Author’s Preface
Author’s Preface
To find out what the New Testament teaches about financial accountability in the church, and by extension in all Christian ministry endeavours, let’s look at the practice of the Apostle Paul.
There was to be a collection of money from churches in the Roman provinces of Macedonia and Achaia (present-day Greece) to alleviate poverty of other Christians. The money was to be taken to the believers in Jerusalem, where there was evidently a great deal of poverty, and the Apostle Paul oversaw the arrangements. For Paul it was important for one part of the Christian church to help another part in this way.
Paul’s references to this collection of money (what he taught about it and the safeguards he put in place) are instructive for us. They show Paul’s strong sense of accountability, transparency, and integrity. His example and his teaching apply just as much now, to the financial affairs of churches, missions, and special projects, as they did then.
Paul makes use of the collection as an occasion for teaching. He gives more textual space in his letters to writing about it than he does to writing about justification by faith. That probably surprises us. To state it does not belittle Paul’s doctrine of justification or any of his great doctrinal teaching.
We will look at three major passages and a few shorter ones. The major passages are 1 Corinthians 16, where Paul refers to this collection; 2 Corinthians 8–9, where he devotes space to general principles of giving; and Romans 15. (For background: Macedonia is in the northern part of Greece, and the Corinthians, to whom Paul is writing, were in the southern part of Greece, so you will see a kind of north/south rivalry going on.) We see six clear principles at work.
Chris Wright
London