This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 15, 1994.

Our scripture reading this evening begins in Matthew 21, verse 1. Listen carefully to the word of God. And when they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphagia, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her, and tie them and bring them to me. And if anyone says something to you, you shall say, The Lord has need of them.

And immediately he sent them. Now, this took place that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted upon a donkey, even upon a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. And the disciples went and did just as Jesus had directed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid on them their garments, on which he sat.

And most of the multitude spread their garments in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. And the multitudes going before him and those who followed after were crying out, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.

And when he had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, Who is this? And the multitudes were saying, this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. And Jesus entered the temple and cast out all those who were buying and selling in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling dogs. And he said to them, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a robber’s den. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he had done, and the children who were crying out in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David, they became indignant and said to him, Do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, Yes, have you never read out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes, Thou hast prepared praise for thyself? And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

Then turning to 2 Corinthians 2, verse 17, for we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God. Our Father, we do acknowledge that your word is without error. We thank you for this sure anchor for our Christian lives. We pray, Father, for that proper respect and reverence for your word. Give us, therefore, attentive hearts and souls as we would concentrate upon the word which you have given to us. And pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I have thought that it was important for me to strike while the iron is hot. I felt that it was important that I complete the thoughts from the morning message, so we are continuing on with our reflections upon 2 Corinthians 2 verse 17. As we have said about this text, Paul’s words here at the end of 2 Corinthians 2 are not only direct and deliberately confrontational, they are complex.

By his choice of words, Paul has charged his opponents with being dishonest, comparable to hucksters, shysters, These, says the Apostle, corrupt the word of God by mixing the gospel with other things, by mixing the gospel even with such a formidable figure as Moses, as is proved in the third chapter of this epistle. and that in such a way that Moses is appropriated at a level that destroys his true worth, his true value for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

For Moses, according to this scheme proposed by the false teachers, Moses is appropriated at an earthly level. at the level purely of the earth. And that makes him and his ministry servants of the external world, the world of appearances, the earthly. But by mixing such a perspective on Moses with the gospel has meant a subordination for the gospel itself. a subordination of the gospel to the same external level, the same level as that which is now held onto in this particular vision with respect to the ministry of Moses. The level at which we are now operating is the level of the temporary, the temporary world of appearances. so that not just Moses is viewed at this level, but Jesus Christ and his gospel as well. This means, then, that the gospel has been subordinated, and that the eternal, heavenly gospel of glory is now subjected to the transitory, the temporary order of things.

Despite the claims of his opponents to Moses, to a world of practical, useful principles and laws for religious living, Paul could not be more adamant or more bold in his opposition to these men. But having said all this, we are compelled to go even further, to probe deeply and to to probe more deeply into the mind of the Apostle. Yes, Paul’s words do operate at the pejorative level, that level which we have already suggested.

We properly read in these words in 2 Corinthians 2.17 reference to the unscrupulous character of Paul’s enemies. These people are, in fact, religious, theological, doctrinal shysters. That is what they are. As we said this morning, there is that level at which these words can be read quite innocently. Paul here, as we noted this morning, is using commercial language.

Stripping away the pejorative character of his terminology, he is speaking here about salesmen. He’s talking about salesmen. Certainly there’s nothing wrong, per se, with salesmen, is there? The world, after all, needs salesmen, does it not? Salesmen are a necessity to the order of things, are they not? Christians can pursue a living in sales, and that is an honorable pursuit, is it not?

Paul, at the most fundamental level of his use of words here, says of the many in 2 Corinthians 2.17 that they are salesmen of the Word of God. But as we’ve indicated, selling is an honorable profession. What could be wrong with seeing the ministry along the lines of, in terms of, this honorable profession?

Aren’t there general principles and laws that pertain to communication, to the presentation of a product by which selling and preaching the gospel might in fact be linked? Aren’t we who are involved in the ministry of the gospel much like salesmen? Don’t we find an appropriate analogy, an illustration here?

Aren’t we concerned to get our audience interested in our product? Indeed, we can say it’s the greatest product of all, the greatest product the world has ever seen. Are we not concerned to make a good impression? Should we not dress to make such an impression? Are we not concerned to close a deal, to have the customer buy our wares?

In 1924, Bruce Barton published a book entitled The Man Nobody Knows, subtitled a discovery of the real Jesus. Now, he built his book off of that text from Luke 2, where the child Jesus says to his parents, Know ye not that I must be about my father’s business? According to Barton, the word business in that context referred to the world of commerce. or was an appropriate image lifted out of the world of commerce, the world of buying and selling. The discovery Barton had made about the real Jesus was that Jesus was a businessman. Here is the real Jesus, the prototype for the modern salesman. Barton then goes on to identify Jesus as the true executive. and the founder of modern business.

Now there is something in us, even if we are salespeople ourselves, that recoils at this description. It sounds like a trivializing of the person and the ministry of Jesus Christ. But there’s something even more deeply wrong with it. Is it because there is something wrong with the job of selling? Because there is something dishonorable about being a businessman? No. The reason why we recoil from this description is because we sense an incongruity between the two things in view. an incongruity between selling something and presenting the gospel. 1987 was an important year in Orthodox Presbyterian history. In June of that year, prior to the General Assembly, the Committee on Home Missions for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church ran a full-page ad in Eternity Magazine.

That ad was entitled, She Wants It All, and pictured a not unattractive female showing a lot of leg, working out on an exercise machine. To say the least, she was a real attention grabber. The copy for the ad identified yuppies, of which obviously this young lady was one, as one of the newer lost people groups in the United States.

