{"id":36305,"date":"2012-12-29T20:52:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T02:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=36305"},"modified":"2021-07-02T20:54:08","modified_gmt":"2021-07-03T01:54:08","slug":"can-the-church-rent-a-house-on-land-it-bought-for-future-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-the-church-rent-a-house-on-land-it-bought-for-future-expansion\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the church rent a house on land it bought for future expansion?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>Hello,<\/p>\n<p>I was just wondering if maybe you could tell me if there is a biblical answer for this situation. A congregation of the Lord&#8217;s church just bought land adjoining the land the building where we meet sits on right now. It was purchased to expand at a later time (no time soon). If we didn&#8217;t purchase it, we would not get another chance. There is a house on the land and it has been brought up in the men&#8217;s business meeting that we should fix up the house and rent it out. I am against the whole idea because I feel like the Lord&#8217;s church is not in the real estate business and when I voiced my opinion I was told it does not say in the Bible it would be wrong. My idea was to sell the house (as is) and use the money to help pay for the land that came with it that we need for future purposes. But I don&#8217;t think we should be in the real estate business of house renting to pay for the land because that still leaves us with a house we don&#8217;t need, will have to keep up, and sell for profit later. That&#8217;s not how the Lord&#8217;s church is supposed to support itself. Sorry, this was so long. Any biblical help would be appreciated.<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n\n<p>God authorized the church only to raise funds through voluntary offerings (I Corinthians 16:1-2). Anything else is unauthorized.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: Hello, I was just wondering if maybe you could tell me if there is a biblical answer for this situation. A congregation of the Lord&#8217;s church just bought land adjoining the land the building where we meet sits on right now. It was purchased to expand at a later time (no time soon). If&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[154],"class_list":["post-36305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-church-funds"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":58938,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/question-and-answer-about-church-socials\/","url_meta":{"origin":36305,"position":0},"title":"Question and Answer About Church Socials","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Leslie Diestelkamp Two questions have been asked: (1) Why doesn't the church have more socials? and (2) Why can't we have parties in the basement of the church building? The New Testament authorizes every act and activity of the church. It provides us with all that pertains to life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34559,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/isnt-filing-for-a-501c3-exemption-making-a-covenant-with-the-people-of-the-land\/","url_meta":{"origin":36305,"position":1},"title":"Isn&#8217;t filing for a 501(c)(3) exemption making a covenant with the people of the land?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Exodus 34:12 reads in the NASB: \"Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, lest it becomes a snare in your midst.\" Without expending too much on the passage in Exodus 34:12, I am trying to determine the extent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28900,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-wrong-for-a-church-to-be-incorporated\/","url_meta":{"origin":36305,"position":2},"title":"Is it wrong for a church to be incorporated?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If a\u00a0 Christian does not want to attend an incorporated church because he says it's wrong, is it right for him and his wife to worship alone on the Lord's day because he says an incorporated church is in sin, and he cannot find a church that is not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69866,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-church-let-the-community-use-its-well\/","url_meta":{"origin":36305,"position":3},"title":"Can a church let the community use its well?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 20, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Greetings Brother Hamilton, I trust you are doing great today. I have this conflict to clarify:\u00a0I understand the church is not suppose to go into business or maintain one. But I have a challenge; My congregation was gifted a piece of land with a sunken borehole (well) by a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2331,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-original-lords-supper-was-observed-at-night-and-it-wasnt-on-sunday\/","url_meta":{"origin":36305,"position":4},"title":"The original Lord&#8217;s Supper was observed at night and it wasn&#8217;t on Sunday","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 23, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: The original Lord's Supper was observed at\u00a0nighttime (Matthew 26:31), and it was not\u00a0observed on the first day of the week (Sunday), The practice of breaking bread was done on a\u00a0daily\u00a0basis from house to house, not on a weekly basis as in the churches of Christ. You find this information\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39044,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-can-prophecy-cease-when-people-claim-to-be-prophets-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":36305,"position":5},"title":"How can prophecy cease when people claim to be prophets today?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: First, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to address my questions because it has been bothering me for a while now. I am a born-again Christian and still relatively young in faith. I read on this site that an end to all prophets was declared by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}