Concerning the Collection, Part 2

We are to deal with stewardship weekly. We are to face the reality of giving weekly.

God doesn't want us to store it up until some forgotten tomorrow. God wants us to be giving on a constant, systematic, week-by-week basis so that we are always facing the reality of stewardship. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Every Lord's Day, in congregations worldwide, Christians offer their financial gifts to the Lord. It may be with cash or a check.

It may be dropped in a wooden plate or a pouch or even made online. The question is, what are the origins of giving to the Church? Is this a recent development, or did the early Church also give an offering when they gathered for worship? Find out over the next half hour as John MacArthur continues his series, God's Plan for Giving.

And with the lesson now, here's John. 1 Corinthians chapter 16, we're looking at the first four verses and discussing the subject concerning the collection. Now the Bible does contain a number of warnings about money, best summarized perhaps in the statement of the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 6 verse 10 where he said, For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Our Lord put it tersely when He said, You can't serve God and money. Money can definitely be a curse.

There's no question about it. For money, Achan brought defeat on the armies of Israel and death on himself. For money, Balaam sinned against God and tried to curse God's people. For money, Delilah betrayed Samson to the Philistines.

For money, Gehazi lied to Naaman and Elishin and became a leper. For money, Ananias and Sapphira became the first hypocrites in the early Church and died on the spot. For money, Judas sold the Son of God for 30 pieces of silver and damned his own soul. For money, many have been cursed. In fact, the Apostle Paul says that those who would be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many hurtful and foolish lusts which drown men in perdition and destruction, 1 Timothy 6.

So money can be a tremendous curse. On the other hand, the Bible teaches that money can also be a great blessing. The Bible teaches us that God says the silver and the gold are mine. Deuteronomy 8 says that it is God who has given us the power to get wealth. 1 Corinthians 4, 7, the Apostle Paul says, What do you have that you didn't receive, as it were, from the hand of God? James says, Every good and perfect thing comes down from the Father of lights, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

The Bible says that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. The Bible talks about the fact that money can cause us to be greatly blessed when we invest it with God. So money can be a curse or money can be a blessing.

It all depends on the attitude you have toward it. If you have an attitude of sharing and an attitude of giving, Jesus said it's more blessed to give than receive. You'd be better off giving. You'd be more blessed giving than just taking, Jesus said. So there's a basic attitude. The wrong attitude toward money, the wrong attitude toward wealth and possessions, the Bible calls covetousness. And covetousness is a very, very dominant sin in humankind. In fact, it's in the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, that thou shalt not covet.

That's basic. And that's incidentally basic to man, to covet. In fact, as I thought about this, I would venture to say that it's probably the first sin manifest in a child.

Have you noticed that? The first way that a child usually manifests its depravity is, it's mine. Or, give me that, covetousness. And you see that in your little children. And that is a problem that we have to overcome and we struggle with that all our life long, don't we? And our society, you see, just panders covetousness like mad. They just pour it on that we need this and we need that and you've got to have this and you deserve it and on and on and on and on.

They pander that. It's tough to fight. You know, I was reading a book by K. F. W. Pryor who's written a couple of very helpful Bible study books. This one on God and Mammon. And in it he said that he had heard a man by the name of Catherwood say he had talked to a priest and this priest said at the end of his life, I have listened to confessions all my life. I have heard every sin imaginable confessed except for covetousness which I have never heard confessed once in my entire life.

Boy, that's a tough one. Covetousness is a subtle one. And it's the thing that robs us of the liberty to give in the way God wants us to give so that we can be blessed in the way God wants to bless, you see. You know, the apostle Paul was honest enough to face that sin.

In Romans chapter 7 when he was talking about his own spiritual testimony of how he came to Christ and how his Christian life kind of started out and the conflicts he had. He says in Romans 7, 7, is the law sin? God forbid.

Nay. But this he says, I had not known sin but by the law. I didn't really know sin unless there was a law to show it to me.

