God Provides for Our Needs through Our Unity

God's pattern shown in the Early Church was to provide for the needs of its members through its unity. In unity, we regard ourselves and everything we own as God's, and give unselfishly to the needs of others, as he directs us. This gives the world a picture of God himself.

The narrative in Acts 4 also states one other essential observation about our oneness: God provides for the physical needs of poor believers through the oneness of the Body. When the Holy Spirit filled the Church in Jerusalem anew, taking control of each of them once again, they began to experience their oneness and they gave unselfishly. Because they gave unselfishly, there was none among them who lacked.¹ All of their needs were provided, because of their unselfishness toward each other. This was a restoration of the situation that existed immediately after Pentecost, when it is also recorded that those who believed had all things in common² and that the many acts of God’s power happened in the Church and the Lord added to the Church daily those who were being saved.³ Acts 4 was, if you will, the first “revival” in the early Church, and a cardinal element of that revival was unselfishness that provided all of the needs, not only of the church organization, but also of all of its poorer members.

            This was seen once again in the next two chapters. In Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira briefly broke the unity of the Spirit by lying about their giving to the needs of the poor, seeking the praise of men. It is very significant that the lie which broke the unity in Acts 5:1-3, and which merited such a harsh correction, involved giving to the needs of others. But, once the Spirit dealt with that situation, power was restored in the Church, as previously noted. Then, in Acts 6:1-7, unity was once again threatened by a financial problem—this time, charges that the Apostles were discriminating against the Greek-speaking widows in the distribution of assistance for poor members. The Apostles responded by instructing the Jerusalem Church to choose seven men, known to be honest and full of the Holy Spirit, to administer the assistance given to the poor and free the Apostles to pray and teach the Word. This solution is still regarded by many church organizations today as a model of how churches should be run.

            In its original context, the selection of the first “deacons” not only solved the immediate problem of uneven administration of donations for the poor, it also launched the ministries of two great evangelists—Stephen and Phillip, both of whom were among the first seven deacons. Stephen “performed great wonders and signs among the people” and preached with such force and wisdom that his hearers could not resist his words.⁴ Ultimately, his opponents could only ignore him by killing him⁵—and even in death, at least one of his enemies, a man named Saul of Tarsus, could not ignore him.^8,9,10,11 Phillip, on the other hand, brought the Gospel to multitudes in Samaria and, indirectly, in Ethiopia.¹² Thus, the Apostles’ inspired wisdom in appointing other Spirit-led men to administer the money for the relief of the poor not only restored the immediate unity of the church but also opened the door to the preaching of the Gospel in Gentile lands. None of this would have happened if the believers in Jerusalem had not practiced unselfish giving to care for each other’s needs.

It may be objected that the example of complete unselfishness to meet each others’ needs, as seen in the Early Church, applied only in Acts, while the original Apostles were still present to administer it, and no longer applies to the Church today. However, the Apostles Paul, James and John would not agree with this assessment. James, for example, reminded his readers:

What good is it, my brothers, if a man says he has faith, but has no works? Can faith save him? And if a brother or sister is naked and in lack of daily food, and one of you tells them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled”; and yet you didn’t give them the things the body needs, what good is it? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself. Yes, a man will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith.

James 2:14-18.

Faith that does not show itself in action—specifically, in James’ example, in caring for the needs of a poor brother—is dead, useless faith. Similarly, John writes that the love of God does not live in one who ignores the physical need of his brother or sister:

We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.

1 John 3:16-18.

            However, the most detailed instructions regarding giving were  written by Paul in his letters to the Corinthians. In the years between the early chapters of Acts and the writing of the letters to the Corinthians, persecution had scattered the Jerusalem Church, leaving only a much smaller and impoverished group of brothers in Jerusalem. In 1 Corinthians 16:1, Paul told the Corinthians that they should take care of preparing a special gift — in context, an alms gift for the poor saints in Judea — before Paul arrived, so that no offerings would have to be collected while Paul was there. (Obviously, Paul did not always take up an offering during his meetings). Then verse 2 states the general principle involved, namely, that each person should lay up his offering in store every week as the Lord had prospered him. Here, the Greek indicates that the weekly amount is to reflect the manner in which the Lord has (passively) prospered the giver, but the term used (euodotai) carries the connotation of profits or fruits of success. We are to share the material fruits of our success with our brothers.

            2 Corinthians 8 and 9 discuss giving extensively. This passage was also written in the context of instructions for a special offering rather than a regular, weekly offering.^13,14 The key to the passage is 2 Corinthians 8:5 (NIV), stating that the Macedonian churches had not done merely as expected, giving money, “they gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us.” Because they first gave themselves to the Lord, the Macedonians were able to give with rich liberality even out of their “affliction” and “deep poverty.”¹⁵ In this, the Macedonians were much like the widow who very quietly gave only two mites in Luke 21:1-4. Jesus said that the widow had given more than all the rich people who gave large gifts with great fanfare, because she had given all the living she had.