The copy also went on to tell the reader that the OTC was now presently pumping spiritual iron, that the OTC was using street smart techniques The Church had targeted Southern California with a phoning campaign that had reached 14,000 households and had led to 165 attending a worship service in San Marcos and 130 attending a worship service in Miramese. The ads then assured the reader that he or she could not go wrong giving money to the evangelistic effort of the OPC. After all, the OPC had fifty years’ experience in, quote, successful church planting, unquote. And for a minimum gift of fifty dollars, you could receive, as a bonus, a free gift of R.C. Sproul’s latest book.

It’s all available to you also through a toll-free number. Now, this ad did not escape the attention of many a commissioner to the General Assembly. And many of those commissioners were quite distressed about all of the items, each one of them, that I have listed for you here this evening.

But the one thing most offensive about the ad is the very thing Paul is dealing with in 2 Corinthians 2.17.

You see, our whole missions committee had moved in such a direction that it now thought it appropriate to mix evangelism with business, and that doing evangelism is actually just doing business, that doing evangelism is merely another exercise in salesmanship. The resulting incongruity was testimony not only to the fact that this was an improper approach to the whole matter of the Church and its ministry, but even more tragically, you see, it was a testimony to the fact that our Church had given way to what was now a wicked approach. An approach that commercialized the Church and her efforts. The repositioning of the Church and her life in a business setting, with the Church now the retailer, the Gospel as the product, Church members and Others outside the Church, prospective consumers, customers.

All this amounted to a very corrupt perspective upon the Church. Truly, a low ebb in the life of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. A low point in her history. When the dust cleared after the assembly, conclusion of the controversy, the whole mission’s committee had been appropriately chided, letters of apology were extracted from the committee and its leadership, and the general secretary who was responsible for all of this had moved on, had left the denomination. But not that the entire episode I have just reviewed for you didn’t raise the narrower issues that dog the steps of those who treat the church as a business.

There is the issue of the interchangeability of products. Do you feel the weight of that as you look at the marriage of business and ecclesiology? The interchangeability of products. Does it really matter whether you’re selling Christ or soap? Is not the technique the same? Does it really matter whether you’re selling the church, or cornflakes, or a car?

Aren’t you amazed sometimes when you listen to some of these people who are masters at selling the gospel? If you close your eyes, you filter out the religious language, doesn’t it sound as if you’re listening to a used car ad? the interchangeability of products.

There are the techniques of salesmanship. There are the methods that salesmen learn. Preachers, evangelists, missionaries are no different, are they? They would do well to master the techniques of salesmanship so that they can close the deal. the interchangeability of products. There is also the interconnected issue of truth in advertising. What temptations now come to the Church as she marries with the business model? The whole question of truth in advertising becomes a pitfall, does it not?

Let’s take the OP ad that we reviewed here earlier. Do you realize that that ad, even in the information that I supplied you, contained deliberately deceptive statements? It contained, I’m telling you, deliberately deceptive statements. By this I’m not saying that good salesmen deliberately deceive their customers.

But, you see, there is the pitfall there. There is the pitfall that always bogs the steps of those who are involved in the business world. This issue impinges upon the Church in a very real way when she adopts the business model. Truth in advertising.

What the ad failed to tell the reader when it spoke about the 14,000 phone calls and all those people that showed up at those two sites was the fact that most of those people came from OT congregations in other parts of California. Those people showed up because they wanted to be an encouragement to those two fledgling groups that were taking shape. As to the claim made in the ad with respect to 50 years of successful church planning, let’s look at the record, folks. The OPC has watched as many congregations follow and desert the denomination as have remained in it over those 50 years. Now, I don’t know how you measure success. If I’m a businessman and I’m reading this ad along the lines that a businessman would expect to read it, that certainly isn’t registering to me success. I’m just turning my own, I think.

Well, selling is an honorable profession, but the business world hardly provides a just and adequate model for the gospel ministry in that the two, the gospel ministry and the world of business, are standing in an incongruous relationship. But beyond this incongruity is the liability, as I’ve indicated to you, the temptation that comes when the Church resorts to the business model. it becomes increasingly easy for the Church to slide over into the darker side of the model that it adopts, all the time claiming, of course, that it is pursuing the very best of causes, and that the ends justify the means.

But Paul will have none of this. And I might add, neither would Jesus Christ, who had driven the businessmen out of the temple courts because of the incongruity in the mixing of those two spheres. And I might remind you of the prophet Zechariah, Zechariah was just as exacting. According to one translation of the last verse of his prophecy, chapter 14, verse 21, the final state of God’s new and final administration will bring about a state of affairs in which there is no longer a merchant in the house of the Lord of Hosts.

As I said at the beginning of this message, as I have presented my case throughout the day, the thought that the Apostle presents to us here in 2 Corinthians 2.17 is complex.

My encouragement to you is to plumb its depths and to talk from it. lest the Church be tempted and succumb. Lord, give us strength, and give us that right and proper vision with respect to the Church of Jesus Christ and its ministry, and the integrity that is to characterize the proclamation of the Gospel.

Our Father, the latter half of this century has been devastating to the Church of Jesus Christ in this country. And that’s not unrelated to the fact that many who have professed the gospel, who have claimed to have calling to preach the gospel, are nothing short of shysters. O Father, we are not stranger to these things within our own denomination, for there have been those who have risen, who have embraced a business model for the church and imposed that model upon the people of God. But Lord, we know that to do this means to cause your gospel to live at the level of the temporary, the transitory, the earthly.

Bless us, O God, in contrast to such an effort, with the fullness of that gospel that Paul proclaimed. May we see then the purity of your church, the purity of the ministry, and the exalted nature of our Christ, who reigns in glory now. May it please you, Lord, to give to your church those who will proclaim your word with integrity. May we who are to listen and receive that word, O God, may we have discernment, lest some merchant come among us. We ask, O God, that we would be preserved and checked. And this through Christ, the very one who drove the merchants out of the temple. We pray it in his name.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.