I didn't know I was violating a specific unless the specific was so stated. And so then he goes on to give an example. He says, I didn't know coveting except the law said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of coveting. He says, you know, the thing that woke me up to my sinfulness was when I saw the sin of coveting. And I realized I was a coveter. There's an honest man. But later on in his life, in Acts 20, 33, he says this, I have coveted no man's silver, no man's gold, and no man's apparel.

You know what happened? The Lord gave him victory over coveting. But he was honest enough to admit that it was a problem at the start. Now we have to have the right attitude toward money. And the right attitude is not coveting.

The right attitude is a liberal, free, willing, sacrificial heart. And that's what Paul is after in the first four verses of 1 Corinthians 16. Now the little phrase now concerning the collection reminds us of a phrase earlier now concerning spiritual gifts. And it introduces to us another one of the areas of discussion that the Corinthians were having.

This is another thing they wanted information about, so that's why he writes about it. Now concerning the collection, I have a few principles I want to give you. And these are for you today too, folks, just like they were for them. Concerning giving or concerning the collection in the church, principle number one is the purpose of giving. And we saw, didn't we, in verse 1 that giving is for the saints, that we as believers have a primary responsibility to give to the needs of other believers, whether they are spiritual or physical. We are to invest so that the believers may have their needs met. We are to give to each other. We are to have all things in common like the early church. We are to share everything freely that we possess.

We really don't own anything. We just hold it in trust. And if somebody else needs it more than we do, then it's theirs, whatever it is. So we are to share.

Now that's basic. The purpose of giving then is to direct itself at the saints. And we saw last time too, didn't we, that sometimes it's the saints in need and sometimes it's the saints who lead. But we are to give to meet the needs of the church, the saints, the believing community, whether their needs are physical or spiritual. Maybe we're giving so that we can provide food for their soul as well as food for their body. Secondly, we saw the period of giving, not only the purpose but the period there, didn't we, in verse 2. And the first day of the week was the period for giving. We are to deal with stewardship weekly. We are to face the reality of giving weekly. God doesn't want us to store it up until some forgotten tomorrow. God wants us to be giving on a constant systematic week by week basis so that we are always facing the reality of stewardship. Now we come to the third point.

And we'll cover several this morning and finish up next time. And I call this the place of giving. And I'm going to get a little academic on this point because this is a confusing point for a lot of people.

And I want to kind of straighten some things out and hopefully it will be practical for you. The place of giving, I believe, is to be the church. I think that's what Paul is saying here. And I want to show you why. Verse 2, on the first day of the week, let every one of you watch this phrase, lay by Him in store. Okay?

Lay by Him in store, it says in the Authorized. Now let me talk about that a minute. There have been many people who have tried to interpret this. How are we to give? Are we just to keep a little bank account and dole out money to the needs as we see them? Are we to give our money to various and sundry organizations? Are we actually to bring all of our money and just dump it in the church and let the church decide? Well how are we to do it?

Well here we have the phrase, lay by Him in store. To what does this phrase refer? People, it's very vital to understand to what it refers because we must know the place of giving. Where are we to give? Well, since as early as the second and third century after the church began, there have been some commentators who interpreted this as a private personal account in the home or a private bank.

Now this is not uncommon today. There are some very fine Bible scholars who teach that even today. What the verse is saying is that each of us is to lay by Himself in store, since it doesn't say the church, they assume in some personal storehouse X number of funds every week and keep building up that fund to be available to be used when God calls on us to invest it with Him.

All right? Others say, no, no, lay by Him in store and the store really is the church, which is true. Well let me say this. I first of all believe that there is reason to have some money in an account to be available for those needs that God brings directly to your attention. But I believe this text is teaching us that we are to place our money in the church primarily. This is to be the primary pattern of giving that Paul is seeking here.

Now let me show you why I say that. And there are several reasons. From the earliest years of the church, and you need to focus on this now and think with me because this puts a very practical concept into your giving. From the earliest years of the church, it was the pattern of giving that the saints would take their monies and they would give them to the church leaders and the church leaders would distribute them. So that giving in a sense was indirect to the need. The church leaders would determine the needs the church leaders would distribute to meet the needs.

