There are three things that the church in general tends to get hung up on: evangelism, sex and money. Evangelism because it is difficult, sex because it is embarrassing, and money because, well, quite frankly it is none of anybody else’s business!

And yet Jesus certainly made it his business. In 16 out of 38 parables the handling of material possessions plays a major part. Matthew records Jesus speaking about money 88 times, Mark 54 times and Luke 92 times - more, for example than he spoke about heaven or hell. Indeed in the entire Bible over 2350 verses deal with money and material possessions!

Jesus’ radical teaching

“People resented Jesus teaching on the subject. They saw it as meddling and as totally unrealistic to the point where they laughed at him. (Luke 16:14) What appears to have provoked the most laughter was the teaching he gave in the form of the parable of the dishonest manager (Luke 16:1-13), and in particular its powerful and startling application.

For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own? No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

It would have been a major shock to his listeners - as it probably is to us - to learn that rather than owners we are to consider ourselves as managers (stewards is the word used by many translations). That is, we have been entrusted with resources which ultimately do not belong to us. An understanding of this involves for most of us a complete change in mindset. We are used to thinking: what will I do with my money? Managers don’t think like that. They think: how can I best manage and develop the resources that have been entrusted to me?

The second major shock for them, and us, was the radical concept of eternal financial investment. As Jesus frequently did in his parables, he compressed time. Time was running out for this man, just as it is for us. And circumstances within life can change at a moment’s notice - the loss of a job, an injury or serious health problem. So, while we have some influence with material resources we should use it wisely to increase our circle of friends in eternity. If we have a jar of coffee we have the choice of saying: this is expensive coffee, so to make it last as long as possible and save me as much as possible I am going to drink it all myself. Or to say: this coffee gives me the opportunity to invite some folks round, share life, build friendships and perhaps influence their eternal destiny.

Jesus is not simply encouraging good management, it is good management in light of eternity.

A matter of the heart

Beneath it all is the question of whom we serve and worship - the issue of what our ultimate values are (not what we say they are.) We either serve God or money, says Jesus, we can’t serve both. Either serve God and use money, or serve money and use God. We cannot do both.

Money (and what it can bring) has a way of distracting the allegiance of our hearts for, as Jesus taught, where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21).

The best antidote to materialism is to give. Jesus tells us to lay up treasure in heaven, to use our material possessions to influence men and women for eternity. Spiritual leaders are to be marked by generosity (Acts 4:36, 37; Acts 20:34,35). Paul tells Timothy to command those who are rich to be generous and willing to share. (1 Timothy 6:18).

Now God can ask us to do anything, and we will do it because he is God and we trust his loving wisdom enough to obey him. But why does he ask us to give? It is not because God needs the money - he owns everything. It is because we need to give: giving does something to us. Giving loosens our grip on our possessions so that they don’t possess us; it protects us from a self-absorbed life, from a focus on our needs that can so easily turn into greed. In giving we reflect the character of a giving God. And through giving we have the opportunity to develop very deep and eternal bonds with others, as we invest in the cause of Christ worldwide.

Giving is not first and foremost a financial issue, but a spiritual issue. It is in this area more, perhaps, than any other that the true state of our heart and of our spiritual life is revealed. How we give is a reflection of our appreciation of God’s grace and our sense of spiritual wealth in Christ. In other words, our giving is an indication and gauge of our spiritual vitality.

The grace of giving

Paul describes giving not as a ‘law’ but as a grace (2 Corinthians 8:7) in which he desires all believers to excel. As the generosity of the widow (Luke 21:1-4), Zacchaeus (Luke19:8), the poor churches in Macedonia (2 Corinthians 8:1-5) demonstrate, there are no rules for ‘grace-giving’ - giving is a matter of the heart, a response to the grace of the Lord Jesus who, though he was rich, became poor so that we through his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Taking personal responsibility

We are individually responsible for how we manage the resources God has given to us. Each one should give what he/she has decided in his/her heart to give. (2 Corinthians 9:7) Just as the Lord has entrusted material and spiritual resources to each individual, so each must be free to respond individually in his or her stewardship. It is therefore an abuse of authority for any church leader or anyone else to tell another how much to give, and to what cause or ministry. Each person must take his or her giving decisions before the Lord, based not on hunches and impressions but on the clear guidelines of Scripture.

We consider giving to God’s work in Glenabbey therefore as a matter of personal discipleship, of obedient love and of taking our responsibilities seriously in accordance with biblical teaching. Rather than ask people for their money, we teach and encourage stewardship.

Certain guidelines are laid down for us, particularly in Paul’s writings to the Corinthian church. They can be summarised as follows:

1 Corinthians 16:2

Giving should be regular - Paul suggests every week probably because of the way workers were paid. For us, monthly might be easier to organise if that is how we are paid.
Giving should be universal - it involves each one, no matter how little is given. All believers, of whatever age and stage, should be involved in disciplined giving.
Giving should be systematic, not haphazard -”setting aside” and “saving it up” - properly organised and managed, not in response to emotional appeals but to decisions taken in private with God.
Giving should be proportionate - giving ‘as the Lord prospers us, that is according to income, or more literally, giving as we prosper.

