Collection for the Saints

Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do.

1 Corinthians 16:1-4

Paul wrote in several of his epistles regarding collecting money to send to the church in Jerusalem because the Christians there were severely persecuted and very needy for help from fellow Christians. Such writings cannot be followed by modern readers in the same way that his original audience did. In our verses today, Paul provides us with his immediate travel plans and instructions regarding the collection of funds for the churches in Jerusalem in Judea. But, we can find in these writings principles to apply to our own setting even if the exact method of following them looks different for us than for the first century readers of this letter. Paul refers to “the collection for the saints.” He is talking about the gathering of funds to assist the Christians in Jerusalem and Judea, who were suffering under severe poverty because of the intense persecution they had to endure. Paul regarded the collection as a vital and tangible way to demonstrate the unity of the gentile Christians outside of Judea with the Jewish Christians who lived there. Also, Paul had committed to remember the poor in Galatians 2:1–10. Paul tells the Corinthians to set something aside “on the first day of every week.” Here we have one of the earliest evidences that the Christians gathered together for worship and fellowship on what would come to be known as the Lord’s Day, or Sunday. Coming together to celebrate the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week was not a post-Apostolic invention of the church, but it goes back to the beginning of the new covenant. Paul tells each Corinthian believer to collect funds “as he may prosper.” The idea here is that the Christians should provide offerings for the poor in proportion to how they have prospered under the hand of God. Those of greater wealth should give more than those who have little, though there is no set formula for what this means or regarding what the church is to require. God expects that our beneficence to others should hold some proportion to His bounty to us. All we have is from God; the more He gives, the more He enables us to give, and the more He expects we should give, that we should give more than others who are less able, that we should give more than ourselves when we were less able. The church must always encourage its members to be generous and to provide for the legitimate needs of other believers who cannot meet them on their own. To whom much is given, much is required, and as the Lord prospers us, let us be all the more eager to give to the church and its ministries of mercy.

Source: S C Ball November 17, 2023