The summer of 2004 marked a new open phase for Truth Magazine and the Guardian of Truth Foundation. The foundation became more overt in its religious intentions and efforts when it had its "First Annual Lectureship." This gospel meeting was conducted by the foundation in an effort to edify saints and teach the lost. While the foundation does not solicit or accept monies from churches, with the lectureship it clearly progressed from being an alleged secular foundation run by and comprised of brethren for the purpose of making money. It officially and overtly placed itself into a privately funded entity status that affords and encourages Christians to pool their resources in working through a human organization to teach and preach the gospel, an organization in addition to and separate from the local church, which God has appointed to afford such pooling and organization for Christians to collectively preach the gospel (I Tim. 3: 15, see addendum). It was apparent to all that have been following the emergence of the new Guardian of Truth Foundation that groundwork for the new and bold religious undertaking was prepared by board member Ron Halbrook. Ron began anterior to the lectureships by publishing an article titled, "Let The Church Be The Church!" One publication was in the Gospel Truths magazine (September 24, 2004 issue. J. T. Smith, the editor also published a rebuttal by Jere Frost in the same issue). I shall at this time attempt to succinctly review Ron's material.

     I shall begin my review by pointing out the essential incongruous nature of Ron's article. In simple parlance, the title does not fit the contents. Judging from the, "Let The Church Be The Church!" title, one would expect to read how God has assigned certain work to the organization that He has provided through which Christians are to collectively work under the oversight of elders (I Tim. 3: 15, Acts 14: 23, I Pet. 5: 2ff.). However, the thrust of Ron's material is to promote a human institution in which brethren have pooled their resources acting as a local church in preaching the gospel. Hence, the whole material is characterized by deceit, in my view.

     Author Ron Halbrook states a number of truths with which I readily concur (most errorists will mix some truth in their presentation of error and this is what Ron did, 2 Pet. 2: 1ff. The expression "privily shall bring in" in Second Peter 2: 1 is from the Greek pareisaxousin. Para means by the side and eis indicates entrance and direction. Hence, error is often introduced by the side of the truth). Consider some:

     Ron supplies more substantive comments when he wrote:

     Ron indicates more openly the direction in which he really wants to guide the reader when he wrote:

     Consider the rationale used by Ron Halbrook to promote the Guardian of Truth Foundation functioning as a local church:

     When I have asked brethren who were involved in organizations as to the authority for such organizations preaching the gospel, they would typically reply by saying, "We are selling and providing a service for Christians and churches." When further probed, they would answer by saying, "No, we as an organization are not doing the work of the local church, we are simply in business to make money and if we did not make money or charge for our service, we would not offer it!" With the advent of Ron's material, there is no longer the, "…if we did not make money or charge for our service, we would not offer it!" argument. Again, writing about the Guardian of Truth Foundation Ron stated:

     The issue of the privately funded missionary society. God has assigned the collective or corporate work of edifying the saved, teaching the lost and when there is the circumstances, relieving the physical needs of saints to his organization, the local church (Eph. 4: 16, 2 Tim. 4: 2ff.; I Tim. 3: 15; I Cor. 16: 1, 2). We read of no other organization through which Christians pool their resources (treasury and organizational structure) to perform this work. To thus reason that Christians may form other organizations to do the work of the church is to ignore what is expressly taught and to fallaciously reason based on the silence of the scriptures ("even though it says what to do, it does not say not to do the other," see Hebrews 7: 11-14). God has his organization to afford collective work and his entity is overseen by qualified men called elders, not a board of directors!

     A number of neo-institutional brethren have now openly and aggressively embraced the position that as long as the church treasury is not involved, they may form privately funded organizations that do the work God has assigned to the local church. Observe Ron Halbrook's reasoning:

     Notice how Ron uses the apposition grammatical stance as expressed in the participle, "taking donations from churches". In fact, Ron repeatedly uses such construction:

     The matter of proof for privately funded missionary societies. Ron, who is usually a book, chapter, and verse preacher, attempts to thus offer Bible authority for his Guardian of Truth Foundation now openly functioning under the mission statement of preaching the gospel to the lost and edifying the saved:

     As mentioned, these neo-institutional men previously contended that they sold a service and thus justified their organizations. Ron retains a little of the old rationale:

     Keep in mind that Ron and many other proponents of privately funded missionary societies have now dropped the above claim. Again, hear Ron:

     What is wrong with brethren pooling their resources and forming privately funded missionary societies, edification orders, and relief for needy saints organizations? In the first place, God has told us what organization to use, the local church. I remind all of the simple hermeneutic rule that when a specific is supplied, all that constitutes a different matter is excluded and is to be viewed as an aberrant. In the second place, such organizations as the Guardian of Truth Foundation and Truth Magazine are conducive to brotherhood politics and cliques. Matters that they think should or should not constitute issues are often decided within these groups. If a preacher is not physically joined to one of these groups then, "If you are not with us, you are against us, and we will destroy you and force you out of preaching," as I was told when I was a young preacher.

     What is the bottom line? The bottom line is brethren need to respect the teaching of God's word and cease playing church. Preachers who experience excessive job insecurity so much so that they have to form their cliques and organizations, need to simply get out of full time preaching. Moreover, "Let The Church Be The Church!" and let Christians be satisfied with pooling their resources in the local church circumstance to collectively preach the gospel.  (Related material to study is:  "Institutionalism and Church Supported Orphanages" "The Society System" and "Privately Supported Missionary Societies, etc. Exchange")