The Treasury and Benevolence

Chapter 6 asked whether a local church may route its funds through a separate human organization. Chapter 7 asked whether one congregation’s eldership may oversee an ongoing work funded by many congregations. The present chapter asks a third question about the flow of the local church’s funds — one that differs from the first two in a significant way. The first two questions concerned the vehicle and the structure of the collective work. The present question concerns the recipients. Having asked how the church’s treasury may be administered, the reader is left with a question he has perhaps never had posed to him directly: to whom may the local church’s treasury extend material benevolence at all?

This is, in many ways, the question most readers come to a booklet like this for. It is also the question on which the institutional and non-institutional positions appear, at first reading, to turn on a handful of specific New Testament texts. The method of this chapter will therefore differ slightly from Chapters 6 and 7 in its emphasis. After stating the question and both positions, the chapter will walk the text at length — every New Testament passage describing collective benevolence; the two passages most often cited for an extended scope; and one further practical argument — and let the pattern of the text carry the conclusion.

The Question, Stated Precisely

As in the preceding chapters, several related questions must be set aside before the real question can come into view.

The question is not whether the needy should be helped. They should. The Lord Jesus Himself commanded His disciples to show kindness to every neighbor, even an enemy (Luke 6:27–36; 10:25–37). No faithful Christian disputes that the needy — whether saint or stranger — are to be loved and assisted as God gives opportunity.

The question is not whether an individual Christian may relieve the material need of a non-Christian. He may, and must. Scripture commands it directly in more than one place, as this chapter will show. An individual Christian who confined his benevolence strictly to his fellow Christians would be disobeying the Scripture that governs his own conduct.

The question is not whether the gospel is to be preached to every creature. It is. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:19–20; Mark 16:15) has never been in dispute between the two sides of this division, and nothing in this chapter narrows the reach of the gospel.

The question is not even whether the local church may preach the gospel to the unconverted using its treasury. It may. Every unconverted hearer of the gospel is, by definition, not yet a Christian — and the church’s evangelistic funds are spent on the proclamation of the gospel to those outside the body. Evangelism directed toward the unsaved is one of the four authorized works of the local church, as Chapter 4 showed.

The question is specifically this: may the local church, as a collective body, use funds from its treasury to supply material benevolence — food, clothing, shelter, financial relief — to those who are not members of the body of Christ?

The question is about the collective benevolent use of the treasury. It is not about the collective evangelistic use of the treasury, which is a separate category. It is not about whether an individual Christian may relieve a non-Christian’s material need, which the Scripture answers in the affirmative. It is about one specific flow: funds the saints have contributed into the common treasury, disbursed by the congregation as the congregation, for the material relief of persons outside the body.

Chapter 5 has already drawn the line on which this question turns — the distinction between the individual Christian and the local church as two distinct actors with two distinct, though overlapping, lists of obligations. That distinction need not be re-argued here. It applies: the fact that the individual Christian is obligated to relieve any neighbor in need does not, by itself, settle what the collective treasury is authorized to do. The collective treasury’s scope is whatever Scripture authorizes for it — no more and no less. The present chapter asks what Scripture actually authorizes.

The Institutional Position, Stated at Full Strength

The institutional answer, stated by its best advocates, runs along these lines.

The work of benevolence is authorized work. The local church is commanded to care for the needy. Both sides of the division agree on this point; the disagreement concerns whether that commanded care is restricted in scope to needy Christians or extends to all in need.

James 1:27 authorizes the church’s care for orphans and widows without restriction. “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” The verse names orphans and widows without qualification. It does not read “the orphans and widows of saints.” On the institutional reading, the verse places on the church the obligation to visit and care for orphans and widows generally, and nothing in the verse limits the recipients to Christians.

Galatians 6:10 authorizes “good to all people.” “So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” The verse is direct. The scope is “all people.” The “household of the faith” receives special emphasis, but the wider scope is expressly named. If this is addressed to the church, the church’s benevolent scope is “all people.”

The apostolic pattern of evangelism was never merely verbal. Jesus healed the sick, fed the multitudes, and relieved distress as He preached. The apostolic churches would have done the same. To restrict the local church to verbal proclamation while its members and neighbors suffer material need is to reduce the church to less than the apostolic pattern itself described.

“Feed the belly, then feed the man.” As a practical matter, a man who is hungry, cold, or sick is not in a condition to hear the gospel clearly. Material aid opens the door for the preaching. Denying material aid when the church has the means to give it closes that door. The apostolic record shows evangelism and benevolence going together; the modern distinction between them is artificial and unscriptural.