Therefore, as income changes, so should our giving, all other things being equal. For example, our first response to a pay rise should not be the opportunity to spend more, but rather the opportunity to give more. As salaries are often reviewed annually, we should also review our giving on an annual basis.

2 Corinthians 8-9

Giving should be cheerful - not done grudgingly out of duty, but done out of a sense of privilege and of delight that God can use our physical resources for spiritual ends.
Giving should be generous - remembering the principle of harvest: the person who sows little, reaps little, the person who sows much reaps much.
Giving should be sacrificial - consider the example of the poverty stricken churches of Macedonia (2 Corinthians 8:1-5). C.S. Lewis used to say that if the amount we Christians give allows us to continue to live at the same level as unbelievers who have the same income, then it is likely that we are not giving sacrificially.

The question of ‘tithing’

Paul teaches that giving should be proportionate - as the Lord prospers us. The question then arises: what proportion?

At this point Christians differ with each other, with some suggesting that the Old Testament system of tithing (giving a tenth of income) should be applied in the church.

Our understanding is that under the terms of the Old Covenant, the Tithe was a tax levied on the Israelites for the support of the priests and the Temple ministry. The Christian church does not operate under the terms of the Old Covenant, with its feast days, sacrifices, restricted priesthood and food laws. We need to be careful about trying to carry over certain parts of the Old Covenant regulations (such as tithing) while ignoring the rest.

Jesus mentions tithing only once when talking to folks who were still responsible to keep the regulations of the Old Covenant. Paul and the rest of the New Testament writers do not mention it at all, which is a strange omission if tithing was intended by God to be a ‘law’ for the church, especially as non-Jewish believers would not have been used to tithing and would have needed specific apostolic teaching. When Paul teaches on the topic of giving, he makes it clear that grace is the key motivation, not law.

It is often pointed out that Abraham gave a tenth of his possessions to Melchizedek, priest of God Most High (Genesis 14:20), well before the Old Covenant laws were given. The idea of giving a tenth was therefore already in Jewish history. However there is no record of God commanding it, nor of Abraham repeating this every year, nor of the Apostles using his example.

However, if we have no percentage in mind the likelihood is that we will give less than we should. Studies of patterns of giving reveal that those regularly involved in church give around 2% of personal income. When we set this statistic along side the fact that most churches and missions initiatives struggle every year to sustain effective ministry because of lack of finance, something surely is very wrong.

Consider what would happen if all the members of a church did tithe. It would mean, for example, that for every ten people in full-time employment, one person could be fully supported in Christian ministry. It would mean probably a trebling of the amount available for world missions. So while we do not preach tithing as a law, we encourage it as a helpful goal.

It may prove difficult to reach giving one tenth of income in one jump, particularly if job losses, health problems or even poor financial management have led to accumulated debt. But even to increase regular giving by at least 10% each year would make a significant difference. Within 5 years £100 per month would become £161 per month.

Rewards of giving

Transforming our mindset from that of an owner to that of a manager and kingdom investor is not easy, particularly as the habits of a lifetime may well be against it. But there is tremendous reward. Jesus talks in terms of 10,000%! (Matthew 19:29).

Often God responds to Christ-honouring stewardship by entrusting us with more material resources, especially if we demonstrate generosity, a responsive heart and a willingness to trust God to supply our desire to give. But we need to remember that there is no guarantee in Scripture either that we will be rich, or that we will not suffer financial reversal. Paul experienced all extremes, as he tells us in Philippians 4 and warns about those who see godliness as a means to financial gain (1 Timothy 6:5).

But God’s rewards are rarely to be measured in material terms. Who can place a price on the eternal destiny of even one individual? And what thrill there is in seeing our resources being used by God in the promotion of the Gospel, in the building of the church, in the training and development of young lives in Christ’s service!

The church and money

What should the church do with the money it receives? Once again the New Testament guides us in our priorities:

Resource the ministry of the church, including the provision of adequate facilities and staffing, and of strategic training for all involved in serving. We consider that the first and predominant responsibility of all believers is to support the ministries of the church from which they benefit. (1 Timothy 5:17, 18; Galatians 6:6; Luke 10:7-10; Acts 18:5; 1 Corinthians 9:4-11)
Invest in the communication and spread of the gospel both at home and abroad. (Philippians 4:15,16)
Give to the needs of the Christian poor. (Galatians 6:10; Acts 2:44,45; Romans 16:25,26)
Give to the needs of the non-Christian poor. (Galatians 6:10; Luke 10:30-37).

What about us?

How does our giving match up with Jesus’ teaching and with New Testament examples? Are we closer to the Pharisees than we are to the poor widow, or to the churches in Macedonia who begged Paul to be allowed the sheer privilege of giving, and who gave far beyond what would have been considered possible? Has our salvation led to a spontaneous outflowing of generosity and sharing resources as it did in the church at Jerusalem? (Acts 2:44, 45; 4:32-37).

Whatever our material resources, we all have the same spiritual starting point, the same spiritual resources: the grace of the Lord Jesus. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9)