesus’ self-giving example?
New Covenant Giving
Paul takes great pains to explain to the Corinthians that their giving is to flow out of their love for Christ. Remember, he is addressing born again believers who have passed already from death to life (John 5:24). They are already transferred out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Colossians 1:13).
Paul is not guilting these believers into giving so that they can help an organization proselytize and make unsuspecting false converts! He is teaching them that their proper response to the Lord is to give generously to those who are also in His body. The needs and suffering of other Christians is theirs to care for. They are all part of the body of Christ.
The difference between what Paul is teaching and what Adventism teaches is upside-down and inside-out. Adventism is fund-raising for Adventism. Paul is calling on the body to care for each other. Here are Paul’s words in context:
Now this [I say], he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows with blessing will also reap with blessing. Each one [must do] just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make every grace abound to you, so that in everything at every time having every sufficiency, you may have an abundance for every good deed; as it is written, “HE SCATTERED ABROAD, HE GAVE TO THE NEEDY, HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS STANDS FOREVER.” Now He who supplies SEED TO THE SOWER AND BREAD FOR FOOD will supply and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all generosity, which through us is bringing about thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but is also abounding through many thanksgivings to God. Because of the proven character given by this ministry, they will glorify God for [your] obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ and for the generosity of your fellowship toward them and toward all, while they also, by prayer on your behalf, long for you because of the surpassing grace of God on you. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!—2 Corinthians 9:6–15 LSB
The new covenant is an entirely different model from the old covenant. The Mosaic covenant was a constitution for a nation. It outlined God’s terms for His nation, and the nation agreed to the terms. The Mosaic covenant was based on the levitical priesthood, and the priesthood was instructed how to intercede for the nation with blood sacrifices and ceremonies to provide them with a means of being in relationship with God.
The Mosaic covenant foreshadowed the coming Lord Jesus who would be the perfect complete Sacrifice for sin, providing the only human blood sacrifice that God would accept on behalf of the human race. The Mosaic covenant revealed Israel’s sin nature and their need of atonement, and it provided a means of intercession and reconciliation that kept them always aware of their sin.
The New Covenant is possible now only on the basis of Jesus’ shed blood and His resurrection which cancels the curse of death. The New Covenant is not a constitution for a nation; it is a covenant into which individuals are born spiritually when they believe in Jesus’ finished work and receive new hearts, new spirits, and the indwelling Holy Spirit. The New Covenant is a covenant of the Spirit, not a covenant of law.
Believers are completely new creations, and the Holy Spirit gives them the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16), and the Lord Himself teaches believers to care for His body as for themselves. Paul knew what he was saying as he wrote 2 Corinthians. After all, when the Lord stopped him on the Damascus Road, He asked him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4).
Saul wasn’t persecuting the Lord Jesus personally—he was persecuting the church, the new believers! Yet the Lord Jesus responded to Paul in the new covenant model: believers are His own body! Paul WAS persecuting the body of Christ!
In 2 Corinthians Paul is teaching us that our obligation is to the body of Christ, the believers who know and worship the Lord Jesus. As Jesus’ body, He, our Head, teaches us to care for one another through sacrificial giving because each of us is connected to the other in Christ. The suffering of believers in one area affects us in another area, and the Lord blesses us to be able to supply their need—and then He blesses them to be able to supply our needs. The Lord provides for His own body through the members of the body.
The lesson teaches Adventism, and it makes a mockery of 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. Paul is not teaching sacrificial giving to an organization teaching another gospel and the interpretations of a false prophet! He is not teaching tithing nor that the organization is God’s appointed repository for our giving.
Paul is teaching us to trust God. He is teaching us that God provides all we need. We can never out-give God! The lesson is securing the Adventist worldview and conscripting Paul to emphasize its point. By doing this, the lesson misuses Paul and guilts the reader into compliance instead of teaching the reader that in Christ, all we need is secure, and our giving becomes a means of observing the Lord Jesus providing for His people.
Adventist, I appeal to you: ask the Lord to help you read Scripture without the lens of Adventism clouding your view. Read in context, whole chapters at a time, in the order they are written.
The Lord has revealed reality and truth in His word, and He never stutters. He means exactly what He says.
Trust Jesus today. If you haven’t trusted Jesus alone but have continued to rationalize or ignore the cognitive dissonance that occurs when you try to read the Bible with Adventism in your head, come to Jesus. Admit that you have been confused and frustrated, and ask Him to show you who He is. Repent of your sin and of your Adventist confusion. See Jesus paying for all of your sin, and believe in Him. See Him breaking your curse of death by rising on the third day, and trust Him alone! You will know the freedom that comes from being able to know and believe truth and reality, of being able to read the Bible without frustration. Trust Jesus today, and be free! †
This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
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