When organized baseball was in its infancy a man by the name of Farrar
was first baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. He was a fine player, and he
had a little girl who was his best rooter. She sat in the grandstand clapping
and cheering every time he made a good play. She would shout "atta boy
daddy, you show em." The team came to love this faithful fan, and had much
fun joking about this most loyal rooter. There came a period when the father
went into t slump and was not playing well at all. The manager approached
him and asked if anything was wrong. He explained his anxiety about his
daughter. She had a good voice, and he wanted to give her the chance to take
voice lessons, but he could not afford it.
This was in a day when professional ball players did not make much. The
manager talked to the rest of the team. They wanted to help, but they could not
afford it either. Then one of them got an idea. After every game there is plenty
of tin foil scattered all over. He suggested that they collect it and sell it. I
remember doing this as a young boy by pealing off the foil from cigarette
packages and gum wrappers. That is what the Phillies did after every game
until the end of the season. They had a large collection by then. The girl was
able to take her voice lessons, and eventually went on to join the Metropolitan
Opera Company in New York City. It was the highest honor in the musical
world, and Geraldine Farrar became the idol of opera goers for many years.
It all began with a ball team collecting tin foil. It is a story of sacrificial
collecting which bore much fruit.
That is what our text is all about. Chapter 8 and 9 of II Cor. is the only
place in all the Bible where there is an extended discussion of the principles of
Christian charity, or the collecting of money to invest in other people's needs.
Even this is only part of the material in the New Testament dealing with Paul's
noble plan to unite all of the Gentile churches in the ministry of meeting the
needs of the poor Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Paul, as the Apostle to the
Gentiles, wanted to prove to the Jewish Christians, who were skeptical about
Gentile Christians, that the grace of God had truly changed them. How was he
going to do this? It was by means of a collection from all the Gentile churches
to put the Jewish believers back on their feet.
Paul knew the power of wealth to serve a great spiritual purpose. When
the believers in Jerusalem would see gifts, which Gentiles had given to help
Jews, they would know then, beyond a doubt, that the light of grace had
penetrated the darkness of Gentile hearts by their fruits they would be known.
We cannot imagine what a radical project this was. After centuries of
prejudice and hate between Jews and Gentiles this collection idea as an
expression of love, and as the symbol of unity in Christ, was without precedent.
It is an historical monument to the power of Christ in breaking down walls that
separate people. It is a testimony also to the value of money in fulfilling the
purposes of God. Money rightly given is the biblical way of getting rich. We
see here that it can also be a means of enriching the whole church. It is my
purpose in the message to examine the principles for giving that Paul lays down
here so we can be assured that we know what kind of giving it is that lays up
treasure in heaven. The value of Paul's teaching is that it is not abstract and
separate from life, but it grows right out of an actual historical situation. He
explains the method, the manner, the measure and the motive of giving. We
want to look at the first two. First-
I. THE METHOD OF GIVING.
Paul knows that nothing is done well that is done haphazardly. There must
be a plan, and the goal of the plan must be reached by a systematic method.
Paul, therefore, insists on systematic giving. He states this clearly in I Cor.
16:1-2 where he writes, "Now about the collection for God's people: Do what I
told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of
you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so
that when I come no collections will have to be made."
Paul is not into the special appeal type giving in which a need is explained
with great eloquence and deep emotion, and then people respond to it on the
impulse of the moment. Paul does not want to be an emotional pickpocket
ringing money from them by an emotional appeal. He wants them to give
systematically so that all will be ready when he comes. In our text Paul is
somewhat concerned that they have not been systematic, and so he is sending
some men on ahead of him to see that the collection is completed. So there will
be no embarrassment.
Paul had boasted to the church in Macedonia about how the Corinthians
responded to his plea for a great collection for the poor believers in Jerusalem.
The Macedonians were inspired by this example to give also. The Macedonians
went all the way and systematically reached their goal. The Corinthians,
however, have let things slide, and they have not reached their goal. Paul is
writing to urge them to get it done before he comes. It will be embarrassing for
everyone if the Macedonians find that Paul's boasting of the Corinthians was
without foundation. Paul is putting the pressure on them to be systematic, for
this is the only method worthy of the believer.
If people give on the basis of impulse and emotion then they are not giving
from an internal desire, but they are depending upon external circumstances,
and there is nothing Christian about that. Anyone can be moved to give by an
appeal to emotion. This is the method widely used by showing starving babies
and poverty conditions. People do respond and millions of dollars are collected
for worthy causes, and this is good. The point is, it is not a method of giving
that is uniquely Christian. Pagans, humanists and atheists give on this same
basis. Christian giving must be done with the sense that one is in a partnership
with God. It is a business like arrangement where you have made a
commitment to invest so much in God's work. You make this investment
systematically, and you keep records to make sure you are doing so.
If Christians do not develop this method of systematic giving they are liable
to become victims of all kinds of self-deception. Many Christians, for example
are dream givers, and they feel very generous even if they do give little to the
cause of Christ. In their minds they have visions of all they would do for God if
they had great wealth. New churches are erected by their bountiful generosity,
and everyone is helped by their fanciful distribution. Such dream givers are
serious, and they expect God to count them generous on the basis of their
dream. Such dreams do not build churches, feed the hungry, send out
missionaries, or in any way help extend the kingdom of God.