Rather than every individual simply giving money to whatever and whenever, wherever he wanted. Now let me show you how this functioned by turning to Acts chapter 4, verse 35. Acts 4, 35, a very familiar passage, but one that will remind us of this basic common practice in the church. Acts 4, 35 says, well we'll be backing up to verse 34 to get a start on the thing. It says, Neither was there any among them, and it's talking about the early church in Jerusalem, just a new church, just in its beginnings, there wasn't any lack among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold.

And where did they bring it? And laid them down at the apostles' feet and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. Then there's an illustration in 36 of Barnabas who did that, verse 37, having land he sold it, brought the money, laid it at the apostles' feet. Now, there you have the common practice of the early church. It was to make a central distribution point being the leaders of the church who would then disseminate the funds to the area of need. Now, the reason I say that is because there is no statement anywhere at all in the New Testament about keeping private funds. That is not common to the early church. We can't find any indication of such practice. But rather, it was deposited in the care of those who were in spiritual responsibility and done so on a week-to-week basis on the first day of the week, and those spiritually minded men determined the distribution of said funds.

Now, I want to go a step further to show you why I believe this. Not only does it seem that this was the pattern in history, but the phrase here, to lay by Him in store, does not necessarily mean in a private fund. To lay by Himself simply means that each individual by himself in a very personal and a very private kind of way is to set aside this giving. In other words, the by himself doesn't mean beside himself in his house. It means that he is to determine this by himself.

This is a private, personal thing. In other words, nobody's going to tell you how much to set aside, how much to invest with God, how much to give. That is something you determine by yourself and then you lay it in store. Now, what does it mean to lay it in store? Well, the Greek word thesau ridzo, from which we get thesaurus, which you might recognize, there's a book called Thesaurus, which is a treasury of words. The word means treasury. It could mean treasury. It could mean money box. It could mean chest. It could mean a warehouse. It could mean a chamber. It has a lot of meanings. But it's where you put treasure. It's where you put valuables. Well, the thing is, the word then doesn't tell us anything.

It doesn't tell us anything about where this thing is. But if we study history, we learn something very interesting. In the early years of the pagan temples in Greece and in the Roman world, the pagans would give their money and their offerings at the pagan temples. And all the pagan temples had what were known as thesaurus, or treasure boxes. And people would come with their money and place it in the thesaurus, the treasury of the temple. This was true in Judaism, wasn't it? The temple treasury. Don't you read about that in the gospels?

This was true in many pagan religions. In fact, it got to be so that the temple actually would come to the place where it would not only receive the gifts of the people, but it would even hold their money for them so that temples, pagan temples, became banks. The biggest banks in the Greek world were in temples. And the reason was because the people worshiped the gods they worshiped out of fear and nobody would rob the temple bank. Safest place to put a bank. They actually had safe deposit boxes that you could have for your own deposit and so forth. So the idea in terms of the cultural background is of a treasury associated with the meeting place or the place of worship. The idea of the term simply means to set by yourself privately and devoting your own thinking and self-determination to the determining of whatever amount you're going to give and to place it in the treasury. Now the use of the term treasury in that world would have commonly brought to their mind the treasury at the house of worship. So it seems best to see that the phrase is simply saying put your money in the treasury and they would know that the treasury would be that which was common to their place of worship.

Further, I think it's important for us to note this. At the end of verse 2 he says this, You do this on the first day of the week so that when I come there be no collections. Now listen to that. There be no collections. It's the very same word that's in verse 1, collections.

Now listen. If they just put it in a private fund every week, when he came what would the first thing be that they'd have to do? They'd have to have a collection, right?

If they had it all at home. But what he is saying here is that this should work out in such a way that when I come I don't have to take a special offering because it will already be there available. So the very context indicates that these would be collected and ready to be distributed when he arrived. Further, I would add, it says on the first day of the week. If this is some private fund in the home, of what import is it to be the first day of the week when this is done?

