David Lipscomb On Cooperation
The material for this study is taken from Questions Answered by David Lipscomb and E. G. Sewell as compiled by M. C. Kurfees, and as published by the McQuiddy Printing Company in 1921. The thinking of Brother Lipscomb on the subject of cooperation and missionary work as given in this re-print of editorials taken from the Gospel Advocate is interesting in the light of the present practices among brethren. Although this material does not include all of Brother Lipscomb's thinking on the subject, it is significant as it gives us a cross-sectional approach to the man. This approach in investigation has the natural limitations of time and purpose. The conclusions from this material might have been different, had we studied the matter in the light of his earlier and later thinking. We have not attempted to do that here. We have neither the resources nor the time for that. We have merely attempted to give his views as expressed on these editorial occasions. The procedure used here is to state what the writer feels Lipscomb to have felt or believed about a matter. Below the statement of belief is the substantiating evidence in the form of quotations from secondary sources. The reader should keep in mind that just because Brother Lipscomb or some other person thought a thing was right or wrong wouldn't necessarily make it so. The viewpoint is only valuable as it helps us in arriving at a sane, scriptural conclusion on the subject. The following are the positions that this writer feels Brother Lipscomb took on different matters:
1. He believed in church cooperation.
"Let each church as it is able support a preacher of the gospel. If one is not able to support one within itself, let it or them confer with one or more neighboring churches, and let so many as are needed to support a man do it by regular contributions." Questions Answered, pp. 146, 147.
2. He believed it all right for a church to send messengers to other churches to help make known their needs.
"It is clear that the teachers sent messengers to the churches to make known their needs and to stir the churches to activity in the word of God." Ibid., pp. 142.
"This shows plainly that churches, seeing the necessity of a work that they were not able to accomplish, did send messengers to other churches to induce them to engage in the work." (Conclusions based upon 2 Cor. 8:16-24.) Ibid. p. 143.
3. He believed that it was all right for a church to ask others for help in doing a work larger than what it was able to accomplish alone.
The above citation with emphasis upon the words "seeing the necessity of a work that they were not able to accomplish."
4. He believed that the funds should be raised from the church treasury.
"All worked in harmony and cooperated together, but each church raised its own funds by each member contributing as the Lord prospered, on the first day of the week, into the treasury." Ibid., p. 143.
The writer has observed the current practice in some places of taking a special contribution at the time the messenger makes known the need, even though the occasion be some other than the first day of the week.
5. He believed the work did not all have to be done through the church. Individuals could have a part in it.
"The whole work was carried on as between churches or an individual and a church." Ibid. p. 143.
6. He believed that the money or gift should be sent directly to the receiving church by the messenger of the church which was doing the giving.
"But in carrying out the work of the joint cooperation of these churches, they did not lose their church identity, did not form a joint organization, did not send delegates to a common meeting to act for the churches. They did not surrender the control and dispensation of their bounty to a joint committee, not even to the apostle Paul. All worked in harmony and cooperated together, but each church raised its own funds by each member contributing as the Lord prospered, on the first day of the week, into the treasury. Then each church appointed its own messengers to carry and distribute its own funds, and each church wrote letters commending its own messengers to those to whom the benefit was sent." (All emphases T.F.H.) Ibid., p. 143.
7. He believed in both home and foreign missions.
"I believe each church able to do so should sustain a missionary or missionaries, both home and foreign." Ibid., p. 145.
8. He believed that the best way to support missionaries was for each church to be able to support its own.
"I do not believe the work of sustaining missionaries will be effectually done until each congregation selects and sustains or helps to sustain its own missionary and makes his support its work, to be regularly and conscientiously attended to." Ibid., p. 146.
Of the different points presented here perhaps number six is the one most pertinent in arriving at an understanding of what David Lipscomb would think about working through an eldership of another church in cooperation in missionary work. His statement quoted under that heading number that seems apropos here is "They did not surrender the control and dispensation of their bounty to a joint committee, not even to the apostle Paul." The question here would be as to whether he would have added "not even to a local eldership" had there been in his days elderships of local churches controlling and dispensing funds collected from other churches in a cooperative effort.
To this author, based upon the limited but clear-cut view expressed in this quotation he would have added after the expression "not even to Paul — not even to a local eldership." What do you think ? In any regard, what he and other great men of the past felt about the issue, their view is useful as it points us to the teaching in God's word. Does David Lipscomb point the way in these articles in Questions Answered? Perhaps these articles could be printed in full in some issues of this journal.