In doing ministry in rural Africa over an extended period (1988 to date), I have seen a lot of problems arising from the way the western missionary force carries out ministry using foreign money. I was prompted to go back to the Scriptures.

I have often been struck by Luke 10 verses 3-12, and asked myself why Jesus advocated this particular approach to ministry? Verses 3 and 4 were especially striking: “Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.”

I then discovered that there were other very similar verses in the Bible, such as Luke 9:3 (“take nothing for the journey”), Matthew 10:9-10 (“take no bag for the journey”), Mark 6:8-9 (“take … no bread, no bag, no money in your belts”). These were Jesus’ words when he sent his disciples on evangelistic trips![1]

There are other pointers in the Scriptures to the importance of this kind of vulnerability in ministry. Jesus, the king of kings, was born to a poor family in a cattle-shed. That’s quite something. We find no records of Jesus having maintained any financial reserve to fund his ministry. We certainly do not find any record of his having acquired favour through giving funds to the needy. In the classic instance of John 12:1-8, Jesus is of the opinion that the problem of poverty will not be solved.[2]

Noting this, prompted me to look into the Old Testament. Gideon gives us a classic example of a story in which human weakness reveals God’s strength. Here are God’s amazing words regarding Midian, the enemy to Israel: “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands” (Judges 7:2). God was concerned that Israel not boast that she had saved herself through her own strength (7:2)! God wanted to make it clear that HE was the one who had the power to defeat the Midianites. He wanted Gideon to go to battle with as small an army as possible!

I tried to think of the ministry of other Old Testament characters. David’s classic heroic act of killing Goliath was achieved with a sling-shot. Abraham was considered righteous, not because of the great things that he did, certainly not because of his donor activity, but because he “believed the LORD” (Genesis 15:6). There was no mention of a budget being made available to Isaiah to help him to fulfil his prophetic calling (Isaiah 6). One occasion on which the Old Testament does refer to a ‘collection’, (Exodus 32:1-4); the money was used to make an idolatrous golden calf!

Biblical testimony does not seem to advocate a combination of ministry with the ‘giving’ of money, I began to realise. But then1 John 3:17 came to mind: “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” says my NIV Bible. This seems to be a clear admonition to give if ever there was one! I decided to research this verse. I discovered that what the NIV translates as ‘material possessions’ is in Greek ton bion tou kosmou, which could alternatively be translated as ‘the life of the world’, and what the NIV translates as ‘has no pity on him’ is in Greek kleish ta splagcna autou ap autou which could equally be translated as ‘closes the heart of him from him’ or ‘doesn’t feel for him in his guts’. I realised that John is saying that the need of our brother should move us deep in our guts, but what we should do about it need not necessarily be an international transfer of funds.

I realised that 1 John 3:17 is translated as it is in the NIV so as to emphasise the need for Christians to give money to the poor, even though that may not have been in John’s mind as he originally wrote at all! This is a result of dynamic equivalence translation; in which the words of Scripture are translated according to a pre-understanding of what they should mean.[3]

I do NOT see the need to claim from the above, that Christian ministry must ALWAYS be done in a ‘vulnerable’ way as above. But, I would suggest, that Scriptural example clearly advocates that SOME Christian ministry should be done in this way. These Scriptures, amongst others, are taken very seriously by the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission, which advocates that some western missionaries should carry out their ministries using the languages and resources of the people outside of the West who they are reaching. For more details go to https://lmconversation.wpengine.com/en/groups/view/1024 and see also www.vulnerablemission.com

[1] Luke 22:35-38 is interesting. It seems to contradict the above, but for Jesus enigmatic response to the offer from the disciples that they should carry swords!

[2] Of course there is a sense in which ‘charity’ creates poverty and encourages begging, which perhaps Jesus was trying to avoid?

[3] For more on this see Harries, Jim. 2009. ’Pragmatic Linguistics Applied to Bible Translation, Projects and Inter-cultural Relationships: an African focus.’ 75-95 In: Cultural Encounters: a journal for the theology of culture, Volume 5, number 1, Winter 2009 or Harries, Jim, 2006, ’Biblical Hermeneutics in Relation to Conventions of Language Use in Africa: pragmatics applied to interpretation in cross cultural context.’ 49-59 In: Evangelical Review of Theology, Volume 30, No. 1, January 2006.