Other Christians expect to be asked for money. They like to be begged,
and so in order to appeal to these givers churches develop elaborate systems of
begging in which people are asked to make pledges. Others demand that
money be wrung from them by the moving of the Spirit, and so men are trained
for the special task of learning how to move these people to open their pocket
book. The result is that the church spends half its time and money trying to get
Christians to give, and this is a poor stewardship of time and money. The way
to eliminate all of this is for Christians to follow the biblical method of
systematic giving. A right method does not solve all problems, but it is the
basis on which to build to solve all problems. If you are not a systematic giver,
you are a problem to yourself and to the kingdom of God. Become a part of the
answer by starting to follow the systematic method of giving. Next we
consider-
II. THE MANNER OF GIVING.
Paul is the great defender of liberty and freedom, and he does not change
his tune when it comes to giving. He stresses that the manner of Christian
giving is to be voluntary. Giving that is compelled in any way is not truly
giving. We do not give the government taxes, for they are taken from us under
penalty of law. We do not give money to the phone, light and water company.
They are bills we must pay, and they are no sign of generosity. Generosity can
only be expressed through voluntary giving. As Paul says in verse 7, every man
must give as he purposes in his heart. A man must be free to make up his own
mind as to what he should give. Paul does not want any giving that is done
grudgingly or of necessity, for that manner of giving spoils the gift.
It is for this reason that tithing is not a law of Christian giving. I have
tithed since I was a teenager, and I highly recommend it to all who have never
tried it. It is a pattern of giving that leads to great satisfaction, but it is not a
law. As soon as you make it a law you are on opposite ground from Paul and
other New Testament authors. Voluntary giving is a New Testament principle.
You can give less or more than a tithe, but the important thing is that you
resolve it in your own mind. In verse 6 Paul makes it clear that the less you
give the less you reap, and the more you give the greater your harvest. He does
not lay down a law concerning a percentage, for if he did he would destroy the
whole principle of being free to decide in their own minds what to invest. He
makes it clear that the more they give the better, but he does not lead them into
legalism. Failure to abide by Paul's principle of freedom in giving has been a
curse on the church.
In the early church there was little problem with Christian giving. People
responded and the poor were cared for and needs were met. There is no
mention of the law of tithing. Then as the zeal of Christians began to cool, and
as Christianity became the establishment, giving became a problem. Christians
no longer responded to the grace of God freely, and so there began a movement
back to law to compel Christians to give. It is a story repeated over and over
again in history. Grace or law must guide men, and where grace departs law
moves in. As the church became larger and more centrally organized around
the Bishop of Rome, who became the pope, not only did the need become
greater, but the greed became greater. Just as government becomes a vast
bureaucracy demanding more and more taxes to survive, so the church became
such as well, and it began bleeding the people for all it could get.
I had always thought tithing grew out of the zeal of the evangelical spirit,
but in reality it grew out of a church that was loosing this the spirit, and it had
to revert back to law to survive. We cannot begin to cover the history of how
tithing was enforced. The church began psychological warfare first, and it
promoted tithing through the priests in the confessional. The priest would read
a document that made Able a tither and Cain the non-tither, and so the first
murder was committed by a non-tither. Pressure and deception of every kind
were used, and even forged documents proving tithes were paid to the Apostles.
Legalism has to have teeth in it to really work, and so in 585 A.D. the council of
Mascon made tithing the law of the church by this statement: "Wherefore we
do appoint and decree, that the ancient custom be revived among the faithful
and that all the people bring in their tithes to those who attend the divine
offices of the church. If anyone shall be contumacious to these our most
wholesome order, let them be forever separated from the communion of the
church."
This is a long way from Paul's idea of every man as he purposes in his
heart. Not of necessity said Paul, but the church said of necessity you tithe or
be excommunicated. In other words, if you wanted to get to heaven you had to
tithe. Salvation was by law and works. There was much abuse and corruption
brought into the church because of the love of money. It was this corruption
that was the primary cause of the Reformation. Luther's primary objection to
the church was its whole economic program, which robbed from the poor to
give to the rich. The tithe law was only one part of the corrupt system. None of
the reformers wanted to identify with the money grabbing abuses, and so they
opposed tithing. Luther opposed it and so there is opposition to it in the
Lutheran church to this day. Lenski, the most famous Lutheran commentator,
writes, "All legalism in giving or in securing gifts is Romanistic....tithing is
Jewish. Applying a little Christian varnish changes nothing."
The Anabaptists spoke out strongly against all tithes. John Wesley also
opposed it as a Jewish law and not a Christian principle. Strangest of all is the
fact that the Jews themselves opposed tithing. The church of the middle ages
forced Jews to pay tithes to them. You can see why they opposed it, but to this
day there is no Jewish congregation that uses the tithing method of fund
raising.
We haven't scratched the surface of either the negative or the positive of
tithing. The point of this brief history is to demonstrate the value of Paul's
principle of freedom and danger of departing from it. When giving is made
legalistic you depart from the New Testament principle. The Reformation was
a movement back to the New Testament where grace reigned and not law. The
spirit of the Reformation was a spirit of freedom where the stress was on the
individuals right to choose freely to respond to God. Only in this kind of
atmosphere can one give in the manner that Paul urges, which is voluntarily
and cheerfully. Glad generosity is a flower that blooms only in the soil of
personal freedom. Giving by law may lead to the same amount of money being
collected, or even more, but the flower is artificial and not pleasing to God.
God loves a flower that grows, and not one that is manufactured. He loves a
cheerful giver, and that is one who knows he is investing in a great cause, and
so gives with the same joy and excitement as one who buys stock that he knows
is going to go up much higher. Such an investment will be made cheerfully.
The Greek word for cheerfully is hilaros, from which we get our English word
hilarious.
This is the only kind of giving that pleases God. Hilarious giving is giving
that is a joy. It is a systematic, voluntary and cheerful giving. Glad generosity
is to be our goal, and it is not hard to contain if we look at the generosity of
God to us in the giving of His Son, and in the promise to be even more generous
for all eternity. I conclude with these words of Wordsworth,
Whatever, Lord, we give to Thee,
Repaid a thousand fold will be;
Then gladly will we give to Thee,
Who givest all.