The individual-collective distinction, if granted at all, does not require that the church’s scope be narrower than the individual’s. If the church is the community of saints acting together, what each is obligated to do the collective body may likewise do. The reverse — a church forbidden to do what each of its members is commanded to do — makes the church less than its members, and that cannot be right.

This is the institutional position at full strength. Its force rests on James 1:27 and Galatians 6:10 as apostolic authorizations for the church’s benevolent work toward “orphans and widows” and “all people” respectively, on the practical observation that evangelism and benevolence naturally travel together, and on the principle that what the individual Christian must do, the community of Christians ought also to be free to do collectively.

The non-institutional answer does not deny the force of any of these observations until it comes to the one question that governs them all: what does the text actually show of the church’s collective benevolence?

The Non-Institutional Position, Stated at Full Strength

The non-institutional argument begins with a single observation, and it is an observation every reader may verify for himself with a concordance and an open Bible. Every New Testament passage that describes the local church engaged in collective material benevolence — without exception, in every book, from every author who addresses the subject — specifies that the recipients were Christians.

The pattern is not subtle, and it is not a matter of selective emphasis. It is uniform. From the first benevolence described after Pentecost to the last of Paul’s references in 2 Corinthians, the collective benevolence of the local church is directed toward the body — “those who had believed,” “the congregation of those who believed,” “the disciples,” “the brethren,” “the saints.” The recipients are named, and they are consistently named as brethren.

A uniform pattern across nine apostolic descriptions, written by three different authors across four different books over more than twenty years, is not an accident of emphasis. It is a specification. And the principle Chapter 3 established applies here as it applied at every other point: when Scripture specifies, silence on the unspecified is restrictive. If the apostolic churches had at any point extended collective benevolence from the treasury to non-Christians as a pattern of their collective work, the New Testament would have shown it. It shows the opposite, consistently.

The passages the institutional argument reaches for — James 1:27 and Galatians 6:10 — do not describe the collective treasury at all. On close examination, both address the individual Christian. The grammar and context of each are plain on this point once the reader stops and looks at them. Chapter 5 has already shown that the individual Christian’s benevolence is broader than the local church’s collective benevolence; the two passages in question do not cancel that distinction but confirm it.

Finally, the practical argument that evangelism requires material aid as its first step — “feed the belly, then feed the man” — is not the apostolic method. Jesus Himself rebuked a crowd that sought Him for bread rather than for His teaching (John 6:26–27). Peter, standing at the gate of the temple before a man who begged for alms, did not relieve the man’s material need with silver and gold but healed him in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 3:6). The apostolic churches preached the gospel directly and relieved the material needs of their own brethren. The material relief of the unconverted, as a collective work of the congregation aimed at drawing hearers to the gospel, is not a pattern the New Testament shows.

The non-institutional answer is therefore not a narrow one and not a stingy one. It is the straightforward report of what the New Testament actually shows. And the Scriptural walk that follows is an invitation to every reader to verify the pattern for himself.

What the Scripture Actually Shows — The Collective Benevolence Passages

The New Testament describes nine instances or references in which a local church engaged in collective material benevolence. Each is considered in turn.

Acts 2:44–45. After Peter’s Pentecost sermon and the baptism of three thousand hearers, Luke describes the common life of the newborn Jerusalem church: “And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.”

The word “all,” in verse 45, is pronounced in English as if it might refer to all in Jerusalem. The text forbids that reading. Verse 44 defines the “all” of verse 45 before verse 45 is spoken. It is “all those who had believed” — those who had obeyed Peter’s preaching and been baptized that day and the days following. The sharing was among “those who had believed.” The “anyone” who “might have need” was anyone within the community of the believing. The first collective benevolence described in the church’s history was directed to the brethren.

Acts 4:32–35. A few chapters later, as the Jerusalem church continues to grow, Luke returns to the same pattern: “And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them … For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need.”

The subject is identified in verse 32 with precision: “the congregation of those who believed.” The distribution in verse 35 is “to each” — “each” meaning each of those just named, the ones whose need was now being met from the common stock. The outcome in verse 34 — “there was not a needy person among them” — refers to the congregation of those who believed, not to the population of Jerusalem. Jerusalem in the first century had many needy persons who were not disciples. The text does not claim that the church relieved all of them. It claims that no needy person was among the congregation of believers. The scope is the body.

