Pringle says,

“Do you know a transaction takes place the moment you receive spiritual life, one half of it comes into you, one half of the transaction is that truth coming into you, and to activate that truth, I have no doubt about this, that we actually have got to return the same kind of honour, the same kind of impact its had back on us, back to that servant of God. Paul says if I have ministered to you spiritual things its a small matter that you would minister to me in in natural things carnal things like money, he says its a comparison though, the comparison is is is very hard to make he says between a spiritual quality and a natural thing, but he says the reason that that transaction has to happen is for it to trigger the impact of grace in your life, to trigger the impact of this message in your life, ’cause we can hear it and go away with information, or else we can go out of this place with a revelation that’s deep in our spirit, and one of the ways we make that happen is by blessing the vessel that its come to us through.” – Phil Pringle, C3 Oxford Falls, (1:05), 08/04/2012.

Pringle says we should give money to a leader to “trigger the impact of grace” in our lives. How is that grace? Isn’t this buying ‘grace’? In response to Pringle’s love offering sermon, Pastor Gervase Charmley gave this response:

I am tempted to imitate Martyn Lloyd-Jones at this point and reply with the word “rubbish!” *I am quite certain that is what he would have said reading this. What we have here is an example of a false conclusion, or rather a text dragged in and misapplied to give apparent support to that which is unsupported. The ‘transaction’ Pringle is teaching is no-where found in the Scriptures, it is an invention of man. It is not even based on an actual Bible text, but a mis-quotation of Romans 15:27, which is in fact talking about helping poor Christians in Jerusalem. These poor Christians belonged to the Jewish Church which first sent out the Gospel to the Gentiles, and therefore made those Gentiles “partakers of their spiritual things”. Now that those Christians were suffering poverty and need, it was only right that the Gentiles should “minister to them in material things.” The text is not even saying what Pringle says it does!

Now, in 1 Corinthians 9:11 (which Pringle seems to have conflated with the Romans passage in his mind), Paul does say, “If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things?” This is part of an extended section in which Paul is talking about is the undoubted responsibility of the Church to support the ministry of the word (in a reasonable and proportionate way; no man ever got rich by being a Baptist Pastor, as I have often said, and that is how it should be, says he who is a Baptist pastor). It is notable that there he does not talk about missed blessings, or anything in any way corresponding to the idea that we have to so give “to trigger the impact of grace.” Indeed, for Paul to say that we have to do such a thing would be utterly repugnant. Grace is God’s initiative, it not something we have to ‘trigger’ in its impact or anything else. You will look in vain for such an idea in 1 Corinthians 9, which is merely an exhortation for the Church to support the ministry of the word.

The majority of what is being said is, I am afraid, best described by Shakespeare, “Like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” It is merely a way to try to get people to give more money, by promising that if they do they will receive a special revelation. To return to the Doctor, “Rubbish!”