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Are There Bible Verses for Every Situation?

Are there Bible verses for every situation?

Did Jesus say our contributions must or should always be given to the local church? Nope, not in so many words. One can make a case—as many have—for the “storehouse” of Malachi 3:10 being the church, but we need to be careful in pushing these things too far. What about the only church in an area being apostate, and the giver sees a family of believers in great need? I might say, “Give it to the needy family.” I have no verse saying to do this. Or, what if one’s church has all the money it needs and more, yet the little church back at home is struggling to stay afloat? As someone asked this week, could our tithes be sent there? Where’s the scripture verse okaying this?

At the moment our Lord honored the widow (Mark 12:41-44) for giving sacrificially into the temple treasury, the place was being run by a bunch of crooks. In Mark 11:17 Jesus called them “a den of thieves.”

To give or not to give when you disagree with how things are being run down at the church, that is the question. And it’s not a simply “yes or no” affair.

We “see through a glass darkly” (I Corinthians 13:12) on numerous things, and thus must seek God’s will on our knees with our Bibles open before us.

The Bible does not speak to parachurch organizations like Campus Crusade, Intervarsity and various evangelistic associations, all of which require finances from God’s people. Global Maritime Ministries or Baptist Friendship House simply are not found in Scripture anywhere.

Is there a verse that tells us what to do? Does Scripture give us the freedom to decide where to put the Lord’s tithe?

(We pause here while a hundred readers suggest a hundred different verses. Help us, Lord.)

I have a Scripture.

This one works for me …

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit;  for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:5-6).

The letter kills; the Spirit gives life.

(When I quoted that in some article, one horrified reader wanted to know where I found such a heretical statement. After we pointed out it was right there in God’s Word, he was strangely silent.)

When someone wrote asking if I could give them a verse of Scripture telling when they should move their membership to another church, I said, “There ain’t one. Ask the Lord.”

God’s people must be wary of proof-texting our actions, of justifying what we decide to do by a verse of Scripture, and of the need to find one before acting.

It would have been literally impossible for the Lord to give us a Bible big enough to include verses that cover every conceivable situation. And so, He did a huge thing …

He decided to indwell believers.

The Holy Spirit, author of our Bible (see 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:21), lives inside believers to guide us in decision-making.

How blessed we are. How wonderful He is.

“He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3).

The Holy Spirit, Jesus said, “will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:26). He will “guide you into all truth,” He said in John 16:13.

My limited experience is that the Spirit loves to use the written Word to speak to us and direct our actions. But that does not mean He is limited to this. “He does whatever He pleases,” says Psalm 115:3, no doubt meaning He uses whatever methods are to His liking at the moment. Even a jackass, as is often pointed out.

Read the Word. Obey it.

At this point, many readers are eager to add that “we find principles in God’s word and apply them to the thousands of situations where He has not spoken.” True enough. But the primary principle, one that covers every situation, and has been tested ten thousand times in every generation is this:

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and he will direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

The legalists among us despise this because it removes Scripture from being a rule-book and puts the onus on believers to stay close to the Lord in heart and in life. And that is a much more difficult proposition. But it’s how the Christian life works.