Abstract
In three, and perhaps four, of Paul’s letters he speaks of the collection he is trying to raise to send financial assistance back to the impoverished church in Jerusalem. Biblical scholars have speculated for years regarding Paul’s motivation and purpose behind this collection. While many have been suggested, this article will focus on the collection as an expression of church solidarity between different regions. It will not only summarize significant recent research on the subject, but move beyond the historical and exegetical questions to inquire about the missiological significance of the collection for today’s church. What does this ancient fund-raising effort say about how the church in the 21st century should think about missions and church solidarity?
The Pauline collection
Compared to many other matters that Paul dealt with in his letters, the collection for the saints in Jerusalem occupies a disproportionate amount of space, particularly within the Corinthian correspondence. While Luke remains silent about the matter in recounting Paul’s travels, we find Paul coming back to it again and again, explaining what he had in mind, brushing aside objections and misunderstandings, and going so far as to arrange for the logistics of how the funds would be collected and who would accompany them to Jerusalem. This is truly the only picture we have of Paul as project manager.
Before examining theories regarding the motives behind Paul’s collection, it will be helpful to give an overview of the biblical texts that deal with it.
An examination of the biblical texts
1 Corinthians 16:1–4
There are four passages in the Pauline corpus that speak of the collection explicitly. From the standpoint of chronology, we first read of Paul’s plans in 1 Cor 16:1–4, although it is obvious that the church in Corinth had already been informed in a previous, now lost, letter. It appears that they had responded with some questions and Paul is now providing some clarification. His response is that everyone in the church should set aside money each week to accumulate so funds will be ready when he arrives. The Corinthians will then appoint delegates to travel to Jerusalem with the offering. If it seems appropriate, Paul himself will accompany them. We also discover from this passage that the churches in Galatia are taking part in this collection (although, surprisingly, in Paul’s later summary in Romans 15 he does not mention the Galatians). Whatever instructions Paul had given to the Galatian churches had already been shared with the church in Corinth. Paul would like all of the contributing congregations to be on the same page.
From these four verses, then, we learn a great deal. First, Paul’s use of the rare word λογεία (logeia) to refer to the collection gives us some subtle clues regarding his intentions. It appears only in this passage in the New Testament, but in Egyptian papyri and ostraca it was used strictly to refer to the act of collecting occasional, mostly voluntary, donations, mainly to be used for religious purposes (Deissman, 1911: 105; Malherbe, 1959: 227). Thiselton suggests that Paul chose this word specifically to differentiate between this collection and some kind of involuntary tax (2000: 1318). The intention is that this is to be a free-will offering, not some sort of church tax levied by the founders. That funds are being collected for people outside of their own communities in itself makes this an unusual arrangement in the Roman world (Kloppenborg, 2017: 325–327).
Second, the effort is being coordinated with churches from the region of Galatia, 500 miles to the east. Paul is creating a network of churches in order to provide significant assistance to the church in Jerusalem. This is an oft-neglected but significant point that will arise again in subsequent passages. It is likely that the letter to the church in Galatia predates 1 Corinthians by several years, before Paul had begun the collection process, which explains why there is no mention of the collection in that letter. There is, however, mention of the directive from the leaders of the Jerusalem church to “remember the poor” (Gal 2:10). It is very possible that Paul saw in this reminder some sort of social obligation that he later acted upon through the collection.
Third, there is to be a personal connection between the church in Corinth and the church in Jerusalem. They are to choose delegates who will carry their gift, along with letters. Paul himself may accompany them. Considering the difficulties and dangers of travel, even with the advancement of Roman roads and improved safety under the Pax Romana, this represented no small effort and risk on the part of the Corinthians. It seemed that Paul wanted the parties to spend some time with one another. Such a meeting would have taken both the church leaders in Jerusalem and the Corinthian delegates far out of their comfort zones.
