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QUESTION 10:
What does the Bible teach about supporting the Lord’s work?

ANSWER:
The majority of people immediately think that I must support the church if I am going to support the Lord’s work. So they tithe and give and it might not have anything to do with supporting the Lord’s work.

First one must understand what the Lord’s work really is. We never read about working FOR the Lord. It is always doing the work OF the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58) The work of the Lord, in general, in the New Testament was supporting the poor saints and giving to the apostles and full time workers to support their needs. (Galatians 2:10 and Philippians 4:15).

Christians were not taught to tithe, as they are today. They were to give ‘as the Lord prospered them...’ (1 Corinthians 16:2) and as ‘they purposed in their hearts..." (2 Corinthians 9:7). The apostles and workers were not salaried men, but looked to the Lord for their needs. They had “freely received and were to freely give” They never commercialised the gospel such as it is today. Their support came unsolicited from Christian people and churches only. There was no appeal to the world in general or unsaved for money. There was not collection plate passed around to saved and unsaved alike. It was said of the Bible workers, “Because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles” 3 John 1:7.

There is nothing that has dishonoured the Lord and gospel more that today’s methods of soliciting money from the world in general. TV evangelists live in luxury when Jesus and the disciples often had no place to sleep at times. Today’s methods are far removed from New Testament teachings. Peter and John were broke in Acts 3: but they had something to give a lame man. (Read Acts 3:6). God is not poor and does not need anything. He owns it all.

But God, who was rich, became poor that we might be rich in Him. He came to earth and suffered in every way and eventually died on a Roman cross between two thieves that we might be saved.

Did you repent and trust Him yet? Did He die in vain for you? Trust Him now as Saviour or meet Him later as Judge.

All comments and questions to: Harold Smith

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Updated 5th August 2009, by Shelly Allen