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The Lord's Treasury

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Oct 2, 1913

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 90, No. 40.

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The Lord's Treasury

By E. K. Slade

Gospel Finance—No. 11

The Lord's Treasury

E. K. SLADE
A GREAT deal of importance is attached to the idea of knowing what and where God's treasury, or storehouse, is. There could be but little meaning to the words, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house,” if we are left free to use and pay our tithes in any way or place to suit the fancy of each one. There are those who feel that they should be permitted to pay their tithes where they choose, regardless of God's organized work. In past years tithes have been paid by individuals to various enterprises or direct to a certain minister in such a way as to cripple the work and cause much perplexity, but at present that practise does not prevail to so great an extent. No minister in good standing will receive that which God commands to be brought into his treasury. No member in good standing will ignore the order required in the house of God in the payment of tithes.
Our work is organized as near as we can know in harmony with plans outlined in the Word of God. He has his agencies in the earth for carrying forward his work. Those agencies, organized and operating in harmony with his truth, and giving the message and performing the work required for man's salvation and for properly warning the world, must be recognized as God's work in the earth. Those called out by the message and engaged in his work certainly constitute what he chooses to refer to as “mine house” in the world. The tithes and offerings are called for as the only means of financing his work. They are to be brought into the “storehouse,” or treasury, that the work of God in the earth may not suffer. There can be no question regarding the urgency of the requirement for all tithes and offerings to be brought to the treasury of God's house, the church. “If all, both rich and poor, would bring their tithes into the storehouse, there would be a sufficient supply of means to relieve the cause from financial embarrassment, and to carry forward nobly the missionary work in its various departments.”
It is not our purpose, and neither can it be necessary, to produce arguments to show that our church and conference treasuries are God's storehouse, or treasury, in connection with his work at this time. It is of importance to us to see the wisdom in this arrangement and the principles involved for the protection of the cause and the good of those conforming thereto.
Men are selected and set apart for the ministry, not by one or two or a few persons, but by organized conferences in harmony with and having the approval of the denomination. Credentials are granted to those whose lives and labors and whose talents and training are in harmony with the high standard required by the denomination. Such credentials are granted for only a year at a time. When conditions will not warrant it, they are not renewed. Under this arrangement money from God's treasury is used to support only those laborers having the approval of the body. It takes the task of determining who shall be supported from the funds, from one or two or a few, and places it upon the whole people.
This arrangement is of great importance. Great care is exercised in all our conferences in the selection of workers whose support is to come from the tithes. Every member in the churches whose tithes and offerings go to the conference treasury is permitted to have a voice in determining who shall be set apart to the ministry and receive support from the treasury. Left to a few, grave complications would develop. For each member to decide who shall be supported by his tithe is wholly out of harmony with the light which God has given for the management of his work. The denomination under the guidance of God through his Word is to decide who shall be set apart as ministers and missionaries. The denominational treasury must of necessity receive and disburse the funds for the support of the work of God in the earth. To disregard this order brings great confusion and demoralization to the work of God.
There are those who assume the responsibility of ignoring the Lord's treasury by paying tithes direct to individuals, yet such cases are few.
The tithe is withheld or diverted by some because there are ministers employed whom they do not like or because the work is not managed to suit them. They would rather rob God or risk paying tithe to an individual than to recognize the order existing in the church by paying it into the treasury, where every penny is accounted for and used in harmony with the divine plan.
These cases are of such a character as to emphasize the importance of the organized plan. In nearly all such cases the recipients of the tithes are individuals who could not be recognized or who have been rejected by the body as public laborers. The payment of our tithes is to be to God and not to man; and he who will rely upon his own judgment, impressions, or preferences by paying to a man of his choice instead of coming to the treasury of the Lord's house, is making a serious mistake.
Mount Vernon, Ohio.