The only sense that that would make would be if the first day of the week was in view of them coming together in the church and giving in common as was their custom. So I think it's best all that said and done to see this as giving to the common treasury of the local church for distribution by the leaders who will be led of the Spirit to distribute it to those places where it has its greatest need. So what I'm saying, beloved, is that you have a primary responsibility, according to the Word of God here, to lay by in a private act of giving systematically week by week some of your funds as you desire in your heart to do to the church so that the church can then determine its distribution.

Now this is a very practical pattern for giving. But this is what I believe the text is teaching. Now somebody might say, are you saying, John, that you should never meet the need of an individual without going through the church?

Not at all. I think you have every responsibility and every biblical injunction to meet a need directly as well as indirectly through the church. For example, 1 John 3 says, If you see your brother has a need and you shut up your mercy or your compassion, how dwells the love of God in you?

Reach out and meet his need. If you're like the Good Samaritan, you're on the road and you see a man who's torn up and bleeding, then get over there and meet his need. Don't say, by the way, I'm going to the temple. I'm going to try to get a check process.

I'll be back in three days. Meet the guy's need. And that's why I said that for us in our family, understanding this principle, we keep a little there so that not only are we systematically giving to the church for the work of the Lord and the Word and so that the leaders can distribute it, but we keep a little bit over here so that we can meet needs as needs arise because sometimes needs are very, very immediate. So there is direct and indirect, but the indirect giving, the proportionate giving, the majority kind of giving, the systematic giving, the regular dealing with stewardship is to be done on the first day of the week and entrusted to the care of the treasury of the church for distribution at the determination and direction of the godly people who lead. And that's why, beloved, you want godly people and responsibility in the church. So we see the purpose of giving to meet the needs of the saints, the period of giving, the first day of the week, and the place of giving the church. Fourthly, the participants in giving, the participants in giving.

And this I'm just going to state very simply because it's not hard. Verse 2 again, on the first day of the week, let every one of you. And in the Greek that means let every one of you.

It means that in Italian and Hebrew and French too. Let every one of you. Same thing. Nobody's exempt. Some people might say, well, I can't give money so I'll give my talent. No, no, no. Everybody, you say, well, I give my money to this thing and that organization and I keep mine over.

No, no. Every one of you is to take this systematically week in and week out and to place it in the treasury of the church for distribution to the needs of the saints. It's a matter of stewardship. Every one of you say, well, I'm very poor. Well, if you have anything, you have something to give.

Is that right? If you have anything, you have something to give. Mark chapter 12. Interesting story you'll remember. And Jesus sat opposite the treasury and he watched how the people threw money into the treasury. Now wouldn't that be an interesting way to spend the day? Just watch the people come by and give.

You learn a lot about character that way. Pharisees used to have a trumpet blow to announce their arrival and they would give. But he was sitting there watching them give. And it says, and many that were rich threw in a lot. The rich people, they gave a lot. There came a certain poor widow. She threw in two mites which makes a farthing. You know how much a mite is? An eighth of a cent.

So two eighths of a cent would be a fourth of a cent. She threw it in. He called his disciples and said to them, Truly I say to you, this poor widow has cast more in than all they who cast into the treasury. For all they did cast in of their abundance, but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her life support.

You know what? She gave what percent? A hundred percent. If you have anything, you have something to give. Everybody gives.

Everybody. You say, well if I had more, I'd give more. Luke 16, 10 it says, now mark this one. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, and he that is unjust in the least is also unjust in the much. If you haven't been faithful in the unrighteous money, who will commit to your trust the true riches? In other words, if you can't prove yourself when you're poor, being rich isn't going to change your spirituality.

Being rich just compounds your problem. If you can't trust God when you're poor, believe me it's going to be tough when you're rich and you've got all the resources you need apart from him. So 2 Corinthians 8 gives us the pattern for the poor who gave. In 2 Corinthians 8 verse 2 it says that the Macedonians, don't even turn to it. We'll just hurry on by.

