Is it right for a church to support a Bible school?
Question:
Greetings to you, Brother Hamilton; I trust you have been in good health.
I need your guidance on these issues:
- Is it a sin for the church to financially support Bible schools? The church sometimes requests Bible school students to help carry out a massive evangelism campaign.
- How can the church balance its relationship with Bible schools?
- Can the church set up a school not for profit-making but as a means of evangelism? Can even Bible schools serve as a method or means of evangelism?
- Is it wrong for a brother to establish a hotel or guest house business? Given that he won't set up bars or anything that could attract negativity. Moreover, that's the only kind of business thriving in that area.
Thank you, sir.
Answer:
Most of your questions revolve around an issue known as institutionalism. Some in the church believe that setting up an independent business to perform parts of the church's duties is fine. To justify the expense of the institutions, these brethren view the churches as a network of congregations working together to accomplish a purpose. The major problem is that God doesn't authorize congregations to pass off their duties to another institution. God established local churches to perform tasks, and there was no external organization. See Congregational Independence.
It is fine if individuals wish to start a school where the Bible is taught, but this does not release the local church from its duty to teach the gospel. "So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 2:10). Nor can a church pay an institution to do its work and claim the church was doing the work.
Individuals may establish whatever businesses they desire if the company's actions are righteous. "He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need" (Ephesians 4:27).