2 Corinthians 8:1–15
In 2 Corinthians, Paul dedicates most of two chapters to the collection. While virtually all New Testament scholars agree that Paul wrote these chapters, there are various theories about the composition of 2 Corinthians that would place chapter 8 and chapter 9 in different letters that were later merged into the letter we have in our Bibles today (Betz, 1985: 3–27; Furnish, 1984: 429–433). While by no means a certainty, this would help us make more sense of 9:1 where, after spending most of chapter 8 talking about the collection, Paul states that it is not necessary for him to talk about it and then proceeds to go over much of the same material found in chapter 8 in a somewhat different light.
In chapter 8, Paul does his best to motivate the Corinthians to give from their abundance to this “service to the saints” in Jerusalem. He holds before them not only the example of the churches in Macedonia, who joyfully gave in spite of their poverty, but also the example of Jesus himself, who became poor so that they, the Corinthian Christians, might be enriched. There appears to be an unstated subtext in that the Corinthian church had, during the previous year, committed to this offering, but their commitment seemed to be fading. Paul assures them that he is not trying to put undue pressure on them but is striving for a sense of balance in which one party’s abundance can meet another party’s need.
This passage also merits a few observations. First, as we saw Paul make mention of the Galatian churches in 1 Cor. 16, here he makes use of the Macedonian churches, probably a reference to those in Philippi and Thessalonica, to spur the Corinthians on and renew their flagging zeal for this project. The churches in Macedonia are, in fact, insisting on being actively involved in the collection, in spite of their own poverty. If this is the case, how much more should the Corinthians, who apparently enjoy greater abundance, be anxious to take up the cause?
Second, in 8:4 Paul uses the word κοινωνία (koinonia) to describe the involvement of the Macedonians in this ministry to the saints. This is the first of three instances in which Paul speaks of the collection as a form of koinonia. In studying the use of the phrase “right hand of fellowship” in Galatians 2:9, Sampley made a strong case for viewing this as a ratification of a formal agreement known, in ancient Rome, as a societas, often translated into Greek as koinonia (1980: 28–31). A societas was a type of contractual arrangement between two parties with regard to their roles in achieving a common goal. The contract was considered to be in effect until either the goal had been achieved or one or both parties decided that they no longer wanted to participate. The parties may or may not be social equals. Accordingly, when Paul related the results of the Jerusalem Council in Galatians 2, the goal of their stated agreement was the preaching of the gospel with the understanding that the pillars in Jerusalem would concentrate on reaching the Jews while Paul and Barnabas would spread the word among the Gentiles. The only stipulation for Paul was that he would “remember the poor.”
Ogereau built on the work of Sampley and others by further exploring the use of the word koinonia in the Hellenistic world. We tend to regard it as a strictly Christian term denoting a sense of sharing and togetherness. To that end, we find English versions translating it variously as a “fellowship of ministering to the saints” (KJV), “sharing in this service to the Lord’s people” (NIV), “participation in the support of the saints” (NASB), and “giving their money for God’s people” (CEV). To the contrary, Ogereau points out that outside of the Bible, the term was never used to refer to a financial contribution, but always spoke of something more formal, i.e., “a partnership or association with socio-political ramifications” (2012: 321). This, suggests Ogereau, is exactly what Paul and his Gentile congregations would have envisioned in his use of the word. In other words, when Paul speaks of the Macedonians begging for the “privilege of being partners in this service to the saints,” his thought is of a kind of formal association or collaboration with the other churches in different regions by means of which this collection will come about. Luke’s use of the term in Acts 2:42 shows a parallel usage. Although many English versions simply translate this by using the vague term “fellowship,” the context makes it almost certain that it is referring to the members of the early church community formalizing an agreement to take mutual responsibility for the material needs of one another (González, 1990: 83).
Finally, in 13 and 14, Paul mentions the goal of equality (ἰσότης: isotes) between the Corinthian church and the Jerusalem church. The NRSV translates this as a “fair balance.” It is an unusual word, used only here and once in Colossians within the New Testament, and found only twice in the LXX. The question is, what did Paul mean by using it? Was this to be some kind of redistribution of wealth so that all of the churches had the same amount of resources to draw from?
