Selling Jesus!

Luke 6:13, “No household slave can be the slave of two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t be slaves to both God and money.”

We are all familiar with the typical TBN and other Christian TV stations that have the televangelists that ask for money and promise that if you send them money that you will be blessed. They prey on the promises of health and wealth in our lives and if we just give them a large gift those worldly things we desire most will be ours. The “name it, claim it,” crowd.

But that is not the group I am talking about today, and I wish it were, as it seems to be seeping into the evangelical circles now, but in a more subtle way. I just read a pamphlet or small newsletter and in it there was a quote about the donations they received that struck me. They were asking for money for their online outreach and said, “It takes support from caring friends like you to build, update and maintain our life-transforming websites. Each gift of just $5.25 on average translates to one decision for Christ.” I am purposely leaving out the group, because in other areas they do great things, but there is so much wrong in this one sentence that I do not know where to start.

First, the wording is made to play on your emotions by utilizing words as “caring friends” and “life transforming.” It is used to make you feel emotionally and build a level of responsibility to give to this particular ministry. If it stopped here, I probably would not have an issue, but they take it a step farther that truly blows my mind. If you have taken any political or psychology classes you learn quite quickly that it is easy to devise material to play on a person’s emotions. In later classes you are even taught how to write those letters and polls to attain the results you are looking for.

They say as matter of fact that giving a gift on average of $5.25 that it will bring someone to Christ. This is amazing! We should stop all churches immediately and take all donations and give to this organization and we will have brought everyone to Christ in a matter of days. This truly negates the power of the Spirit to make a claim, but instead is based on your financial gift. You can now buy someone’s salvation. Sounds a lot like Simony, which was used years ago in another misleading fashion to attain more money for the church. In this case it is for a ministry.

What is the difference between saying that your $5.25 will bring someone to Christ, anymore then saying that donating so much will bring your desires to life. In particular, if your desire is to see more people come to Christ.

As I ponder on it more, how do they truly know that person accepted Christ? Yes, we can say that about anyone, but within the church we can at least see the Fruit of the Spirit, as talked about in James. We can guide them through Sunday School, small groups and mentoring programs to help build them up, but in this case they just click a link that says they accepted Christ, as it is all internet based.

Christ never asked for money for bringing people to Christ. The apostles never asked for money to bring people to Christ. They talked about supporting the pastor in his work, taking care of widows and the needy, but when it comes to evangelism then it is the duty of all of us. This gives another great excuse to not live out the command Jesus gave us before His ascension, to go out and make disciples and baptize them. Now, I can just send in $5.25 and let the internet do it for me. No responsibility whatsoever.

I am not discounting the internet in reaching out to non-Christians, but I think we have to temper the reliance and the success that it will have in salvation experiences, especially by saying that we can purchase them. It becomes almost like a works based, or in this case a purchased based salvation. None of us can buy the salvation for anyone, as it is a personal choice between them and God, and the language used in this article makes people believe they can buy someone’s salvation. Puts too much emphasis on man and not on the Holy Spirit, and can lead to money being given too much power.

I will close how they closed and you make the decision on how this sounds:

“With 500,000 website “hits” a month, more than 8,000 of those people indicate a decision for Christ. That means on average every $5.25 invested helps one person choose Jesus. Your gift of $52.50 will lead to 10 decisions for Christ, $78.75 will lead to 15 decisions. And your generous gift of $105.00 will lead to 20 decisions for Christ!”

For the clincher they could have added, “And if you order your salvation today for just $5.25....we'll throw in 2 crowns of righteousness for just an extra $2.00 and your daily cross to take up is absolutely free!"

1 Timothy 1:10, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”