Acts 6:1–6. As the disciples continued to increase in number, a real benevolent need arose within the Jerusalem church. “Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food.” The apostles called the congregation together, had them select seven men of good reputation, and appointed those men to the daily distribution. Chapter 6 examined this narrative for what it shows about organizational form. The present chapter asks a different question of the same text: to whom was this serving directed?

The answer is given by the first verse itself. The widows in view were “their widows” — the widows of the Hellenistic Jews who had become disciples. Verse 1 begins by identifying the whole scene as one internal to the disciples (“while the disciples were increasing in number”). The Hellenistic Jews are Hellenistic disciples; the native Hebrews are Hebrew-speaking disciples; the widows on both sides belong to the community of believers. This was not a daily bread program for the widows of Jerusalem generally. It was a distribution within the body, among the body, for widows of the body. A distribution problem had arisen between two groups of Christians over the care of their own widows, and the apostolic answer was to restructure the church’s internal serving so that the widows within the body were not overlooked.

Nothing in the text shows, or hints, that the daily serving extended to widows outside the community of disciples. Everything in the text shows the reverse: “the disciples were increasing,” “the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows,” “the congregation of the disciples,” “full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” The text describes a church taking care of its own.

Acts 11:27–30. A famine predicted by Agabus “over all the world” threatened the brethren in Judea. The disciples at Antioch responded: “And in the proportion that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea. And this they did, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul to the elders.”

The contribution had a specified recipient: “the brethren living in Judea.” The disciples at Antioch did not send relief to Judea for all Judeans who would suffer in the famine. They sent relief to their brethren, carried by their own chosen messengers, delivered to the elders of the receiving congregations. This is the first inter-congregational relief recorded in the New Testament, and its scope is specified: the brethren.

Romans 15:25–26. Paul describes the larger contribution that he himself was in the act of carrying when he wrote to Rome: “but now, I am going to Jerusalem serving the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem.”

The phrase is striking in its precision. Not “the poor of Jerusalem.” Not “the poor in Jerusalem.” The poor among the saints in Jerusalem. There were many poor in first-century Jerusalem who were not saints. The contribution was not for them. It was for the poor among the saints — the poor who were members of the body in that city.

1 Corinthians 16:1–3. Paul’s instruction to the Corinthians about this same contribution begins with an identifying phrase: “Now concerning the collection for the saints.” The recipients are named before the method is described. “As I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come. When I arrive, whomever you may approve, I will send them with letters to carry your gift to Jerusalem.”

The collection was on the first day of every week. Each member gave as he prospered. The messengers were approved by the contributing congregation. The destination was Jerusalem. And the recipients were “the saints.” The pattern of giving is textbook apostolic church practice in every respect — and the scope of benevolence is textbook too.

2 Corinthians 8:4. When Paul commends the Macedonian churches to the Corinthians, he describes what the Macedonians begged for permission to do: “begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints.”

The Macedonians, themselves in “deep poverty” (v. 2), were not begging to relieve the poor generally. They were begging to participate in the support of the saints. Once again the word is specified.

2 Corinthians 9:1. Paul’s next reference uses the same word: “For it is superfluous for me to write to you about this ministry to the saints.”

Here Paul assumes the identity of the recipients as a matter already settled. He does not explain or argue. “This ministry to the saints” is a phrase that needed no clarification to the Corinthian reader. The ministry was the ministry to the saints.

2 Corinthians 9:12. The final reference in the passage carries the same specification: “For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God.”

The needs being supplied are the needs of the saints. The overflow is into thanksgivings to God, which cost nothing and are not received from a treasury. But the material disbursement — the use of the collected funds — meets the needs of the saints.

The Pattern

Nine passages have been examined. Each was written under apostolic inspiration. Each describes a local church, or a group of local churches, engaged in the collective use of material resources to meet the material needs of others. And in every one, without exception, the recipients are specified — and specified as members of the body.

The phrases, in the order they appear across the New Testament, are these: all those who had believed (Acts 2:44); the congregation of those who believed (Acts 4:32); their widows, the widows of the disciples (Acts 6:1); the brethren living in Judea (Acts 11:29); the poor among the saints in Jerusalem (Rom. 15:26); the collection for the saints (1 Cor. 16:1); the support of the saints (2 Cor. 8:4); this ministry to the saints (2 Cor. 9:1); and the needs of the saints (2 Cor. 9:12).

Three authors. Four books. A span of more than twenty years in which the apostolic churches, in many cities and across two continents, conducted their benevolent work. And one consistent specification.

