This final chapter to the Corinthians addresses one final, practical request of Paul and adds some personal greetings.
Here, Paul asks them to gather weekly contributions for the poor saints in Jerusalem. Paul is planning to visit them to personally collect this gift.
1Now about the collection for God’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. 2On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. 3Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. 4If it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me. I Cor. 16:1-4
This clearly applies to the Corinthians, but how does it apply to us? Paul isn’t personally coming to collect our weekly contributions. Should the church continue to give weekly contributions? Must this occur exclusively on the first day of the week?
The simple answer is that, yes, the churches were expected to engage in acts of benevolence for other saints by giving money/goods. Paul’s advice for them to do so on the first day of the week seems fairly obvious as well. That’s when they met.
I don’t believe there is anything inherently virtuous about putting our money together on Sunday versus midweek, if that’s when we can do it. Paul simply didn’t want a bunch of scrambling to get their money together when he came. It’s just that simple. I have no doubt if each believer at Corinth could have wired Paul the money directly through Paypal, he would have said, please wire the funds to my Paypal account. It was a simple matter of practicality.
In the 16th century, reformer John Calvin wrote this in his Institutes of the Christian Religion:
Luke relates in the Acts that this was the practice of the apostolic church, when he says that believers “. . .continued in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers” [Acts 2:42]. Thus it became the unvarying rule that no meeting of the church should take place without the Word, prayers, partaking of the Lord’s Supper and almsgiving.
This practice of “almsgiving” has continued from the first century to be a feature of the Christian church. The Jews also took up alms for the poor, so the practice was not foreign to early believers.
The church continued to meet on the Lords’ Day as the early tradition began and, consequently, the giving of money for the poor continued to take place during the weekly assembly as Paul had started the tradition. Thus, we have the practice to this very day – one I certainly believe we should continue.
Let’s not elevate this text to something it was never intended to be. This is a not a command to every church for all time to gather funds on the first day of the week in some mere formulaic ritual. If somebody brought their funds on Wednesday night or at both times, I suppose this would suffice as well. I believe Paul’s command as to the first day was purely practical, not doctrinal. It is, however, a lesson in one important function of the church. The important question isn’t if or when but why does the church go about regularly gathering funds?
God’s heart has always been with the weak and helpless among his chosen people. Throughout both the OT and NT, widows and orphans are singled out as a perpetually weak and needy class of persons with a special place in God’s heart.
Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Ps 82:3
A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation. Ps 68:5
Leave your orphans behind, I will keep them alive; and let your widows trust in Me. Jer. 49:11
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Jas. 1:27
In Acts, Paul reminded the Ephesian elders that he provided for his own needs and for those who traveled with him and that he did not ask for financial help from them. He said this was meant as a lesson to them that they should “support the weak”. He then reminded them of Christ’s words, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). This tells us a lot about the heart of Paul.
Galatians 2 is also notable. There, Paul recalled the time he and Barnabas met with the apostles at Jerusalem and convinced them that their ministry to the Gentiles was legitimate. Paul says that as they were sent on their way, the apostles urged them to do one thing…”remember the poor”. This tells us a lot about the heart of the apostles.
Clearly, God’s priority in giving is the relief of the weak and needy among his people.
Consistent with this principle, we have a few recorded examples of the first century Christians pooling their money like Paul’s direction here in 1 Corinthians chapter 16. In every instance noted, the collection gathered by a local church is used to do one of the following:
Helping Needy Believers Within the Local Assembly
In Acts 2 and 5 the bible says the Christians in Jerusalem sold their belongings to help those among them who needed material assistance. They brought this money to the apostles as a central collection point (Acts 5).
Acts 2 may imply that cash was distributed to those who were in need; however, it seems more likely that the money was used to purchase food (and maybe other staples), which could then be distributed to needy saints. This seems to be what is happening in Acts 7 when the apostles turned over the business of the “daily distribution” for the widows (also called “serving tables” by the apostles) to seven men we commonly call the first deacons.
Of course Paul gives Timothy explicit instructions about the church providing regular aid to widows within the local assembly of believers at Ephesus. The fact that Paul speaks of a “list” or “number” of widows meeting the criteria for support and not “burdening the church” with those who don’t meet certain criteria may suggest this involved pooled funds. Again, this is in keeping with a collection of funds being used to relieve needy saints.
Even with the restrictions on such relief going to widows who are “truly” widows and who don’t have a family to care for her need not be a dogmatic letter-of-the-law rule. If a widow has family (believers or unbelievers) that neglects her, should the church turn a legalistic blind-eye to this needy saint? Certainly not. Again, the church practice of benevolence is not about rules and regulations. It is simply about meeting true needs.
