This
week an annual event will occur that almost no one looks forward to and that
usually happens right around Easter. While we look forward to Easter, almost no
one looks forward to this date on our calendar. And that date that almost no
one looks forward to April 15th. Normally, April 15th is
a day that you do not try to go near a post office. Normally, April 15th
tends to be one of the busiest days of the year for banks. Normally, April 15th
is a day that is often looked on with dread in our culture.
And we
all have a pretty good idea why April 15th is a day that we normally
do not look forward to, don’t we? We tend not to look forward to April 15th
because April 15th is tax day. April 15th is normally the
deadline to pay your federal and state income taxes. And April 15th, tax day,
brings the issue of money and how we handle money to the forefront. And as I have had the opportunity to have conversations with
those who have either failed to connect or have disconnected with the church, for
some people, they tend to have a similar opinion of April 15th and the church.
So often, for some people who have failed to connect or
have disconnected from the church, they believe that, just like our government
on April 15th, all the church wants is their money. For this group of people,
God seemed to be portrayed as simply someone you believed in so that you could
use Him for your financial benefit by a “name it and claim it” pastor on TV who
was wearing a gold suit and sitting on a gold chair.
For others, their refusal to connect with the church is
based on Christians who they encountered who repeatedly stated that money is
the root of evil in the world. Therefore, if you are rich you must love the
world too much, but if you are poor, then you really are spiritual. And giving
to God was communicated as being driven by a desire to fulfill a command and a
duty that must be done.
Maybe I have just described encounters that you have had
with Christians. Maybe you keep Christianity and the church at arm’s length
because you believe that the church is all about the money. Or maybe you are a
Christian but you still have many questions about the church and the subject of
money and giving.
So, is the church all about the money? And even if you
are here this morning and 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 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?
For the next two weeks, we are going to ask and answer
these and many other questions by looking at a section of a letter in our Bible
that was written to a church that was located in a city and a culture that was
remarkably similar to American culture today. And it is in this section of this
letter that we will discover that the issue of money and giving is not a new
question. The issue of money and how Christians are to interact with money have
been around since the church was born.
So let’s look at a section of a letter that a man named
Paul wrote to a church that was located in Corinth Greece called 2nd
Corinthians. The section that we are going to spend our time in begins in 2
Corinthians 8:1:
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 1st and 2nd 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, 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 we use in 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.
And as this letter continues, we see Paul unpack how these churches
demonstrated their gratitude and generosity, beginning in verse 3:
For I testify
that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord,
begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of
the saints, and this, not as we
had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will
of God.
Here we see Paul sharing with the church at Corinth how
he experienced the unexpected joyous gratitude and generosity of the churches.
However, to fully understand how Paul experienced the gratitude and generosity
of these churches, we first need to understand what Paul is referring to when
he uses the phrase “participation in the support of the saints”.
When Paul talks about the support of the saints, he is
referring to churches involvement in a special offering that was being taken
for the church of Jerusalem, whose members were suffering as a result of a
famine in the region. In a previous letter to this church that is recorded for
us in the Bible, called the book of 1 Corinthians, we discover that while other
churches were following Paul’s instructions to invest their treasure to meet
the needs of the church in Jerusalem, the church at Corinth was failing to
follow through on their commitment.
In verse three, Paul explains that, unlike the church at
Corinth, these poor and persecuted churches were willingly investing their
treasure to meet the needs of the church at Jerusalem. Paul did not have to
make a sales pitch or a guilt trip to these churches. Instead, these churches
heard of the need and were motivated to respond to the need. As a matter a
fact, they were so motivated to respond to the need that they gave beyond their
ability. In other words, they gave sacrificially. They responded to the need
that they saw by pleading and appealing to Paul to be a part of God’s activity
by meeting the pressing and practical needs of the church in Jerusalem.
What makes this act by these poor churches so significant
as compared to the inaction of the church at Corinth was the difference in the
socio-economic condition of these churches. You see, Corinth
was a wealthy port city and commercial center and was a key player in the world
economy. Unlike the churches of Philippi and Thessalonica, the members of the
church at Corinth had the resources that they could easily invest to be a part
of what God was doing to help the church at Jerusalem.
So, while the wealthy church at Corinth was dragging
their feet when it came to following through on their commitment, the
persecuted and poor churches of northern Greece dove in head first in order to
be a part of God’s activity in the world. That is why, in verse 5, Paul makes
the statement that he did not expect such gratitude and generosity. When Paul
uses the phrase “gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God”, he
is revealing for us the reality that these churches were first and foremost
dedicated to God’s desires for their life and their investment and involvement
in what He was doing in the world.
And as a result of his experience with these
churches in Northern Greece, Paul was provoked to respond. We will see his
response tomorrow…
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