            After discussing the Macedonians’ example, Paul tells the Corinthians that giving is a “grace” (charis), in the NASB a “gracious work,” an outworking of God’s influence on the human heart, which he wished to see completed in them¹⁶ and he urges them to prove the sincerity of their love by abounding in this grace of giving.¹⁷ Paul then appeals to the example of Jesus himself:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.

2 Corinthians 8:9.

            Paul then urges his Corinthian readers to complete the gift they had decided to give and had begun to collect a year earlier.¹⁸ He then goes on to explain that it is not the size of the gift that is important, but the willingness to give it, because, where there is willingness to give in keeping with one’s ability to give, the gift “is acceptable according to what you have, not according to what you don’t have.”¹⁹ He then explains that the grace of giving is not intended to create hardship, forcing believers to put themselves in distress so that others may be relieved, but that there is to be equality in giving and receiving. That is, the Corinthians were to contribute from their plenty to others’ needs so that others would in turn contribute from their plenty when the Corinthians were in need.²⁰

Paul then appeals to the example of the manna as an example of the equality of which he writes — though the people gathered different amounts of manna, the ones who gathered much had nothing left over, and the ones who gathered little had no lack.²¹ These lessons can be generalized and applied to the modern Church — giving is a grace,  it is a grace given to us collectively, Christians are to give according to their means and as they have decided to give, giving is not intended to create hardship or inequity, and there is to be an equality in giving and receiving.

            Paul’s teaching on giving continues in chapter 9. Common teaching on the subject of giving often lifts 2 Corinthians 9:6 out of context. This verse is often presented as a proof text for the proposition that the way to get God to give us the things we want in abundance is to give great sums to the church, or to the person preaching the message. But this is not what the verse is saying at all, when read in its proper context. The context starts in chapter 8, as discussed above — we are first to give ourselves, then give voluntarily according to our means. The context of 2 Corinthians 9:6 continues in verses 1 through 4 of chapter 9, wherein Paul commends two churches for being zealous about giving to the needs of the saints. Then, in verse 5, he clearly states that any gift given is to be a “bounty” or “generosity” (eulogia), a blessing. A gift is not to be something “given of greediness” (pleonexia), that is something given because of an advantage one person possesses over another, or because of overreaching or extortion. It is to be given as a means of providing for others in God’s name, not as a means of bribing God to favor us or of avoiding His wrath.

           After all of this, Paul then says that we reap as we sow (9:6). Just as in agriculture, those who sow sparingly reap sparingly, and those who sow bountifully reap bountifully, when the time of harvest comes. This is in complete agreement with Jesus’ teaching that men, who are the harvest, will give to us in the same way we have given, “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.”²² Each gift is to be one we have decided to give–not one given under compulsion (either of law or of preacher-induced guilt)–and thus one that is given joyfully rather than grudgingly.²³ Paul clearly taught that the needs of the saints should be met by the Church through the cheerful, voluntary giving of their brothers. While he does speak of reaping in the same way we sow, the emphasis is on God’s provision–of our physical needs, but, much more, for the “harvest” of our “righteousness” overflowing in our “liberality” with what he has given us, resulting in praise to God. 2 Corinthians 9:8-11.

For a more complete exposition of the underlying concept that God desires us to give ourselves, and everything we think we own, to him, to be used at his direction for his purposes–including making provision for the needs of ourselves and others–as our true act of worship to him, see “Worship, Giving and the Tithe” on the Christian-oneness.org site.

While there are, of necessity, some limitations on the distribution of offerings for the poor, so that they may be used to restore lives rather than to support laziness—see, for instance, 2 Thessalonians 3:7-10—these limit only the administration of the gifts, not the underlying principle that we are responsible for each other’s needs and should share unselfishly. The example God gave us in the early chapters of Acts of the financial and physical needs of the Body being met through the manifestation of its oneness stands as still the rule for today.

            All of this does not minimize God’s supernatural provision of our needs. But God usually does not put money in the mouths of fish or rain it down from heaven. He usually provides for us through each other. Indeed, in a church in which all of the gifts are functioning properly, there is even a gift of giving.²⁴ As the whole church functions together in unity, God will bless our everyday business, and particularly that of the givers, so that all needs may be met. He may sometimes also give miraculous, supernatural provision, but that is not His preferred way of doing things. His preference is that we come together in unity and provide for each other as a picture to the world of our oneness with Christ.²⁵