Scripture’s specifications do not have to be repeated once for every possible alternative reading to be taken as specifications. Scripture does not read, “The church helped the saints only, and never non-Christians, and this was universal, and this is binding.” It says, every time, that the helped were saints; and it says nothing of any collective arrangement for anyone else. The pattern is the specification.

At this point the reader has every right to ask the institutional question back: but what of the two passages that the institutional argument reaches for? Do James 1:27 and Galatians 6:10 — which use broader language — overturn or revise what the nine descriptive passages establish? The two passages deserve careful treatment in their own right.

James 1:27 — What James Is Actually Describing

The verse in full: “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

On first reading, the verse can appear to command the church to visit orphans and widows as part of its collective religion. The institutional argument rests on that reading, and it is not a frivolous reading. But the verse lies embedded in a paragraph, and the paragraph is grammatically precise about who is in view. A reader who begins with verse 22 and reads continuously through verse 27 will find that James’s subject — from the first word of the paragraph to its last — is the individual Christian.

The pronouns do the work. Consider the sequence verse by verse:

Verse 22 — “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” Plural “yourselves,” but as Paul’s “each of you” does in 1 Corinthians, this addresses each individual reader, not a collective body acting as a collective.

Verse 23 — “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror.” The subject has narrowed to an individual — “anyone,” “he,” “a man,” “his natural face.” A single person is being described, looking at his own reflection.

Verse 24 — “for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.” The pronouns intensify: four references to a single individual in one verse.

Verse 25 — “But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” The subject is “one” — one person, in distinction from the other person described in verses 23–24. Again, an individual.

Verse 26 — “If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless.” The grammar is now explicit: “anyone,” “himself,” “his tongue,” “his own heart,” “this man’s religion.” The person in view is a single individual whose religion is his personal religion.

Verse 27 — “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” And here — without any grammatical break between verse 26 and verse 27 — the subject carries forward. The “religion” of verse 27 is the same “religion” that was worthless in verse 26. It is an individual’s religion, in the same paragraph, in continuous argument. The verse closes with “oneself” — the individual’s ongoing obligation to keep himself unstained.

The structure of James 1:22–27 is a single sustained argument about what the individual Christian’s religion consists of. If his religion is real, he is a doer of the word and not merely a hearer. If his religion is real, he bridles his tongue. If his religion is real, he visits orphans and widows in their distress. And if his religion is real, he keeps himself unstained by the world. These four marks — doing the word, bridling the tongue, visiting orphans and widows, keeping oneself unstained — are all things the individual disciple does, or fails to do, in his own conduct. The passage is not a description of a collective treasury’s disbursements. It is a description of what personal religion in the sight of God actually looks like.

If James 1:27 were intended to direct the collective treasury of the local church, the grammar from verse 22 forward would have shifted at some point. It does not shift. The pronouns remain individual from verse 22 to verse 27 without a break. The reader who wants to interpret verse 27 against the church treasury must show where, in the paragraph, the subject ceases being the individual Christian and becomes the collective body. The text does not supply such a shift.

It is worth adding — because no one wishes to diminish the force of the verse — that the individual Christian’s obligation to visit orphans and widows is real. Every Christian has this commanded of him. The obligation is not softened by noting that it is an individual obligation rather than a collective one. It is, if anything, intensified. A Christian who hides behind the church treasury and considers himself discharged because the treasury has given to some institution has not obeyed James 1:27. He has outsourced his religion to a treasury. James places the obligation on him personally.

Galatians 6:10 — The Two Spheres Paul Names

The second passage the institutional argument reaches for is this: “So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Gal. 6:10).

At first reading, the verse also appears to widen the benevolent scope. “All people” is an expansive phrase. On the institutional reading, “let us do good to all people” commands a breadth that a church limited to benevolence for its own members falls short of.

As with James 1:27, the verse is embedded in a paragraph whose grammar settles who is in view. Galatians 6 begins at verse 1: “Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.” The subject is the individual Christian, addressed as “brethren” — “anyone” who is caught, “you who are spiritual,” “each one looking to yourself,” “you too.” The work of restoring a fallen brother is personal work, done by the individual spiritual Christian.

Verse 2 — “Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.” The burdens are borne individually, Christian to Christian. A treasury cannot bear a brother’s burden; only a person can bear a brother’s burden.

Verse 3 — “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” Individual.

Verse 4 — “But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another.” Individual, with a particular emphasis on the individual’s own self-examination.

Verse 5 — “For each one will bear his own load.” Individual, stated with a universal qualifier: each one will bear his own load.

Verse 6 — “The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him.” A one-to-one relation; a personal relation between a learner and a teacher.