I'll just remind you of it. It says that the Macedonians, listen to this, gave liberally and abundantly out of their deep poverty. Isn't that great? And in verse 5 it says the reason was because they first gave themselves to God. And then out of giving themselves to God, they gave abundantly to God out of their deep poverty.

If you have anything, you have something to give. And it's an investment with God. That's John MacArthur on Grace To You, looking at the reason God calls you to support the church. John's current study is showing you God's plan for giving. Now, early in the lesson today, John mentioned that money can be a curse. Well, when you think about money problems and the most fertile ground for those problems, what probably comes to your mind first is the home and marriage. So John, as a pastor and a father, you've counseled your kids as they headed toward marriage. What is your most important advice? How can a husband and wife make sure that they avoid conflict over money? Well, it's inevitable that there are going to be discussions and maybe even some level of conflict when two people have two different approaches with what they want to do with their resources.

There are going to be conversations about that in any marriage. But I think what I've tried to teach our children and what we've tried to model, Patricia and I, in our home, is that everything we have is to be used to the glory of God. It isn't just the money we give to the church or give to Grace To You or give to some mission enterprise or some school or the seminary, whatever. Everything that we have, all the money, all the resources we have, we are to use for the glory of God.

And it goes back to 1 Corinthians again. Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God. So if eating and drinking, something as mundane and routine as that is to be done to the glory of God, certainly giving is.

And I think that's the checkpoint. If we do this, if we purchase this, if we invest in this, is this going to bring glory to the Lord? Well, we know the Lord wants us to save.

The Bible says that. We know he wants us to give. We know he wants us to use our funds wisely for kingdom purposes, and that's what we're talking about, laying up treasure in heaven. So we have a lot already to go on that's laid out in the Word of God. We're supposed to help people in need, people who are poor, all of those things. So those are things the Lord's explicitly said to us, this is what you need to do with the resources you have. In fact, if you see your brother has need and you don't do that, your salvation is called into question in 1 John. So we try to instruct our kids that, first of all, you need to do everything that the Lord specifically instructs us to do with our money, and that's where we start with our money.

And then we need to think about everything else we do and ask the question, is this just pure indulgence for indulgence sake, or does this have value? And can I honestly say that the Lord can be honored in this expense? So I think that should be the discussion, how do we honor the Lord with this decision? And that's going to take a lot of the conflict out of it, and you're going to be talking about it from the right angle, and that is what is going to bring honor to the Lord. There will be decisions that you have to make, and the Lord doesn't expect you to live in absolute poverty, where you'll add comforts to your life, but God gives us richly all things to enjoy, but you can even enjoy them with a thankful heart before the Lord. But that is how you have the discussion around how is it going to glorify Him.

That's right. Thank you, Jon, and that is really helpful advice. But let's turn the corner a bit. If you were encouraged by today's lesson, or a recent broadcast helped you find peace in the midst of a trial, or gave you fresh motivation to share the gospel with a neighbor, we'd love to hear your story. When you have time to jot a note, please do, and send it our way. You can email your letter to letters at gty.org.

That's letters at gty.org. Or if you prefer regular mail, write to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. And if you're looking to know more about the topic of Jon's current study, God's Plan for Giving, or any other subject of Scripture, I would encourage you to get our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible. It's an all-in-one spiritual library that has introductions to each book, dozens of maps and charts, and 25,000 study notes from Jon that explain virtually every passage of Scripture. It's a great resource for a new or a veteran believer. To order the MacArthur Study Bible, visit our website, gty.org, or call us at 800-55-GRACE. That's our toll-free number one more time. 800-55-GRACE. Now for Jon MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, reminding you to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, or check your local listings for Channel and Times, and make sure you tune in again tomorrow. Jon will help you consider this important question, Am I pleasing the Lord with how I use my money? It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.