Faith Promise Giving, once more

Awhile back I had an anonymous commenter challenge my blog post about faith promise giving as “a total misunderstanding of what Oswald J Smith taught.” The person writes:

“This is a total misunderstanding of what Oswald J Smith taught on the matter. Furthermore, if you listened to him carefully, you’d have known that he wasn’t the creator of the idea.

“A faith promise was a promise one made to God to trust him to provide for them to give more than they thought their budget would allow. They would then believe God to provide for them to give what they had promised. He never asked anyone to be foolish or unwise but only to trust God to help them give more than they themselves might be able to without His extra provision. Respectfully presented. Nothing unbiblical about that.”

I replied briefly then, but make these additional remarks. Let us look a little further. Below is the 2-page tract of Oswald J. Smith (in Times roman type) and some responses from me (in Arial italic type).

A FAITH PROMISE OFFERING

Oswald J. Smith, Litt. D.*

A Faith Promise Offering is a Scriptural offering; it is a Pauline offering, and, therefore, God blesses it (2 Corinthians 8-9).

The Apostle Paul took up Faith Promise offerings. He would get the Church to promise a certain amount and then he would give the Church a year to pay it. Then, you remember, as the year drew to a close, he would send Titus, or someone else, to remind the Church of the promise that had been made, so that he would not be ashamed when he arrived. He wanted to be sure it would be paid. Then, at the end of the year, he came and collected it.

In this tract, Oswald Smith grounds his system in the practice of Paul, the apostle. Does his explanation match the practice of Paul? Only in a caricatured way. Of course, the Bible mentions no such thing as a “Faith Promise Offering.” No doubt, Smith would likely admit that and say he put a name to a principle he found in the Bible. Does this principle and practice exist? While Smith says Paul “would get the Church to promise a certain amount,” the text of 2 Corinthians 8-9 says no such thing. In fact, it is much the opposite. The churches of Macedonia were willing of their own liberality, and asked Paul to receive and distribute their gift (8:3-4). Further, Paul said that he spoke “not by commandment” (8:8).

In this tract Oswald J. Smith presents Faith Promise as a scriptural manner of giving. However, in Smith’s personal testimony “How God Taught Me To Give,” we find he did not discover this method through Bible study. Rather than taught from the word of God, he says that God spoke to him and told him to give a faith offering (and how much to give). All told, this gives the smell of an adopted practice that went searching for scripture to back it up – and 2 Corinthians 8-9 was the best available.

Have you ever in your life given a Faith Offering, or have you only given a cash offering? It doesn’t require any faith to give a cash offering. If I have a dollar in my pocket, all I have to do is tell my hand to go into my pocket, find the dollar, take it out and put it on the [offering] plate. I don’t have to pray about it. I don’t have to ask God for it. I don’t have to trust Him for any definite amount. I just have to give it.”

In encouraging to offer by “faith” what they do not have, Smith disparages those who give out of what they have – even though Paul said, “it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not” (8:12). Such a standard also disparages the “cash offering” of the poor widow who threw in her two mites, all that she had (Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4).

But with a Faith Promise Offering it is entirely different. I have to pray about it and ask God how much He would have me give, and then trust Him for it, and month by month go to Him in prayer and ask Him for the amount promised, and wait upon Him until it comes in. that is the offering that brings the blessing.”

Smith would have us believe that those who do not give faith promises are not spiritual in their giving – they are not moved by faith in God, and they do not pray about their giving. This disparages the faith and practice of all those who do not follow his method.

That is about the only kind of an offering I have taken up for Missions in all these years, well over a quarter of a century now—a Faith Promise Offering. I would never go back to a cash offering. With a cash offering I could only get a very little, but with a Faith Promise Offering I can get much. In our Annual Missionary Convention we never get more than $7,000 in cash, but we get a quarter of a million or more in Faith Promises.

The testimony in this paragraph has nothing to do with scriptural or spiritual giving, but descends into pure pragmatics – we get a lot more money this way.

There is many a church that will not give a Faith Promise Offering. They are not interested in Scriptural giving. They will not obligate themselves for the definite support of their missionaries. They will not promise a certain amount to any one worker. They simply divide whatever comes in, in the way of cash, between various missionary societies. They don’t have to trust God for anything. If it comes in, they give it. But since there is no need to exercise faith, therefore there is no burden, no responsibility. I have no use for that kind of giving. I believe that every individual church should obligate itself in faith before God for a certain definite amount, and pray until that amount has been received.

The disparaging continues. Those who will not give a “Faith Promise Offering…are not interested in Scriptural giving.” Those who do not give this way are not trusting God. How arrogant, how high-handed! 

I do not believe in pledges. I have never taken up a pledge offering in my life. What is the difference, you ask, between a pledge offering and a Faith Promise Offering? All the difference in the world. A pledge offering is between you and a church, between you and a missionary society, and some day the deacons may come along and try to collect it, or you may receive a letter asking for it. In other words, you can be held responsible for a pledge offering.