Verses 7–9 — The passage on sowing and reaping. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” The “us” is the collective of individuals who have been addressed throughout. The warning applies to each.

Verse 10 — “So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” The “us” of verse 10 is the “us” of verse 9, which is the “each one” of verses 4 and 5, which is the “brethren” addressed from verse 1 forward. Paul is speaking to individual Christians about what individual Christians do. The “all people” is the individual Christian’s wider scope.

And then — this is an observation worth pausing over — Paul does not stop at “all people.” He continues: “and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” The preposition especially is doing real work in the verse. Paul marks two spheres and distinguishes them. The individual Christian has a broader sphere (“all people”) and a narrower, more intense sphere (“those who are of the household of the faith”). Both are authorized for the individual. Both are commanded. But they are distinct spheres, and Paul names them distinctly.

This is precisely the distinction Chapter 5 drew from the Mosaic law — the temple treasury and the individual landowner, operating in parallel with different scopes. Paul names the same two spheres in Galatians 6:10. The individual Christian is authorized for both spheres. The collective treasury was authorized for one (the saints), as all nine descriptive passages consistently confirm.

Far from overturning the nine descriptive passages, Galatians 6:10 — read in its context — actually confirms them. The individual’s wider obligation stands; the collective treasury’s narrower specification stands; and Paul himself marks the two spheres in a single verse by the word especially.

The “Feed the Belly” Argument

One further argument from the institutional side deserves examination. It is a practical argument rather than a textual one, and it is not without its own force. The reasoning is that material aid opens the door for the hearing of the gospel. A man who is hungry cannot concentrate on eternal things. Feed him first, clothe him, shelter him; then preach to him. The apostolic churches, on this reasoning, would have operated in this way — and a church that refuses to do so today has not truly imitated them.

The argument has to be examined against what the apostolic record actually shows about how evangelism proceeded.

Consider Jesus’s own response to a multitude that had been fed. After the feeding of the five thousand, the crowd pursued Him to Capernaum. His greeting to them was not a welcome but a rebuke: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal” (John 6:26–27). Jesus did not follow a “feed them first, teach them second” method. He had fed them. They had come back for more bread, and He corrected them. The correction was that they were seeking Him for the wrong reason. Material bread had, in their case, obscured rather than opened the way to spiritual hearing.

Consider Peter and John at the temple gate. A man who had been lame from his birth sat daily at the Beautiful Gate and begged alms from those entering the temple. As Peter and John approached, he asked them for a gift. “But Peter said, ‘I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene — walk!’” (Acts 3:6). Peter did not apologize for his empty purse and promise to organize relief for him from the Jerusalem treasury the next day. He did not treat the man’s material need as the necessary first step to his spiritual hearing. Peter offered what he had — the power of Christ — and the man rose and walked. The preaching followed in the portico of Solomon, with the healed man clinging to Peter and John, and many who heard the word believed (Acts 4:4).

Consider the pattern of the apostolic ministry more broadly. Paul’s preaching at Philippi, at Thessalonica, at Corinth, at Ephesus, at Rome: in no case does the narrative show him setting up a relief operation in a city as a means of gathering hearers for the gospel. The gospel was preached. Signs accompanied the preaching where God willed. Hearers believed and were baptized. Those hearers, now disciples, gathered into a local congregation and began to care for their own needy. The order — preaching, conversion, gathering, care for the body — is the apostolic order throughout.

Individual benevolence in the apostolic pattern is illustrated in the account of Tabitha at Joppa. Acts 9 describes her as a disciple who “was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity which she continually did” (Acts 9:36). When she fell sick and died, the widows who stood beside Peter in her upper room wept and showed him “all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make while she was with them” (Acts 9:39). Her work was her own. Nothing in the text describes the Joppa church funding Tabitha’s work from a collective treasury or directing it as a church program. She was an individual Christian living out her obligation to do good, with her own hands, from her own resources. This is what the individual’s benevolent work looks like when it is actually lived. It does not look like a line item in a congregation’s budget.

“Feed the belly, then feed the man,” taken as a principle of how the church gathers hearers, is a modern practical strategy. It is not the apostolic strategy. The apostolic strategy was to preach the gospel directly to every hearer, to baptize those who believed, and to care — as the gathered body — for the needy within the body. Individuals within the body then carried the broader obligation God placed on them personally, in their own labor and from their own resources, as every Christian is commanded by Galatians 6:10 to do.

