Specific instruction on New Testament stewardship of the disciples' income (continued)
We are to give proportionately "as God hath prospered him"
Some will give more and some less following this principle of giving according to how God has prospered the believer. If our income is reckoned as coming from God's prospering our employment or business, then we shall want to give generously out of gratitude to Him. It is a fundamental principle of our lives that all we have regarding material well-being comes ultimately from God. It is the reason the Lord taught us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Mt 6.11), instructing us that the basic means of daily sustenance is from God's gracious bounty! This is why we also give thanks for our food. This same principle further safeguards the believer from becoming materialistic and so weakening his sense of spiritual values.
To give proportionately would also include special thanksgiving offerings for such things as a sickness healed, a prayer answered, an examination passed, a danger averted, and so forth! How many believers actually practise such things today, whereas for an earlier generation it was commonly taught and done!
They lived constantly with a God-awareness in their lives. How much we miss today by ignoring these practices and so losing the spirit and joy of Scriptural giving!
Further, Paul's injunction to give according to God's prospering clearly requires the believer to give a definite fractionof his income. This gives scope for a basic "tithe" and whatever overplus is added from a heart full of love and gratitude for God's care and supply through the week. In this systematic method of giving we shall definitely give more overall. Then the assembly aggregate will also prove much greater and the immediate burden lighter than if we give spasmodically and irregularly as so many appear to do today!
We are to give sacrificially "the collection for the saints"
Giving here is to be "for the saints", that is for those other than ourselves, and in the circumstances under consideration it was for the poor and needy saints in Jerusalem. We are not giving for self and family but for the needs of others! Thus our giving is to be a sacrifice made for the benefit of others less fortunate than ourselves and who do not have the means with which God has blessed us. In this we become channels of God's goodness toward our brethren and receive a blessing ourselves in return according to the Lord's own word, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20.35).
The principle of this is stated by Paul (2 Cor 8.14-15). God's plan for the needs of His people is that an "equality" or balance should be maintained between believers in different areas and lands. The abundance of the one is to offset the necessities of the other, so that a balance is obtained and all should share in the same benefits of a richly providing Father God. How often we fail today in such an "equality" as believers here in our Western culture, being so plentifully provided for in material wealth while our brethren in the Third World suffer the extremes of poverty! The divine principle is that of reciprocity - our abundance today meeting the needs of our poorer brethren, while in a future day it may be we shall be in need and the prosperity of others will in return meet our necessity.
The quotation from Exodus 16.18, "He that gathered much had nothing over; and he that gathered little had no lack", is stressing that the manna gathered was sufficient for all whether they had little or much, and that if hoarded it went bad and bred worms. This demonstrated that while some have the ability to gather more and some less of this world's wealth, all would be equal if God's provision were shared! Barnes pungently observes in his commentary that "wealth, like manna, corrupts by being kept in store".
We are to give cheerfully "God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Cor 9.7)
We are not to give grudgingly or out of necessity as, for example, just because others in the assembly are giving we ought to be seen to give also lest we incur embarrassment and perhaps criticism! God is not interested in that kind of giving, neither would such a gift be acceptable to Him. No, our giving is to be "cheerful", where the Greek word is hilarosmeaning promptly or willingly, and thus cheerfully. The English word hilarious derives from this same Greek word. Not that giving to God is either funny or a joke, because to sacrifice of our substance for the work of God is a most serious matter, but at the same time it is a profoundly happy experience and a joy!
The motive for giving is love. The greatest gift the world has ever known was motivated by vast, eternal, and unfathomable love when, "God so loved the world that he gavehis only begotten Son". When we give out of love for the Lord and what He is, and what He has done, and what He means to us, God sees a reflection of His own love, is delighted to accept our gifts, and His heart is well pleased.
We are to give anticipatively "that there be no gatherings when I come"
Paul was not a man to make emotional appeals to stimulate the saints to give liberally. No one should be moved to give on the basis of a heart-tugging story or arousing appeal in the manner of American TV evangelists! Giving must be from the heart it is true, but a heart prompted by the Spirit of God and the duty of regular week by week self-sacrifice. Paul, no doubt, could have made a moving appeal and collected a substantial offering, but he did not want to do that. When he came to Corinth he wanted to give himself to spiritual ministry and wished this offering to be settled before he arrived. He wanted the Corinthians to give on the basis of spiritual principle not on the emotional impulse of the moment! This is the manner in which we also should still give today.
Giving is part of the abounding work of the Lord (1 Cor 15.58-16.2)
Chapter 15 has just ended with Christ's resurrection victory over sin, death, and the grave, and that victory is shared by us through our Lord Jesus Christ. On the basis of that superlative triumph Paul then appeals to the saints to be "always abounding in the work of the Lord". Then immediately in ch.16 he goes on to tell us that a part of that great "work of the Lord" is "giving"!
Yes, sacrificial giving to meet the needs of our impoverished brethren and all other aspects of the Lord's work, is a work for the Lord just as much as missionary labours, gospel preaching, or literature distribution are! May the Lord by His indwelling Spirit raise up many more such "workers" in His great vineyard during these closing days of the Church dispensation - and may we be counted among them!
"Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine" (Prov 3.9-10).
"Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again" (Lk 6.38).
Concluded.
