Truth Magazine

By Larry Ray Hafley

“Sign” is the most frequent translation of the word semeion. It means “a sign, mark, token” (Thayer, p. 573). When reference is made to a miracle, semeion characteristically implies that the act indicates a power or meaning behind it. That is natural and logical, for what is a sign if it is not an indicator? This use is emphasized in the gospel of John. John did not use words to express the wonder that a miracle incites in the beholders, nor did he stress the mighty power inherent in it 1ohn stressed the sign, the mark, the token, the indication of the miracle.

In that memorable and notable statement of purpose, John said, “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (Jn. 20:30, 31). These miracles were wrought as marks, indicators, “that ye might believe.” That Jesus was fully cognizant of this goal of his miracles is seen in John 10:37, 38, “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him.” Nicodemus’ statement reveals that the rulers of the Jews also were aware that Jesus’ miracles were signs or tokens of his special link with God. “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles (semeion) that thou doest, except God be with him” (Jn. 3:2). The miracles were the signs that indicated the fact.

Divine Definitions

The word sign, semeion, is divinely defined in numerous New Testament Scriptures. In Luke 2:12, “And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” The specific garment and resting place of the baby was a sign, an indication showing they had found the right baby, the “Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” In John 2:11 semeion, here translated “miracles,” is defined. “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.” The miracles were signs that were tokens of his glory, that is, they “manifested forth his glory.” In a third place, we find a negative, back door, or “left handed” definition of semeion. “But though he had done so many miracles (signs) before them, yet they believed not on him” (Jn. 12:37). The inference is that with all the miracles he had performed they should have believed–for they were done for that purpose. The result, though not achieved, shows the point of the word.

Jesus, as stated, accredited his works as indicators. Perhaps the most direct occasion is recorded in Matthew 9:2-8. Though semeion, sign, is not used here, this text also serves to define our word. When certain of the scribes ascribed blasphemy to his forgiveness of the paralytic, Jesus stoutly defended his act with a sign, “But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) arise, take up thy bed and go unto – thine .house.” “But that ye may know” says, “Here is a sign that shows I have the authority to forgive sins.” This is the essence, the substance of the meaning of ,the New Testament word “sign,” semeion.

Truth Magazine, XVIII:45, p. 8
September 19, 1974

By Tom Wheeler

It is a good time for me to say some things on this subject as I just recently moved and no one could think I am asking for a raise yet.

Brethren have mistreated many preachers by their stinginess. They and their families have done without necessities in order for them to preach the gospel of Christ. Many have not received the help of their wives (which they needed so much) because the wife had to work to make ends meet. (She often had to work even with young children at home.) By the way, the wife often after just a few weeks or months was making more than her husband, causing the same inferior feeling in him that it would cause in any other husband. Some few preachers have been unable to pay their bills and left owing businesses and individuals. I am not upholding the person and his unpaid bills but neither should the brethren complain too much about paying them for if they had given the preacher a decent wage, he would have taken care of them before leaving town.

Some brethren still think whatever the preacher gets is charity or that he should not be paid any more than necessary to live on. Paul called what he received “wages:” “I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.” (2 Cor. 11:8) A friend, when asked what he would have to have to move to a certain place, stated a figure. After they regained their composure, they asked him again what he would have to have. He proposed that they go ahead and pay him the figure stated and at the end of each month each family would work up a cost sheet and give everything left over to the church. This is in reality what they were asking him to do. Paul called it “wages,” not charity, or a love offering.

There are some things most brethren do not consider when deciding how much the preacher will be paid. He buys his own health insurance and if he has a fair policy, it will cost him as much as a reasonable car payment. I have never heard of but one congregation that had a life policy on the preacher and that one is payable to the church, not to the preacher’s family. The preacher will have more car and clothing expenses than the average person, and if it were otherwise the brethren would not have him. 89% of all companies have a retirement or pension plan, but if a preacher needs help in his old age you just listen to the brethren talk about what a sorry manager he was. The following figures are from U. S. News And World Report, August 28, 1972. In 1971 the average (that includes low income states) employee in private industry received $2,544.00 in fringe benefits per year. These are things that never showed up on the paycheck. There has been a big jump since then.

I do not believe preaching is on the same level with secular work; if I thought such I would have stayed in private industry. I do not believe preachers should form unions; in fact I would not listen to one who advocated such a thing. I do believe they (preachers) ought to sacrifice to exercise any talent they have. When you read in the New Testament of gospel preaching being supported, the preacher was not the only one who sacrificed. This would indeed by an enlightening study for many brethren.

Some brethren think that if they furnish a house, they are doing the preacher a great favor. Really they are only helping him never to accumulate a place to live when he is too feeble to preach.

