Church Funds and Hunger

Several passages in the New Testament reference a famine in Judea and Greek Christians collecting funds to send in relief of those Christians in Judea. Acts 11:30 says that these funds were given to the Elders of the Church in Jerusalem.

From this we conclude that the church is not a world-wide relief organization and church funds collected on the Lord’s Day are only authorized to be used for needy Christians. Of course that certainly does not relieve individual Christians from helping those who are not Christians.

I always wonder about the details of distributing that money to those needy Christians.

- Perhaps you have a member that doesn’t attend all the services and maybe just attends at Christmas and Easter. Do we help that member?

- What if you have a fellow Christian that has some doctrinal issues that are kind of “deal breakers”? Does that member get 100% help?

- You have a member whose husband is not a Christian and you give her some funds but find out she has been feeding her husband with funds that are only supposed to be used for Christians.

- You receive some funds and are feeding your family but there’s a Jewish family next door with a bunch of little kids that are starving. Can you use funds that are designated only for Christians? If you are an Elder and find out someone is feeding kids from the tribe that crucified Jesus Christ what do you do?

Here’s the other thing that I have wondered… maybe those funds were limited to Christians only because there wasn’t enough to feed the non-Christians.

Like if the church had a million dollars in its treasury and had fed all the Christians until they couldn’t eat any more would it be okay then to help some of those other families (non-Christian) who are starving?

These are the kinds of questions I ask myself. Thanks for listening.