The term 'career evangelist' and 'career missionary' may sound like oxymorons. They should be oxymorons. However, they describe the reality in the modern western Church.
John MacArthur in an article titled Metamorphosis, Part 1 about how change in the west influenced the Church in the west wrote:
By far the most subtle and dangerous Western influences came in through church-growth experts, missiologists, and professional pollsters. Unlike the televangelists and street performers, these academicians managed to gain a platform within Russian-speaking churches. They were trusted because they were writers, career missionaries, seminary professors with credentials, and even pastors. They brought loads of books and ideas, virtually all of them advocating a highly pragmatic approach to ministry that was foreign in every sense to a church that had lived under communist persecution for the better part of a century.
Twice in this article did MacArthur say he felt embarrassed about the way in which the modern Church in the west use earthly, worldly means of evangelism. Indeed, career missionaries do exist. The term career missionary may sound derogatory to you and offend you. So it should! But to some of you who may be offended by these terms, it is because you are career missionary yourself, but you find that term offensive because you don't want to admit you are one.
A career missionary is one who does missionary work, not as a calling, but rather as a means of earthly survival. He or she takes on such work, to earn a living. It is totally possible for one to take on a spiritual job, like that of pastor, evangelist or missionary, out of a desire to earn a living, as opposed to truly serve God and fulfill His Will for you in the calling He has given you.
The modern Church in Australia, and every liberal western country is full of them. Although they are not false teachers like those described in Romans 16:18 and Philippians 3:19, they are just as abominable and despicable because they are hypocrites. They are not really genuine in their preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They may do so actively and regularly, but their real true motive is to have a 'job', as a 'missionary', by having the basis to convince naive Christians to donate money to them.
Many missionaries in Australia ask people to donate money to them, even by credit card! Their pathetic cries for donations is just a manifestation of being under the spirit of mammon, to sum it up. This is by no means saying that it is wrong to help those who do the work of God some financial support. By no means! To say that would be to say that what the early Church in Macedonia as described in 2 Corinthians 9 did was wrong, which is not what I am saying:
For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you:
2 For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many.
3 Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready:
4 Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting.
5 Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness.
6 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.
7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:
9 (As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever.
10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)
11 Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.
12 For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God;
13 Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men;
14 And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you.
15 Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
Rather, it is to say that for one to ask for money, on one's part is wrong. To who donate money out of a genuine heart of love, are righteous on their part: But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth (1 John 3:17-18).
But those who ask for money, crying out for it as if God Himself does not provide, do wrong on their part.
Let us not trust in the arms of the flesh, but in the arms of God. Let us heed the command, yes, command, of Jesus Christ when He said:
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (Matthew 6:28-34).
The Church being full of mammonised pastors, missionaries and evangelists who are full of the fear of man is only a manifestation of the root problem. The root problem is that many in the modern Church have a false view of what Jesus said about living for Him, because they do not esteem His Word highly enough. This results in earthly worldly thinking which seeks to pursuit a comfortable life, and one that is full of the fear of man, leading to pragmatism in the modern Church in all its labour for God, whether it be evangelism or church-planting, or Bible teaching. Mammonisation, fear of man and pragmatism in spiritual work are all linked together. This series will examine why.
See: http://www.gty.org/blog/B100205/metamorphosis-part-1-end-of-the-cold-war
John MacArthur in an article titled Metamorphosis, Part 1 about how change in the west influenced the Church in the west wrote:
By far the most subtle and dangerous Western influences came in through church-growth experts, missiologists, and professional pollsters. Unlike the televangelists and street performers, these academicians managed to gain a platform within Russian-speaking churches. They were trusted because they were writers, career missionaries, seminary professors with credentials, and even pastors. They brought loads of books and ideas, virtually all of them advocating a highly pragmatic approach to ministry that was foreign in every sense to a church that had lived under communist persecution for the better part of a century.
Twice in this article did MacArthur say he felt embarrassed about the way in which the modern Church in the west use earthly, worldly means of evangelism. Indeed, career missionaries do exist. The term career missionary may sound derogatory to you and offend you. So it should! But to some of you who may be offended by these terms, it is because you are career missionary yourself, but you find that term offensive because you don't want to admit you are one.
A career missionary is one who does missionary work, not as a calling, but rather as a means of earthly survival. He or she takes on such work, to earn a living. It is totally possible for one to take on a spiritual job, like that of pastor, evangelist or missionary, out of a desire to earn a living, as opposed to truly serve God and fulfill His Will for you in the calling He has given you.
The modern Church in Australia, and every liberal western country is full of them. Although they are not false teachers like those described in Romans 16:18 and Philippians 3:19, they are just as abominable and despicable because they are hypocrites. They are not really genuine in their preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They may do so actively and regularly, but their real true motive is to have a 'job', as a 'missionary', by having the basis to convince naive Christians to donate money to them.
Many missionaries in Australia ask people to donate money to them, even by credit card! Their pathetic cries for donations is just a manifestation of being under the spirit of mammon, to sum it up. This is by no means saying that it is wrong to help those who do the work of God some financial support. By no means! To say that would be to say that what the early Church in Macedonia as described in 2 Corinthians 9 did was wrong, which is not what I am saying:
For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you:
2 For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many.
3 Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready:
4 Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting.
5 Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness.
6 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.
7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:
9 (As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever.
10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)
11 Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.
12 For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God;
13 Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men;
14 And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you.
15 Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
Rather, it is to say that for one to ask for money, on one's part is wrong. To who donate money out of a genuine heart of love, are righteous on their part: But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth (1 John 3:17-18).
But those who ask for money, crying out for it as if God Himself does not provide, do wrong on their part.
Let us not trust in the arms of the flesh, but in the arms of God. Let us heed the command, yes, command, of Jesus Christ when He said:
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (Matthew 6:28-34).
The Church being full of mammonised pastors, missionaries and evangelists who are full of the fear of man is only a manifestation of the root problem. The root problem is that many in the modern Church have a false view of what Jesus said about living for Him, because they do not esteem His Word highly enough. This results in earthly worldly thinking which seeks to pursuit a comfortable life, and one that is full of the fear of man, leading to pragmatism in the modern Church in all its labour for God, whether it be evangelism or church-planting, or Bible teaching. Mammonisation, fear of man and pragmatism in spiritual work are all linked together. This series will examine why.
See: http://www.gty.org/blog/B100205/metamorphosis-part-1-end-of-the-cold-war
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