The Collection for the Saints

[Eric Asante Obeng]

The Collection for the Saints

Introduction:
The New testament Church started with giving, Bible. Bible Reading 1cor 16:1-2
Giving as worship. It is a command or order. This financial support is for poor saints in the Lords Church

A. It is sound be on every Lords day Sunday Icor 16:1-2
i. The Christians, first give when the Church started. (Acts 2:45)
ii. For the Saints only. (Icor 16:1)
iii. For the poor in The Churches of Christ
iv. Who is poor in the New Testament Church

B. The Collection from the gentile churches to help the poor saints in Jerusalem Church. ( Icor16:1-3)
i. The poor people today in the Churches of Christ are following:
• Preachers
• Missionary
• Elders, Orphans, and Widows, etc

C. The Collection for the Saints is used to support the poor saints in the Churches?
i. Some people teach that the collection is for the Lords missions, Bible College, Church Building, Christian Books, Universities, and Tracts etc.
ii. Elders and preachers work to support themselves whiles preaching the gospel?
iii. All the Churches of Christ in the US now has their own Bible Colleges and University by using the collection for the saints.
iv. What is the Bible saying about the collection for the saints?

D. The new Testament Church, the collection is for poor saints in the Churches Icor 16:1-2
i. It is a command that those who preach the gospel will support by what they preach (ICor 9:7-13, Det 25:4), as also in the Law.
ii. The collection for the saints, today is for the poor preachers, Elders and missionaries those who are preaching the gospel (ICor 9:14, Lev6:26, Ipet 18:1, Num18:8-13)

E. Members of the new Testament Church are command to give every first day of the week (ICor 16:1-2)
i. More Blessing to give (Acts 20:35)
ii. God love a cheerful giver (II Cor 9:6-7)
iii. Elders, Preachers and Missionaries gave themselves for Preaching the gospel, (IICor 8:5, Rom10:15-17)

F. We need to use benevolence for the ministry.
i. Benevolence when the need arise.
ii. We need to preach and teach about Benevolence, (Gal 6:10, Rom 12:13, Gal 2:10, Jam1:27, ITim 5:16)
iii. Barnabas – Benevolence (Acts 4:36-37)
iv. Ananias with Sapphira – Benevolence (Acts 5:1-5)
v. Your Benevolence is like Barnabas or Ananias & Sapphira

God is not happy with us the way we used the collection for the saints. We have neglected the worker of God, those eat once a day, some can not feed their family, some could not even get manage the way leaders are use the collection for the saints is the same as Judas (Matt 26:7-14)

Conclusion:
Some elders think that supporting preachers and missionaries (God’s workers) is like the Churches of Christ are wasting God’s money. (Matt 25:31-35, 41)
How many Preachers and Missionaries, is your congregation supporting their work in the world?

[Eric Asante Obeng]

Thank you Ambani for your comments

[ndou ambani]

Hi! Eric,
What an outline. I think is time preachers talk about collection openly. Collection is nothing wrong, but treated wrongly by greedy leaders, the forbid people to talk about it because they are afraid they will be exposed. I hope everyone preacher will read this with understanding. From the beginning collection was used as a powerful tool to take the gospel further, help the poor, fatherless and the widow. Today collection is used to enrich preachers. I know of a Church of Christ preacher who earn more than three salaries from oversea, the money send to him was to help the ministry but instead of doing that his enriching himself in the church expense. I am a preacher and I'm not against preachers support but when is not used in the right way it does more harm than good in the church.
We should remember that God entrusted the church with us and the church today is been pondered by waves our job is not leave it but to keep it on it's cause.I thank you for this brave talk.