A Faith Promise Offering, on the other hand, is between you and God. No one will ever ask you for it. No official will ever call on you to collect it. No one will ever send you a letter reminding you of it. It is a promise made by you to God, and to God alone. If you are unable to pay it, all you have to do is to tell God. Give Him your excuse and if He accepts it, you are free. You do not have to pay it. That, I say, is a Faith Promise Offering. That is the kind of an offering I preach and teach and take everywhere I go. I want to be Scriptural in all I do.

In these two paragraphs, Smith unconsciously contradicts his foundational text. Paul’s practice is like the pledge offering, between the church at Corinth and the missionary society (Paul and his co-laborers). Like the pledge, where someone will come along and try to collect it, so Paul “came and collected it.” In Smith’s “Faith Promise” system, “no one will ever ask you for it” – but in his description of Paul’s system, someone does ask for it! His text will not bear the weight of his teaching.

I have gone to many a church that has been opposed to a pledge offering, but as soon as I have explained the nature of a Faith Promise Offering, all opposition has disappeared, and those who have been most antagonistic to a pledge of any kind, have been perfectly willing to accept the plan of a Faith Promise Offering, and God has accomplished wonders.

I believe we could get all the missionary money we need if we would take up Faith Promise Offerings in all our churches.

These two paragraphs once again appeal to the pragmatism of the practice. I have no problem believing that doing things God’s way is practical. However, that is not the reason we do those things. And in this case, Smith fails to clearly establish that his practice comports with Scripture. 

Interestingly, Smith promotes this as a marvelous missions munificence, while never bothering to explain that this New Testament era collection was being taken for the saints at Jerusalem, not missions.

Have you ever given such an offering? If not, do it and you will be amazed the way God will bless you.

* Dr. Oswald J. Smith was the originator of the idea of a Faith Promise offering for missions. For many years, he was pastor of The Peoples Church in Toronto, Canada, where he challenged that congregation to raise $1 for missions for every $1 they spent on themselves. That story still continues today with his son as pastor.

The anonymous respondent claimed that “if you listened to him carefully, you’d have known that he wasn’t the creator of the idea.” Yet this tract plainly credits Oswald J. Smith as “the originator of the idea of a Faith Promise offering for missions.” I didn’t make that up.

Perhaps “anonymous” can equivocate because there were some antecedents before Smith created the “Faith Promise offering for missions.” 

In “Faith Promise Giving,” Eugene Gurganus says it originated with A. B. Simpson and was refined by Oswald J. Smith (Missions in the Local Church, Melbourne E. Cuthbert, Jeannie Lockerbie, 1998 p. 147). I think the clarity is found that Simpson was using a form of pledging which Smith refined and named “Faith Promise.”

“How God Taught Me to Give” by Oswald J. Smith is his personal testimony that shows he does not credit the word of God for showing him this truth, but a sort of subjective experience in which God told him to give a faith promise offering.

In the video How God Taught Me to Give, Oswald Smith tells his experience, beginning with the Proverbs 11:24-25. Despite starting with a text, the testimony is based on an experience, not from studying the Bible.

Perhaps Smith’s own son helps clear up the timeline. He writes about it this way:

The first faith promise offering in our times was probably organized by a Presbyterian minister. Dr. A. B. Simpson founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination — although a denomination was not a part of his original vision. Dr. Simpson was greatly concerned about world evangelization and the older Alliance churches existed primarily to promote and support foreign missions.

To do this they had a missionary convention every year at which their people were urged to designate a large percentage of their total giving to missions. They still do this. The offering is a commitment of what people will trust God to enable them to do win the next twelve months and it is generally called a pledge. The Christian and Missionary Alliance churches established the system and led the way for the rest of us in this kind of giving for missions.

…

The Alliance method of raising money for mission captured father’s imagination, but he was bothered by their use of the word ‘pledge.’ …My father searched for some word that would express the concept that had always been used in the Christian and Missionary Alliance churches – a word to take the place of ‘pledge.’

He concluded that the two words ‘faith promise’ would be ideal. This would retain the missionary offering concept of the Alliance people and eliminate the unfortunate connotations of the word ‘pledge.’ Whether or not this was actually originated by father I do not know. However, it is safe to say that it was his ministry that made the evangelical world familiar with the expression ‘faith promise.’ Very few of the tracts or booklets that have been written on the subject can complete their topic without reference at some point to Dr. Oswald J. Smith. (The Senders: World Missions Conferences and Faith Promise Offerings, Paul B. Smith, Burlington, Ontario: Welch Publishing Company, Inc., 1979, pp. 59-61)

So, according Paul Smith, Oswald J. Smith’s son, the “faith promise” system rose out of the missions pledge of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Smith tweaked it, gave it a new name, and new emphasis. The contemporary “faith promise giving” most certainly finds its genesis in Smith, even if he drew on the previous practices of others. Nevertheless, whether it originated with Oswald J. Smith, A. B. Simpson, or someone else is a deflection from the scriptural discussion, and will not make the errors of it scriptural.

“You don’t need any faith to give a cash offering,” says Oswald J. Smith. Says I, “Tell that to the poor widow who gave her two mites.”

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Note: For another writing on Faith Promise giving, see Is “Faith Promise Mission Giving” Bible-Based?