When you leave Highway 37 South of Indianapolis, after traveling through Bobby Knight country past Indiana University, you make a right turn on to U.S. 450 soon after you enter Bedford, just after you pass Walmart; and you are on your way to Trinity Springs, Indiana.  But before you reach the land of nowhere, you are going to drive over one of the most winding, picturesque forty miles of wooded landscape that could only make an artist drool, or where Ballard MacDonald must have gone before he wrote “Back Home Again in Indiana”.  If you don’t crash or end up head long in a beautiful lake, that you are sure to run into, if you don’t keep your eyes on the road, you will come to the big metropolis of Trinity Springs, population 60 not counting dogs and cats.  There is no stop light, no gas station, no grocery store, drug store, or scrool house as Rush would say, and no Andy Griffin or Barney.   No nothin’ but a few houses, and some out houses.  Oh, and before I forget, there is one business establishment according to Martin County assessor Carolyn Magwire , it is “a commercial theater”, which in her great wisdom she has so declared the 157 year old Trinity Baptist Church to be, which sits in the center of town with its forty foot bell tower looming over the country side like a quiet sentinel, which would make it the only theater in America with a bell tower.

 

Many will say, why is Pastor Jones and the Trinity Springs folks, making such a big deal out of a little piece of paper, like an exemption form, after all the other churches have all filed theirs?  First that’s the biggest problem.  All the pastors and churches have bowed except Pastor Jones and Trinity Baptist Church.  It was the same when they all bowed to Haman except Mordecai and It was the same way with the three Hebrew Children when Old Nebee made his image of Gold and demanded that they all bow down and worship it.  Everyone did but Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

 

And then there is that problem with the first commandment.  “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”  That does get sticky at times.  The Lord’s church doesn’t have to get permission to do God’s work.  The Lord Jesus said, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.   Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:  (Mat 28:19).    If the Lord Jesus has all power or authority, He hasn’t left any for any other to have over His church that He bled and died for.  The Lord’s church is not tax-exempt, it is non-taxable.  The meaning of exempt is, “Free, or released, from some liability to which others are subject; excepted from the operation or burden of some law.”  The church for which Christ died, is not liable for the laws that the state passes for corporations and other tax-exempt Public Charities such as corporations, unincorporated associations or corporations sole, etc. (See IRS Pub. 1828). 

 

Also the Lord’s churches are not ruled by statutory law but by the Holy Scriptures.  There is a vast difference between that which is legal and that which is lawful.  The state can make something legal, but only God can make it lawful.  The disciples had this same problem when they told the religious leaders in the early days of the church, We ought to obey God rather than men, when the religious rulers told them that they were not to teach in Jesus name, or in His authority rather than with ecclesiastical/state authority.

 

By refusing to file the exemption form, and demanding all of their rights guaranteed by the Indiana and Federal constitutions, Trinity Springs is declaring that the Lord Jesus Christ is the head over His church according to Eph. (5:23) not the state.   Taxes can only be paid to a sovereign.  The Lord Jesus said, …Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. (Mt. 20:22)  Christ is the King of the church, not Caesar.  People may or may not owe taxes to Caesar, but they do owe the tithe to God through the local church.