A Common Perception About the Church and Money...

For the past several weeks, we have been looking at what the Bible has to say about the subject of money and finances. This week, I would like for us to look at a very common perception and objection that many people have when it comes to the church and the issue of money. And that perception and one or the major objections to the church, and to Christianity in general, is the belief that the church just wants your money.

Maybe I have just described the perception and objection that you have had with Christianity and the church. Maybe you keep Christianity and the church at arm’s length because you believe that the church is all about the money. Maybe you have encountered Christians or churches that give that perception.

So, is the church all about the money? And even if you do not believe that the church just wants your money, then why is it we can tend to get so uncomfortable when the issue of money and giving is brought up in church? And why do churches pass the plate and take an offering? Do they take the offering because God needs the money? Or is it just because the pastor needs the money? Why does the church ask Christians to give every week?

So this week I would like us to focus on this issue of giving and specifically answer the question “why should I give?” And to answer this question, I would like for us to spend our time together looking at a section of a letter that a man named Paul wrote to a church that was located in Corinth Greece called 2^nd Corinthians. The section that we are going to spend our time in begins in 2 Corinthians 8:1. Let’s look at it together:

Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.

Paul begins this section of his letter to the church in Corinth by sharing with them the evidence of God’s activity in and through several churches that were located in Macedonia. These were churches that Paul had previously planted in the cities of Philippi and Thessalonica, which were located in the northern region of Greece. And in our Bibles today, we have several letters that were written to these churches. The book of Philippians and the books of 1^st and 2^nd Thessalonians were written to these very churches at around the same time that this letter was written to the church at Corinth.

Paul explains to the church at Corinth, which was located in southern Greece, that in spite of the trouble and distress that these churches were experiencing as a result of persecution and exploitation by the Roman government, that these churches were marked by an unexpected joy. In spite of their outward circumstances, these churches demonstrated an attitude and mindset of gratitude and gladness.

But not only did this church demonstrate unexpected joy in the midst of their persecution. Paul also reveals for us the reality that these churches experienced deep poverty. What is so interesting is that this phrase, in the language that this letter was written in, literally means that their poverty was so significant and extreme that is was difficult to measure. The apostle Paul had a hard time wrapping his mind around how poor these followers of Jesus were.

Yet, in spite of their extreme poverty and the intense persecution they were facing, these churches were extremely rich when it came to their generosity. The phrase the wealth of their liberality, if communicated in the language of our culture today, would sound something like this: “these churches had a ‘no strings attached’ approach when it came to their goodness and generosity.

You see, Paul was surprised, and even taken aback, by their attitude of gratitude and the actions of generosity that he experienced at these churches that were immersed in a culture of poverty and persecution.

Tomorrow, we will see Paul unpack how these churches demonstrated their gratitude and generosity…