Paul’s collection for the church in Jerusalem takes up a significant portion of his letters (1 Cor 16:1–4; 2 Cor 8:1–9:15; Rom 15:14–32). For instance he writes in 1 Corinthians 16,
Now about the collection for the Lord’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me.
And here also in Romans 15
I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord’s people there.For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord’s people in Jerusalem. They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.
The offering is very important to Paul. And we can see just how important by noting how it would cost him.
(1) Paul faced certain persecution in taking this collection to Jersualem. In his letter to Romans he asks them to pray that he “may be kept safe from the unbelievers in Judea and that the contribution I take to Jerusalem may be favorably received by the Lord’s people… (Romans 15:30-31).” And on his journey he’s warned by the prophet Agabus about the imprisonment that awaits him in Jerusalem. But still Paul is undetered. In Acts 24:17, he says that the offering was the reason he had come to Jerusalem. “After an absence of several years, I came to Jerusalem to bring my people gifts for the poor and to present offerings.”
(2) Paul invites suspicion among his followers. Paul has specific instructions about who should be responsible for the money and its not him. In 1 Corinthians 16:4, “I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me.” And again in 2 Corinthains 8:16-21
Thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same concern I have for you. For Titus not only welcomed our appeal, but he is coming to you with much enthusiasm and on his own initiative. And we are sending along with him the brother who is praised by all the churches for his service to the gospel. What is more, he was chosen by the churches to accompany us as we carry the offering, which we administer in order to honor the Lord himself and to show our eagerness to help. We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man.
Pauls request for such escorts points to his awareness of some who might suspect him of being a con man, gathering followers simply to skip town with their life savings.
(3) Paul expends precious resources outside his mission field. Paul tells us that he brought this offering for the poor in Jerusalem (Romans 15) because there was a need (2 Corinthians Certainly there is need in Jerusalem. But there’s also needs that surrond his churches in Greece and Asia Minor. Giving money to poor Jewish Christians some 800 miles away is clearly diverting it from furthering his local Gentile mission.
It seems that Corinthians may have been thinking twice about it. Paul has to do a bit psycolgoical arm twisitng to get them to fulfill their pledge. In 2 Corinthians 9:1-5 he says,
There is no need for me to write to you about this service to the Lord’s people. For I know your eagerness to help, and I have been boasting about it to the Macedonians, telling them that since last year you in Achaia were ready to give; and your enthusiasm has stirred most of them to action. But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove hollow, but that you may be ready, as I said you would be. For if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we—not to say anything about you—would be ashamed of having been so confident. So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given.
Apparently the Corinthians have a bit slow in putting up the funds and Paul has to tell them that they better put of the money or their going to lose face.
So why did Paul think this offering necessary? What compelled Paul to raise these funds for the poor in Jerusalem? And what application might it have for us today?
Certainly the poverty of the Jerusalem church played a part. Paul says the contribution was “for the poor among the Lord’s people in Jerusalem.” And the offering showed their “eagerness to help.”
We’re not saying that it was any great wonder for Paul to face persecution. He did so on a number of occasions. course we know that Paul was willing to face opposition in many different instances. 2 Corinthians tells us of all the things he was willing to suffer. But Paul was always willing to suffer for his larger mission. I have a hard time believing that he was willing to collect and deliver this offering because of felt need in Jerusalem. The Gospel was behind it somewhere. I don’t think the poverty of the Jersualem believers represents the whole story. There’s more to find in the letters of Paul if we tune our ears to it.
Paul sees his mission to the Gentiles as a ministry to Israel (Romans 11:12-15). Israel played a special role in the plan of God. God promised Abraham that in his seed all the nations (Gentiles) of the world would be blessed (Genesis 22:18; Galatians 3:15). And Isaiah likewise prophesied
In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations (Gentiles) will stream to it. (Isaiah 2:2)
I believe Paul’s sees his ministry and particularly this Gentile offering as the first fruits of these promises. It’s the culmination of Paul’s mission. Through this offering the Gentiles are journeying to Jerusalem with him to worship the God of Israel. In doing so they are offering themselves as proof to the Jews that Jesus is the one Christians claim him to be.
We find origins and impetus for this offering in Paul’s letter to the Galations. Paul describes it as bridge between his Gentile ministry and Peter, James and John’s ministry to the Jews. But to see this we need to understand the context in which the mention of this offering first appears.
Paul wrote Galatians to defend against Jewish Christians who taught that Gentile believers in Jesus needed to follow the traditions of the Jews. Paul is resolute in his hostility to such a doctrine, eternally condemning any who preach a message other than the one he delivered to them (Galatians 1:8-9). To give context to his opposition, Paul recounts his own history; his former zeal for these traditions, his conversion and his subsequent relationship with the Jerusalem church who are presumably the source of the conflict.
Paul claims initailly to have been extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers, alluding to God’s commendation of Phineius who killed an Israelite man in the very act of fornicating with a Gentile woman (Numbers 25:1-8). But a revelation of Jesus and Paul’s call to the Gentiles changes all that. Without consulting anyone (once again presumably leaders in Jerusalem), Paul journeys to Arabia (2:17) and possibly even Mt. Sinai (4:25). Its only three years later that Paul briefly meets some of the apostles, Peter and James, in Jerusalem. In all this Paul stresses that his message came from God and not from any man.
14 years pass before Paul feels compelled to consult with these leaders in Jerusalem again. Paul presents the message he preaches among the Gentiles privately to them in the hope that they will see it from his point of view. Peter and James agree that they should go to the Jews and Paul should continue his outreach among the Gentiles. The one thing they ask is that he “continue to remember the poor.”
This last phrase, “continue to remember the poor,” appears to refer specifically to the poor in Jerusalem. Paul gives ample evidence to a serious tension that existed between Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and his ministry among the Gentiles. That this meeting and agreement occurred “in private” likewise suggests that Peter and James felt apprehensive in giving Paul the right hand of fellowship. A financial offering from Paul and his Gentile converts would certainly help to smooth out any difficulty that might develop among the believers in Jerusalem.
There are also other reasons to see this phrase as a reference to the poor in Jerusalem.
- James and Peter’s request that Paul “continue to remember the poor” indicates that this something Paul is already doing. If Galatians is written prior to the Jerusalem council (Acts 15), than this meeting occurred when Paul delivered aid from the church in Antioch to the famine starved church in Jerusalem (Acts 11:27-30).
- Paul claims his offering for the Jersualem church is for “the poor among the saints in Jerusalem” (Romans 16:26).
- His audience would presumably understand the shorthand reference since they themselves had been instructed about Paul’s collection (1 Corinthians 16:1-2).
Paul’s commitment to the poor in Jerusalem does not originate with Peter and James. It’s an idea which appears to be fundamental to his understanding of his ministry among the Gentiles. This can been seen in his letter to the Romans.
Scholars are apt to point out that Paul wrote to the Romans to prepare for a further missionary trip to spain (Romans 15:23-24). But what we often overlook is that Paul’s occasion for writing is more immediately connected with his journey to Jerusalem where he will finally deliver this gentile offering. (Romans 15:26-32). And it apparently weighs heavily on his mind (Romans 15:31).
Read in this light, the theme of Jew and Gentile makes a great deal more sense. Romans is a meditation on Paul’s gospel and what he hopes to achieve through his ministry to the gentiles. In Romans 11:13-14 Paul states
I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.
It appears highly likely that Paul saw this arousal as coming from the prophetic fulfillment of a later day worship of God among the Gentiles.
