Jun P. Espina 4 min read
Updated on September 17th, 2022
If I were to preach on “Faith Promise Giving,” my first question would be: What’s God’s precise instruction concerning Faith Promise giving? Well, Faith Promise giving is without a supporting verse, for God does not “preach” it. Yesterday, I heard someone using the book of Esther in teaching this subject. And the emphasis was that Faith Promise giving is a sacrifice to be a part of saving the lost world, just like the sacrifice of Queen Esther to save the Jewish people from genocide as decreed by King Ahasuerus (see Esther 4 and other related chapters).
Some sermons sound scriptural. The sermon on “Faith Promise” is one. Preach it, and the people in the pews will be filled with joy at the prospect of assisting missionaries financially through Faith Promise giving. This sermon always follows the standard main point that Faith Promise giving is not “tithes and offerings.” Rather, it is going to be provided on top of “tithes and offerings”! Then the preacher will stir the emotions of the church by saying that death is coming, but we have done nothing yet to help our missionaries apart from our tithes and offerings.
I always think of preachers as ambassadors (spokespersons!) of Christ.
But, since Faith Promise giving is not biblical, what are your thoughts on someone, a pastor or a Bible scholar, emotionally and authoritatively telling the people that Faith Promise giving is every Christian’s responsibility to help “save the lost world”? Well, God has a scriptural way of supporting missionaries through cheerful giving (cf. 2 Cor. 9:7) and giving as you prosper (cf. 1 Cor. 16:1-20). This is not the way of God. Hence, a pastor preaching it is not truly honest with his Bible and with God.
Faith Promise giving is unscriptural; it is without a supporting verse of Scripture. A pastor preaching it ceases to be Christ’s ambassador. What do you think?
Another concern I have against the Faith Promise teaching is the insinuation that the people in the pews are to make a vow to the Lord. Both the Old and New Testaments warn against making a promise you cannot fulfill. Christ taught us not to “make false vows” or “make no oath at all.” Note Matthew 5:33-37:
Christ said our statement should be “‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.” How about making a Faith Promise to give a quarter of your salary monthly to the church-mission contribution? Later, your income hits bottom because of hospitalization and other unexpected expenses. As you could no longer meet your promise, your so-called “Faith Promise” would be “sometimes yes; sometimes no.” It “is of evil,” Christ said.
Delaying your payment (or not fulfilling your promise) is a sin, according to God in the Old Testament. But “if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you.” Here is God’s Word in Deuteronomy 23:21-23: “When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the Lord your God will surely require it of you. However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you. You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God, what you have promised.”
When this man-made Faith-Promise teaching is shoved down our throats Sunday after Sunday, we must resist, reject, and regurgitate emotional and nonsense thoughts attached to it, as we do to all false teachings. Keep in mind Deuteronomy 23:23 (easy to remember!): “You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God, what you have promised.”
CAVEAT:
If you love to promise God and you can fulfill your vow 100% (and you understand God’s displeasure and anger if you vow falsely), then you may take part in a Faith Promise campaign. To borrow a familiar warning: “Do it at your own risk!” Me? I won’t make a vow to God since I cannot guarantee a perfect monetary promise. I made financial contributions within my means, but a specific Faith Promise is putting me in a box that could get God angry at me. A false doctrine would enslave me.
The Doctrine is Cheerful Giving.
Faith Promise is not the Same as Cheerful Giving
“Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come.” (2 Cor. 9:7; 1 Cor. 16:1-2, NASB)
——
Short Fiction Stories:
- Her Promise After She Confessed Her Dark Secret
- Unschooled Wisdom from Common Sense
- When Empathy Grows Into Love
- When Reason Surrenders to Faith
- The Atheist Billionaire’s Road to Faith
- Miyah’s Cave House
- Loving the Unlovable
- After He Slapped His Wife
I read a lot of interesting articles here. Probably you spend a lot of
time writing, i know how to save you a lot of work, there is an online tool that creates unique, google friendly articles in seconds, just type in google
– laranitas free content source
Thank you for your excellent writing on this subject; I wish it were preached this way in churches. My pastor is an exception. He preaches Biblical giving and even says, “If you can’t give joyfully, don’t give.”!
The text I have seen used most often to support the idea of faith promise giving for missions is from 2 Cor. 8 primarily and 9 secondarily. The passage in Chapter 8 isn’t even discussing missions; it is largely about churches in one region helping other churches which were in distress. Paul uses the commendable example of the churches of Macedonia sending relief to others to exhort the Corinthians to give. Chapter 8 only stresses giving on the church level and only touches on that at the level of the individual. In chapter 9, individual giving comes more into focus, in the context that churches could not give if individuals making up the churches did not give.
Your writing is spot on. Nowhere does the passage remotely say that if you tithe X dollars a week, you are to essentially promise to give Y amount above that for missions and trust that God will give you that extra amount. In fact, 8:12 and 9:7) imply the opposite. Of course, Paul does lay out the importance and blessedness of giving but does not tie heavy burdens on our backs (cf Matt. 23:4).