Welborn (2013) suggests that, like koinonia, the proper context from which to understand Paul’s use of the word is not the Jewish world, but the Greek world, where isotes is used repeatedly in texts speaking of friendship, politics, and the cosmos. After examining each of these contexts, Welborn concludes that the Corinthian church could have viewed the impoverished church in Jerusalem as a benefactor. This would go against all societal norms in the Roman world where the Jews were often regarded as less-than-equal and tolerated more than appreciated (2013: 83). The collection could then be seen as response that would bring about proportional equality. That is to say, it was not to ensure that the Jerusalem church had the same amount of resources as the Corinthian church, but, in accordance with Israel’s experience with manna mentioned from Exodus 16:18, to ensure that everyone had sufficient resources to survive. There would be, in effect, true reciprocity between the Jewish church that stood as the source of this gospel message and Gentile Christians, who, in spite of superior material means, were indebted to them. Tucker proposes that we see this “in the context of זח/דסח/χάρις/ἔλεος discourse from Israel’s scriptural tradition, which emphasizes mutuality and relationality, and not hierarchy and obligation” (2014: 63). As Ott has indicated, Paul’s point was more about mutual interdependence than some sort of strict financial equality (2018: 8–9). One cannot help but see a kind of parallel, writ large, to the practice of the early church in Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 2:44–45 and 4:32–37.
Similarly, Joubert proposes that, instead of approaching the collection from the standpoint of Paul’s presumed theological perspective, it would make more sense to look at it in terms of “the socio-historical and ideological frameworks, within which this project was undertaken and within which it attained specific meaning(s)” (2000: 4). To that end, like Welborn, he regards the collection as an example of 1st-century benefaction, which Joubert distinguishes from patronage. First-century benefaction was more a form of benefit exchange than patronage in which one party was socially superior to the other. Paul and the churches of Achaia, Macedonia, and Galatia regarded the church in Jerusalem as their benefactor, and, in exchange, they saw their collection as a means of fulfilling their social obligation of becoming a benefactor to Jerusalem in return.
2 Corinthians 9:1–15
In 2 Corinthians 9 Paul takes a slightly different tack. Instead of trying to motivate the Corinthian Christians by speaking of the generosity of the Macedonians, he tells them that it was, in fact, their own eagerness to participate in this collection that motivated the Macedonians in the first place. Therefore, Paul wants to make sure that no one will be put to shame if the Corinthians neglect to follow through. It is here where we read that God loves a cheerful giver and will make sure their own needs are met, and that their giving will result in thanksgiving to God. Generosity of this sort is, thus, an act of worship that leads others to worship. As a final stroke, Paul reminds them that the intended recipients of this gift have been supporting them with their prayers. This, again, undergirds Joubert’s idea of the collection being a form of benefit exchange.
In verse 5, Paul insists that the Corinthians view the collection as a freely bestowed gift (εὐλογίαν: eulogian, more commonly translated “blessing”), and not something that Paul has exacted from them. Brueggemann prefers the NRSV translation of “extortion” here to emphasize how Paul is contrasting the nature of the collection with the Roman “economy of extraction” (2016: 218). Paul’s choice of the word eulogian instead of the more common charis or other synonyms such as dosis or doma is probably deliberate and a play on the phrase ep’ eulogiais ep’ eulogiais (often translated “bountifully”) in verse 6 to emphasize both the abundant generosity expected of the Corinthians and the anticipated sense of blessing on the part of the recipients in Jerusalem (Nickle, 1966: 121).
Romans 15:25–31
Finally, in Romans 15:25–31 Paul explains the collection to the church in Rome, a church he neither planted nor asked to participate. He tells them that the churches in Macedonia and Achaia are sharing their resources with the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. Not only that, but, in a sense, they owed this to them. If the church in Jerusalem was happy to share their spiritual resources with the Gentile churches, than those churches, in turn, should be happy to share their material resources with them. Paul then asks for prayers that this ministry will be acceptable to the saints in Jerusalem, knowing that there are still those in Jerusalem who harbor doubts about the validity of his mission to the Gentiles and their inclusion in the Kingdom of God.
