Stingy Christians

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 24, 1871

“Stingy Christians.”

Is there such a thing as a stingy Christian? Can we not just as properly talk of swearing Christians, tippling Christians, thieving Christians? Is there not just as much logic and Scripture in one as in the other? Indeed, is not the stingy Christian just a little meaner than these others? Let us see. Ask that person who got angry and swore, about his sin. What does he say? “Oh! I know I did wrong. I was greatly provoked, and I let my temper get too high. I am very sorry. I’ll try to be more watchful hereafter.” Or question that person that got drunk the other day; “Yes; I know I did very wrong; and I’m ashamed of it. I ought not to have touched the glass. It roused up my old appetite, and I drank too much. I’ve asked God to forgive me. I hope the church will bear with me once more. I’m resolved never to be guilty again.” Honor to the man for his honesty. We sympathize with him, and will pray for him.

But here comes the stingy Christian. Now we’ll get a riddling for our forbearance with the brother that swore, and the one that yielded to temptation, and got drunk. He has heard about those cases. It’s the third or fourth time they have been guilty of those sins. He declares that those members ought to be dealt with at once. Their professions of sorrow don’t amount to anything, he says. The church is awfully disgraced. He has a special inspiration on half-hearted Christians and church purgings. Now is your time. Try to measure him by his own rule. He hasn’t had but one liberal impulse in a year, and that was when he expected to die. Tell him about his God-defrauding, Heaven-insulting, heart-contracting, and soul-damning fault. The man that was drunk, owned his fault. You saw his tears of sorrow. Does this stingy brother own his? Not he. He feels awfully insulted because you think him stingy. He thinks he knows his own circumstances better than anybody else. He gives all he can. Yet everybody knows that his neighbors give five, ten, twenty times more, according to their means, for benevolent causes than he. For years he has been a steward over God’s goods, and God has never demanded his own without being grumbled at, until everybody, except this stingy man, was ashamed of it. Yet strange enough, he is great on honesty. Indeed, he is so honest he must rob God to pay his debts and provide for his family. He has 1 Tim. 5:8, always on the end of his tongue. But he don’t know much about the 3d chapter of Malachi. He is also a great lover of old-fashioned religion. And he often breaks out into long Jeremiads over the want of good old times, when preachers worked for a living, and people were not troubled by everlasting begging for preachers’ salaries and missionary money.

Such is the “stingy Christian,” and we submit it to the intelligence of our readers, if he is not really the worst character, after all. But for his meanness, the gospel would, ere this, have been preached to every creature.—Sel.