First, I am a conservative, which means I believe a church should look for scriptures for everything it does (Col. 3:17). Amidst all the efforts of our liberal brethren to do away with authority I still strongly believe in the need for it.
What amazes me is that there are those among us who set out to expose a doctrine but they often do not deal with the best arguments - - they just pick the ones they think they can defeat and ignore the others.
For example: Don Martin continually blasts Florida College and the Guardian of Truth Foundation (which do not solicit contributions from churches) as being unscriptural. He argues that there is no authority for their existence. Is he right or wrong?
It is only the church that has to have authority for what it does. An individual or even a human institution does not fall under the guidelines Col 3:17. Churches do not have authority to send funds to human institutions as a contribution to do the work of the church. The silence of God forbids such a practice. As Don has rightly pointed out the church is "the pillar and ground of the truth." God set up the church to do his work. Local churches, then, must not give up their autonomy by paying some human organization to do their work for them. God's bride must not shun its duties and become nothing but a money making organization to subsidize some human organization that happens to share a mutual goal.
Is it not rather significant that the apostle Paul used a school for a few years to teach and preach the gospel? Indeed it is significant because this fact proves that the issue is not whether the organization has a right to exist. The school he used did not solicit funds from churches, as far as we are able to tell. But it did not have to because it a church! That school not only was not spoken against in the scriptures but was set up as an example of how good could be accomplished. It was there, no bad word was said about it and Paul used it. But now if Don Martin had been there I suppose he would have argued that the school had no scriptural right to exist. "WHERE IS THE SCRIPTURE FOR IT?" he would argue. There wasn't any scripture for it, but, again, there did not have to be authority because it was not a church. But now, in our day, we DO have scripture for the school to exist. We have the example of Paul using a school. This means individuals can use a school through which to teach the gospel. It also means the school has a right to exist. And I see little difference in a school and a foundation like the Guardian of Truth.