The Collection on Sundays

“Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord’s people there. For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord’s people in Jerusalem.” Romans 15:25

This passage references a special collection taken from Greek Churches to render aid to the church in Jerusalem whose members were suffering from a lack of basic necessities. This passage is also used as authority to limit the collection taken every Sunday to the needs of Christians only.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and it has caused me to ponder certain things about the use of these funds… perhaps because I am in a position of leadership and I see a few administrative problems.

- What if A Christian woman is in need of food but her husband and family are not Christians. Maybe the husband is a real scoundrel. Do you release funds to the woman and forbid her to share with her husband?

- What if a Christian family has some starving Muslim neighbors including the cutest little kids you have ever seen and you find out the Christian family has been sharing with those neighbors. Do you admonish them and tell them... that money is Holy money dedicated to God and not to be used to feed the dogs?

- Do the funds released to the Christian family cease to become church funds and now become funds belonging to an individual? If so what happens if you find out they have been using those funds to replace the carpet in their house?

- Why didn’t the Apostles exercise their power of miracles and turn rocks into loaves of bread so we wouldn’t have to deal with these kinds of problems?

- What if the real reason they restricted these funds to Christians was there was not enough to feed the Christians and the non-Christians?

- What if the church had a surplus of funds and all the Christians had been taken care of and there was plenty of money left over…then could we help the starving non-Christians?

I do believe that every interpretation we give a passage has to agree with the theme of the New Testament that Christians both individually and collectively should love God with all their hearts, soul and mind and love their neighbors as themselves. Thanks for thinking with me.