Wealth and Poverty: guidelines

Showing posts with label guidelines. Show all posts

Tuesday, 7 February 2017

NT Guidelines: Give cheerfully

Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. - 2 Corinthians 9:7

God delights in the one who takes delight in giving.

All the leaders and all the people rejoiced and brought their tax and dropped it into the chest until it was full. - 2 Chronicles 24:10

This is a great testimony of a time when Joash was king and the temple was in need of repair. Whenever the chest was filled they would empty it, return it, and soon it would be full again.

There is an ebb and flow when it comes to giving. As one part of the body of Christ has a need and receive help, that same part, one day, will be able to supply and give to another who has need --

Your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. - 2 Corinthians 8:14

In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” - Acts 20:35

Why would Jesus say this? Maybe because blessing usually affects three people while giving only blesses one. The three are the giver, the recipient and God.

If we find ourselves not being cheerful while giving, the problem will be found in our heart and the solution is in redirecting our heart, not withholding our giving. Our heart follows our treasures --

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. - Matthew 6:21

Put your treasures in God's Kingdom and a cheerful heart will eventually follow.

Guidelines for Giving

God's Guidelines for Giving

The New Testament Standard of Giving

The New Testament Pattern of “Giving”

Ten Principles of Christian Giving

Giving God's Way

Wednesday, 18 January 2017

NT Guidelines: Give voluntarily

When Moses was tasked to lead the building of the tabernacle, the recorded attitude among the people who came to give involved a moved heart that came to give freely and willingly. Likewise, for the special offering to the needy saints, Paul said --

Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. - 2 Corinthians 9:7

We might today be more inclined to give when we feel like it and unfortunately 4 out of 10 churchgoers have never felt like it. In contrast the Macedonian believers --

begging us earnestly for the privilege[a] of sharing in this ministry to the saints - 2 Corinthians 8:4

When we catch a vision of God's grace, we will give voluntarily - beyond our duty.

Guidelines for Giving

Old Testament Tithing vs. New Testament Giving

Saturday, 14 January 2017

NT Guidelines: Give regularly

It's this hit and miss approach to giving that the NT wants to avoid --

On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come. - 1 Corinthians 16:2

So we are not spending what we should have been giving.

Stewardship is not a once-a-year consideration, but a week-to-week or month-to-month commitment requiring discipline and consistency. When the church wants to get involved in a worthy need-meeting project --

...now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means. - 2 Corinthians 8:11

The New Testament Pattern of “Giving”

God's Guidelines for Giving

Giving God’s Way

The New Testament Church—Its Finances

Ten Principles of Christian Giving

Tuesday, 10 January 2017

NT Guidelines: Give generously

When a grateful woman anointed Jesus with a costly ointment, some observers rebuked her.

But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. - Mark 14:6

Some people may consider generous giving as fanatical, but Jesus called it love. In fact, He was so moved by the woman's giving that He vowed --

"Truly I tell you, wherever the good news[a] is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” - Mark 14:9

Those who are more calculating usually give less.

Guidelines for Giving
The New Testament Standard of Giving

God's Guidelines for Giving

Giving God’s Way

Biblical Guidelines for Giving

Guidelines on Giving

Tithing in the Bible - Is Tithing for the New Testament Believer?

The New Testament Pattern of “Giving”

Ten Principles of Christian Giving

Monday, 3 October 2016

Tithing and Systematic Proportionate Giving

“The Jews were constrained to a regular payment of tithes; Christians, who have received liberty, assign all their possessions to the Lord, bestowing freely not the lesser portions of their property, since they have the hope of greater things; as that poor widow acted who cast all her living into the treasury of God.” Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202) in Against Heresies

A few hundred years later, Augustine indicated that tithing was still practised --

“Tithes are required as a matter of debt, and he who has been unwilling to give them has been guilty of robbery. Whosoever, therefore, desires to secure a reward for himself . . . let him render tithes, and out of the nine parts let him seek to give alms.”

Note the clear distinction between the mandatory tithe and the voluntary offering of almsgiving. Alms were to be given -- above and beyond the tithe.

Jerome said --

“If anyone shall not do this [pay tithes] he is convicted of defrauding and supplanting God.”

Like Augustine, Jerome believed and taught that it is possible for New Testament Christians to “rob God” by withholding the tithe, just as it was for Old Testament believers. For the first four hundred years, the Church often, if not normally, considered the practise of tithing a minimum standard for giving.

And all the tithe (tenth part) of the land, whether the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord. - Leviticus 27:30

“Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings [you have withheld].9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, this whole nation! 10 Bring all the tithes (the tenth) into the [a]storehouse, so that there may be [b]food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you [so great] a blessing until there is no more room to receive it. - Malachi 3:8-10

There were three tithes for Israelites. One tithe supported the the priests and Levites, another provided for a sacred festival and the third tithe supported orphans, widows and the poor.

The practise of tithing began long before the law of Moses. Abraham tithed to he high priest Melchizedek. Jacob promised a tithe to the Lord.