A preacher ought not to have to beg or move for a raise. Sometimes brethren can not understand why a preacher moved after only two or three years when things were going so well. They did not stop to think that the cost of living went up 20% or more during that time and they gave him only a $10.00 or $20.00 raise, which in fact was not a raise at all, as it did not even keep up with the cost of living. Preachers are accused of preaching for money, when the charge is false. Why could not the additional wages paid by a different congregation indicate a greater appreciation for his services? I believe the “wages” must be within reason, as the last paragraph will indicate.

There is a saying among preachers that ought not to be. “Get it when you are making the agreement to move, for you won’t get it after you are there.” This statement covers a lot of things: “wages,” office (preferably study) furniture, printing equipment, number of weeks away for meetings and length of vacation. Vacation time is a sore spot with some preachers. When one works for private industry a certain number of years, he usually gets more vacation time. When preachers change congregations, the brethren think they change companies. By the way, many preachers preach and study while on their vacation.

Several years ago, a preacher went to a place to consider moving there. They asked him what he wanted them to pay him. He noted that ten men were present and proposed that they average their incomes and pay him that amount. Their incomes averaged $90.00 per week (I suppose that was take home); they payed him $70.00. Brethren in some places have come a long way in the last few years and some progress is being made in other places. Preacher pay is still a touchy subject and many do not know how to deal with it. “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 7:12) Why would not this teaching hold true in the matters under discussion? I am persuaded that one reason many parents do not encourage their boys to preach is they do not want their son treated (payed) like they treat (pay) the preacher.

Preachers have moved just to teach the elders and/or the men who run the affairs a lesson in preacher support. Whether right or wrong, this does take place. This can create an unnecessary, bad situation. He moves before he wants to. He moves before his family wants to. He moves before the church really wants him to, and some people are hurt and discouraged. Brethren, this ought not to be. Review the salary every few months. Discuss it with the preacher. Pray about the matter and treat one another like fellow children of God and much unnecessary expense will be saved in the long run.

Before we close the article, let us mention a few things on the other side of the economic scale. I believe that some preachers are asking for and getting too much “wages.” They are taking advantage of a preacher shortage and are becoming hirelings, preaching for filthy lucre. If you ask me for a figure that is precisely the correct amount, I cannot give it. That depends on the area, the people and the preacher and his family. Some will leave the church when some salaries that I have heard quoted are paid. Can some sleep with that? When one receives more than a reasonable amount, he will lose his effectiveness as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Read again Matt. 7:12.

Truth Magazine, XVIII:45, p. 12-13
September 19, 1974

By Bruce Edwards, Jr.

“The church described in the New Testament was not a denomination.” We understand that sentence. We have heard it all our lives. We mouth it to friends and to neighbors. We courageously affirm it before fellow Christians. We are thoroughly and categorically convinced that it is true. But do we fully realize the implications of this deceptively simple group of words?

It implies that the Lord’s people are not denominationally organized. Search the Scriptures, up and down, and you will find that in the first century there was no “national headquarters” (no, not even in Jerusalem) for the church. You will find no centralization of funds. You will find no “Sunday School boards.” You will find no institutionalism whatsoever. In fact, you must conclude that each congregation was independent and autonomous, fully capable of handling its own evangelism and edification, including discipline, free of outside intimidation or influence.

It implies that the Lord’s people are not subject to denominational leadership. Each local church was Scripturally led when there were a plurality of elders and deacons present. There was no clergy-laity caste system. All were “ministers.” All were individually responsible for teaching and preaching the gospel. No one was permitted or encouraged to allow “the minister” to do the evangelistic work for them in that location. There were no “lay-ministers,” no “arch-bishops,” no “cardinals,” no “presidents,” and no “reverends” in the first century church. In fact, you must conclude that each and every Christian was on an equal basis before God, each with his own responsibility to teach the word.

It implies that the Lord’s people are not guided by nor subject to denominational creeds. All beliefs and practices of the early church were founded upon the word of God. You will find among them no appeals to The Book of Mormon, The Westminster Confession of Faith, The Plain Truth magazine, Calvin’s Institutes, Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health, the Methodist Discipline, nor anything else to establish Divine authority. In fact, you must conclude that each Christian was individually answerable only to God and was eminently capable of understanding and practicing God’s will on the basis of his own judgment free of “official creeds,” “papal encyclicals,” or “brotherhood editorials.”

It implies that the Lord’s people do not possess a denominational name. The church in the New Testament is labeled variously as, “the saints,” “the brethren,” “the church of God,” “the kingdom of heaven,” etc. There was no attempt on the part of the early Christians to set themselves apart in a denominational way by “name.” In fact, you must conclude that they met in synagogues or buildings they did not own or private homes, and worried little about the “proper designation” that may have hung on the front door. What “names” that were employed identified them merely as God’s people, set apart unto His Son, “names” given by the Lord Himself, free of any attempts to glorify any particular man, doctrine, or practice.