Helping Needy Believers at Another Location
Throughout Acts, the believers in Judea (Jerusalem) continued to have serious need for material assistance – especially in light of famine conditions predicted by Agabus at Antioch (Acts 11). As a result, the church at Antioch collected and delivered aid to those needy saints in Judea.
There are numerous references in Paul’s epistles to these instances of churches sending material aid to the needy saints in Jerusalem.
Because of this specific need in Jerusalem, Paul told the Corinthian believers to each put aside something from their earnings on the first day of the week so he could pick it up and take it to Jerusalem in response to the need of those brethren.
Paul told the churches in the Galatian region to engage in this same practice so their contributions would be ready for pick up when he (Paul) came to their cities.
Paul told the Roman church about the contribution of those in Macedonia and Achaia to the poor saints in Jerusalem in his letter to them (Romans 15).
Paul’s direction in this matter was regularly referred to as “the collection for the saints”.
There is no recorded biblical example of the church collecting and distributing funds for any other reason than to aid brethren in need of help or material support.
“Other” Uses for Funds Collected by the Church
With the last statement in the previous section hanging over us, let’s consider the following.
Supporting a local evangelist:
Paul mentions that evangelists (I Cor. 9) and elders who preach and teach (I Tim. 5) have the right to receive regular compensation from the church. There are no stated examples of this in scripture – only directions in principle.
Supporting missionaries abroad:
The only close example to this is when Paul mentions receiving material aid from the Philippians as he left Macedonia and on more than one occasion while he was in Thessalonica on his missionary journeys.
Again, there is neither example nor instruction given in the New Testament to gather funds for any other reason than to provide for needy saints and to pay evangelists and evangelistic elders.
Modern Approaches to a Church Treasury
Today, the collective funds of the church are typically referred to as a ‘treasury”. This is not a term found in scripture, but is a practical description used to describe what some might call the “official” collected funds of the church. In many churches, the largest percentage of the treasury is typically used for four items in descending order:
1. Maintaining a building, equipment and supplies for meeting
Obviously the church needs a place to meet. While meeting in homes was the first century practice, over the centuries the modern practice is for large congregations to meet in an owned or rented facility. We typically call this a “necessary” expense or an “expedient” to fulfill our need to meet. I see no inherent scriptural problem with this.
We should be willing to admit, however, that the New Testament does not give us any concrete reason to believe these first century saints collected funds to pay for a building. Instead, we have numerous references to churches meeting in homes and collecting funds to help others. There is an “upper room” mentioned in Acts, but there is reason to believe this was most likely part of a believer’s residence or a borrowed location.
We often talk about “good stewardship of the Lord’s money”. Don’t misunderstand – we should not not condemn the idea of having a building in which to meet (some people advocate exclusive home church arrangements). The question is: is spending an exorbitant amount of money on a building and grounds the best use of the “collection for the saints”. It’s not an easy question to ask, but one worth considering.
2. Paying the salary of a local evangelist
We have already seen that this is a scriptural use of the funds per 1 Cor. 9. It is in keeping with the church paying a “laborer his wages” and providing for saints who need material assistance.
3. Assisting evangelists in other places
We see a reference by Paul in his letter to the Philippians that they sent him aid while on his missionary journeys. This, again, supports the use of funds to help saints in need.
4. Helping needy saints
As has been shown, this is the only specific reason documented in the NT that the early church gathered funds, yet unfortunately may near the smallest percentage of an official church budget.
Conclusions
As stated above, the church needs a place to meet. Given the cost of having a building and running the administrative side of the church, perhaps a large expense seems “unavoidable” in today’s society. Yet, some have taken alternative approaches.
I recently met a woman who attended a large Christian denomination. When a group from their congregation started a new church in another area, they made arrangements to rent a building space at a very low rate. She commented that the money they now had available to support missionary work was overflowing.
Such arrangements are different from the common pattern of many churches, but they are worth considering as we look across the landscape of church arrangements today. It is easy for growing churches to get in a tremendous rush to have their own building, saving up funds in reserve to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars or going into deep debt to achieve this end. We see a trend towards bigger and bigger church “campuses” in mainstream Christianity today.
In all, no matter what arrangements we make for a place to worship, we should continue in Paul’s urging to give of our means regularly and to make the best use of the funds gathered for helping the needy. I have always supposed heads would have rolled if the Corinthians told Paul when he arrived that they had used 90% of the funds they collected “for the saints” to purchase pews or a new sign for the meeting place.
Paul’s personal comments at the end of this great letter are simply worth reading from the text. The obvious familiarity and warmness towards his fellow believers and fellow servants in Christ is striking.
He ends with a passage to note, underscoring the great personal effort he put into this letter and both the sternness and love expressed in it:
21I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.
22If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him. Come, O Lord[b]!
23The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.
24My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.[c]