The Old Testament Parallel

Chapter 5 has already walked the ground this paragraph covers, and it need not be walked again. The Mosaic law distinguished between what was funded through the tabernacle treasury and what rested on the individual landowner. Worship and the priesthood were funded collectively, through the tithe. Relief of the poor, the alien, the orphan, and the widow was funded individually, through the gleaning laws in each Israelite’s field, at each Israelite’s cost, in each Israelite’s obedience (Lev. 19:9–10; Deut. 24:19–21; Ex. 23:10–11).

God did not funnel relief through the tabernacle. He placed relief on the individual. And the New Testament carries the same distinction forward, under the Law of Christ, in the same pattern: the collective benevolence of the local church is for the saints; the broader benevolence of the individual Christian reaches to all in need. The pattern is not new to the New Testament. It is the continuation of how God had ordered His people from the beginning.

Letting the Text Carry the Conclusion

The question of this chapter admits a specific answer from the text itself. Nine New Testament descriptions of collective benevolence from the local church treasury uniformly specify the recipients as members of the body — believers, disciples, brethren, saints. The two passages often cited for an expanded scope — James 1:27 and Galatians 6:10 — address the individual Christian in their immediate contexts, and Galatians 6:10 itself names the very distinction between the two spheres (the individual’s broader sphere and his narrower one). The practical argument that evangelism requires material aid first is not the apostolic method; Jesus Himself rebuked a crowd that sought Him for bread, and the apostles preached directly. And the Old Testament pattern God established under the Mosaic law — individual benevolence broader than collective benevolence — is the pattern that carries forward under the New.

The local church’s treasury, as Scripture authorizes its use, is not narrower than God intended and not broader than God intended. It is exactly what God ordered: the collective work of worship, edification, evangelism, and benevolence to the saints within the body. The individual Christian — with his own resources, in his own sphere, by his own obedience — does the broader work of doing good to all people as God gives him opportunity. Both are commanded. Neither displaces the other. Neither is stinginess. Both are faithfulness.

It follows that a local church that confines its collective benevolence to needy saints is not failing in love. It is doing what Scripture authorized it to do. And a Christian who learns that his collective treasury is not to be used for the broader work has not been relieved of that broader work. He has been reminded that it is his to carry — in his own spending, in his own visits, in his own labor of the hands, from his own resources. The widow next door is not to be met by a line item in the congregation’s budget. She is to be met by a Christian who knows his own obligation.

A brother who reaches a different conclusion from the Scripture walked above is owed patient conversation and charity. The nine descriptive passages may be examined again. The two passages cited for wider scope may be re-read in context. The pattern will be what the reader finds it to be when he reads for himself. That reading, more than any argument a booklet like this can make, is what will settle the matter in any honest student’s mind.

Chapter 9 takes up the fourth and final of the specific questions — the fellowship hall and the social meal. The method will again be the same. State the question, state both positions fairly, walk the Scripture, and let the text carry the conclusion.

For Reflection and Discussion

1. The nine New Testament descriptions of collective church benevolence listed in this chapter each specify the recipients in terms that name members of the body (believers, disciples, brethren, saints). Work through each passage yourself with a concordance and confirm the pattern. Is there any passage in which a local church’s collective benevolence is described as extending to persons outside the body? If you cannot find one, what does the absence of such a passage suggest about what Scripture authorizes the collective treasury to do?

2. Read James 1:22–27 aloud without skipping any verse. In which verse, if any, does the grammatical subject shift from the individual Christian to the collective church? If the subject does not shift, what does that imply about who is obligated to visit orphans and widows in their distress in verse 27 — the church treasury, or the individual Christian?

3. Read Galatians 6:1–10 aloud in the same way. The verse often cited is “let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (v. 10). What is the force of the word especially in that sentence? If Paul were authorizing a single undifferentiated scope of benevolence, why would the word especially appear at all?

4. In John 6:26–27, Jesus rebukes a crowd that had followed Him after He fed them. His specific correction is that they sought Him because they had eaten, not because they had seen signs. Does this narrative recommend a “feed the belly, then feed the man” method of gathering hearers for the gospel, or does it call such a method into question? How would Peter’s words at the temple gate in Acts 3:6 answer the same question?

5. If the individual Christian’s scope of benevolence is genuinely broader than the collective treasury’s scope — as Galatians 6:10 indicates with its “all people … especially those who are of the household of the faith” — does that mean the Christian is obligated to less benevolent work toward the needy, or more? What practical difference would it make, in your own life and in the life of your congregation, if each member understood the broader obligation as his own personal responsibility rather than the congregation’s?