Paul’s motivation
New Testament scholars have postulated multiple motivations for Paul in organizing this collection among churches in Asia Minor, Achaia, and Macedonia. Downs summarizes them under five headings: an eschatological event in which Paul is trying to bring about the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 2:1–2 (justifiably rejected by Downs), an obligation placed on Paul by the leaders in Jerusalem (Gal 2:10), an ecumenical offering, an act of charity to bring relief, and a Gentile offering to God (Downs, 2008: 3–27; see also Tucker, 2014: 55–56). To these, Nickle and others add that the collection was an expression of church unity and solidarity (1966: 111).
Certainly, it would be overly simplistic to suggest that Paul only had one motive for the collection, that his motivations were all explicitly stated, or even that he, himself, was consciously aware of all of his motives. For the purpose of this article, however, it is most helpful to concentrate on seeing the collection as an expression of partnership and unity both among the various participating churches and, at least according to Paul’s hopes, between the Gentile churches and the church in Jerusalem. Several points highlighted above underscore this conclusion. First, there is Paul’s repeated mention to the church in Corinth of the willing participation of churches from other regions. It appears that the church in Corinth had more means than the other congregations, modest though they may have been. Paul could have put all of his efforts into securing funds from that single source if his only goal was to provide quick relief to Jerusalem. Instead, he not only used every opportunity to include the churches in Macedonia and Galatia in his project, but he inserted constant reminders both in his letters to Corinth and in his letter to Rome that this was a multi-congregational, multi-regional project.
Second, there was his choice of vocabulary, taken, it appears, from the milieu of Roman business partnerships. Terms like “fellowship” and “equality” did not come from the social world of religion, but from 1st-century business or political partnerships. They referred to temporary arrangements where people or groups brought together efforts and resources to accomplish a specific task.
Finally, there were the relational aspects mentioned by Paul. The Gentile churches had a social obligation to the church in Jerusalem. Whereas the People of God were once identified strictly with the descendants of Israel, the way was now open for Gentiles to be grafted in. The conclusion of the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 freed Paul to travel to places like Corinth and Macedonia to proclaim the gospel and invite all people to become a part of this new thing. The proper expression on the part of these churches was gratitude. To this end, Paul sought to put together a delegation of Gentile believers to travel to Jerusalem and meet face to face with their spiritual benefactors to deliver their collected gift.
Contextualizing the collection
As we move into contextualizing the lessons derived from the collection for the Church of the 21st century, we must begin by recognizing the many differences between Paul’s context and our own. Circumstances have changed dramatically over the course of two millennia. I will mention just a few of the more important differences.
For Paul, the greatest threat to Christian unity was the divide between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. In spite of the decision of the Jerusalem Council reported in Acts 15, we know from Galatians, Acts 21, and Romans 15:21 that Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles did not receive universal acceptance among the early Jewish Christians. In the eyes of many, Jesus came as the Jewish messiah for the sake of the people of Israel. Only through circumcision and observance of Jewish laws could Gentiles be included among their number. The collection appeared to be part of Paul’s strategy to move the church past this controversy.
In the 21st century, the Jewish–Gentile divide has almost become a non-issue. Instead, we find ourselves mired in thousands of denominations and ideologies that often position themselves along an imaginary liberal–conservative continuum. During the colonial era, churches from the West exported these divisions to lands where the people had no historical connection to the conflicts that gave rise to the various church groups. In the postcolonial era, dozens of independent church groups continue to pop up in the Majority World. Therefore, while church unity remains a major issue, the basis for the disunity has changed dramatically since the 1st century.
