p. 16 | Commercial Evangelism by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 18, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 43, No. 28.

Commercial Evangelism

By Editor

THE Washington Herald recently had an article headed "Evangelists Who Are Making Too Much Money." The article called attention to a dozen professional evangelists who have incomes ranging from $15,000 to $200,000 a year. The same article speaks of an effort on the part of the "Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America" looking toward "the elimination of commercialism and extravagant sensationalism in evangelism."

Many people are led to believe that the world is getting much better, because we hear of some of these great evangelists drawing large crowds and counting hundreds and even thousands of people as converts. But the divine Book, speaking of Jesus Christ, says that "the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head." Matt. 8: 20. Christ showed, all through His life, that the money value must sink into insignificance, and the great stress must be placed upon the real worth of the human soul. His whole life was consumed in laboring for souls, and He treated with utter indifference the question of an income. It was relegated to the background.

The gospel minister needs a modest support—Christ recognized and taught that—but he does not need from $15,000 to $200,000 a year. However the work of the professional evangelists may appear to some minds, this much must be apparent to all: that such salaries are wholly out of harmony with the life and teachings of the sacred Christ, the great Missionary who laid aside all the glory and riches of heaven to devote Himself to saving men—not to saving men at a stipulated salary, but to saving men regardless of salary, and at an infinite cost to Himself.