It implies that the Lord’s people are to dwell in unity. The very term “denomination” implies division. Any attempt to justify divisive groups, each proclaiming allegiance to a peculiar theologian or theology, from a Biblical standpoint is futile. The very idea that God could ordain and approve of all of today’s “roads to heaven” is in itself ludicrous. In fact, you must conclude that the early Christians were united in Christ through His word denying any sectarian or denominational concepts or beliefs.

The comment, “the church described in the New Testament was not a denomination,” is often made casually, almost nonchalantly. In reality, it is the most profound truth that confronts “modern Christendom.” Let us not mouth these words as an empty slogan or catch-phrase; rather let us drink deep its significance, letting it influence our thinking and application in our approaches to His service. Christ’s church, His ekklesia, is not a denomination! What wonderful freedom this truth brings!

Truth Magazine, XVIII:45, p. 9
September 19, 1974

By Steve Wolfgang

(Editor’s Note: The following remarks could as fittingly be applied to the editor of any of the other journals who speak as the divine oracles speak. With the great admiration which I have for the long deceased Benjamin Franklin, I would feel much more comfortable if you were to read the following article with him only in mind, without any reference to the editor of this paper. If one can have favor with God, it matters not whether he has the praise of men, or their recriminations.-Cecil Willis)

Recently, while researching some back files of Benjamin Franklin’s American Christian Review,1 we came across an article printed nearly a hundred years ago,2 over the pseudonym “Evangelist.”3 Seeing many possible applications to some current situations, we have reproduced the article (in edited and abridged form) below. While some of the circumstances then and now differ (the article was occasioned by Franklin’s death on October 23, 1878), and while we certainly do not foresee for “the current editor” of Truth Magazine an end similar to that of Franklin’s successor, John F. Rowe (years later, Rowe acquiesced to the use in the worship of “a small organ,” but not, “O ye gods,” said he, a large one!),4 yet some of the comments of a young “Evangelist” are as appropriate now as they were then.

“Critics, sharpen your pens; he is a good subject to work on. . . . Measure him by your own various. and variable standards, and you will find him defective all over; measure him by the Divine word, and you will pronounce him a fair specimen. Cull out his unhandsome expressions and harp upon his mistakes, and you will probably have something to do; meditate upon the excellent in what he writes, and you will have but little time for that other ungenerous business. Assume prophetic afflatus and predict the downfall of (Truth Magazine), and you will injure that which you cannot destroy; utter not all your mind, but keep it until afterward, or, better still, increase the circulation of (Truth Magazine) and you will perform a nobler part.

“Editors and scribes of other journals, I invite your special attention. Here is a rare chance for you. (Cecil Willis) is not wiser than Solomon, nor meeker than Moses, nor patienter than Job, and even if he be, I will tell you how to treat him so as to make him appear at a disadvantage. Get up some side issue . . ., advocate some unscriptural or antiscriptural enterprise, or do some other un-apostolic thing, and he will oppose it just as certain as you live. Then regard him as ‘a hindrance to the cause’ and not entitled to fair treatment. Do not PREsent to your readers what he may say, but REPresent it. Or, pass over his premises and present his conclusions by themselves. Comment thereon in your severest style and make him appear as unhandsome as possible. Unless he detect in this the devil’s trap for him, though set by good men, he will say (and all know he can say) some severe things. Then quote against him the severest of the severe, publish them to your readers, refusing to let him be fully heard, while representing him as scurrilous and unscrupulous…. On the other hand, treat him fairly and the merit of his pen will, at least, command the respect of those whose affections it may not win. As for my own part, I fully purpose to increase his number of readers whenever I can, and assist in filling his columns with the clearest, concisest, soundest articles which my youthful pen can produce.”

“EVANGELIST”

Footnotes

1. Historian David Edwin Harrell, Jr., has said that during Franklin’s maturity, “the most influential Disciples journal was the American Christian Review, edited by Benjamin Franklin” The Social Sources of Division in the Disciples of Christ, 1865-1900: A Social History of the Disciples of Christ, Volume II (Atlanta: Publishing Systems, Incorporated, 1973), p. 17.

2. The actual date was November 26, 1878 (American Christian Review, 21:48, p. 377).

3. “Evangelist” was one of the pen names used by Daniel Sommer, then 28 years old.

4. See Earl Irvin West, The Search for the Ancient Order: A History of the Restoration Movement, 1849-1906 (Volume 11, 1866-1906; Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1954), p. 315.

Truth Magazine, XVIII:45, p. 7-8
September 19, 1974