Read It Again
By Professor EM Blaiklock MA DLitt
XLVI.
MONEY FOR JERUSALEM.
Read again 1Corinthians chapter 16.
Does 1 Cor. 16:1-3 imply that the church at Jerusalem was set on a higher level than the Gentile communities?. No. Paul had two reasons for the care with which he served the interests of the home church. First, it was part of his life's work to demonstrate the solidarity of all believers, and the story of Paul's early difficulties with the Jewish Christians reveals the need he felt to keep always before their eyes the spectacle of Gentile love and fellowship. Secondly, no church was as destitute as that at Jerusalem. They had suffered severe persecution, and the experiment in communal living of which we read in Acts 2:44-47 must have dissipated the real possessions of the early believers.
This attempt to build a Christian society seems to have been premature, for it was not sponsored by the later teaching of the church, and was not introduced into any Gentile community by Paul. There may have been a special purpose in the case of Jerusalem. Certain it is that no property at all survived the siege of 70 A.D. The early church
"made friends by means of the Mammon of un-righteousness,
" who may have stood them later in good stead. And again, even if their communism was a mistake, it was a mistake of zeal, and Paul's collection shows that God was mindful of their faith and sacrifice.