Second, the early church, both in Jerusalem and throughout the Roman Empire, existed on the fringes of society. Christians were often persecuted or at least regarded with suspicion on the part of both Jewish and Gentile officials. To the Jews they were followers of yet another messianic pretender who had been put to death. To Roman officials, they were a troublesome group who refused to participate in public activities that involved worshipping civic gods or, for some, the emperor himself. Christians did not always share the special status of Jews that exempted them from these practices. Their behavior made them appear to be uncooperative and raised the specter of Roman intervention if allowed to continue unchallenged.
Today, there are countries in which the church still exists on the fringes of society. Persecution continues to be a major problem around the world. Nevertheless, in the West as well as much of Africa and Latin America, the church enjoys a great deal of freedom. While Christendom, at least in an official sense, is on the ebb, Christianity is thriving in many parts of the world.
In New Testament times, most people lived at or below subsistence level. The majority of people in the provinces struggled to make ends meet while paying what they owed to the government. Though Paul indicated that the church in Corinth had greater resources than the churches in Macedonia, it is doubtful that the Corinthian church would have enjoyed an abundance of wealth. In Palestine, not only were they severely taxed by Rome, but the tax collectors also added to that burden by lining their own pockets while people were also required to pay a temple tax. Paul’s collection was a call for radical selflessness to bring aid to the church in Jerusalem that appeared to be facing a particularly difficult challenge, perhaps due to famine or other economic hardship, as was the case when Paul and Barnabas brought relief to Jerusalem on behalf of the church in Antioch in Acts 11.
In our world, while the church in many lands also faces appalling circumstances, as a whole the church has resources to spare, even if much more effort needs to be made to distribute those resources where there is need.
Fourth, Paul’s entire experiential world was under the authority of one government: Rome. This was both a help and a hindrance to spreading the gospel. There were no customs or immigration officials at border crossings. People spoke Koine Greek virtually everywhere. A traveler could use the same Roman coins in every city between Rome and Jerusalem. The government was totalitarian, but relatively stable. On the other side, it also meant that the church faced the same oppressive forces wherever it was planted. Discipleship was costly for the early Christians.
Today, the world is much larger and more divided. Political, financial, cultural, and linguistic borders abound. The world population is roughly 45 times larger than it was in Paul’s day. We live in an era of disorientation and constant change. Discipleship is extremely costly for people in some parts of the world, but in others, the Christian faith presents few, if any, social or economic challenges.
Fifth, when Paul was writing, there were very few congregations in the world. Churches met in homes, and there was no official structure beyond the local church. Any sense of shared mission would have involved communication between local church leaders.
Today, at least among many Protestant groups, much of the long-term mission work has been relegated to denominational agencies or parachurch organizations that are usually based in the West. Local churches participate mainly through making financial contributions. This creates more distance between individual churches across national boundaries and further complicates cooperative efforts.
Finally, Paul could justifiably consider Jerusalem to be the birthplace and home base of the church. From its startling beginnings on Pentecost, partly because of persecution but also through the efforts of church-appointed evangelists and missionaries like Paul and Barnabas, the church expanded outward from Judea to Asia Minor, Macedonia, Achaia, and Rome. Peter and many of the other original apostles continued to provide leadership from Jerusalem. One might say that it was a case of expansion from the East to the rest of the world.
Today there is no one place for the church to regard as its homeland. While for much of the past four centuries the people typically have viewed Christianity as a Western religion associated mainly with colonial powers in Europe and later with North America, things have changed dramatically in the past century. With the enormous swell of the church in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the Western church now finds itself in the minority, and, particularly in Europe, in significant decline. However, from the standpoint of financial resources, the Western church controls far more wealth then churches in all other nations combined.
So while there are a few similarities between Paul’s circumstances and ours, the differences are telling. If we hope to appropriate anything from Paul’s collection for the mission of the church of the 21st century, it will require significant theological reflection. Meaningful contextualization will demand looking past the specific actions taken by Paul and the churches in Corinth, Macedonia, and Galatia to consider the deeper thoughts and values that guided Paul’s decisions.
The Pauline collection: lessons for today
With all of the differences between Paul’s circumstances and our own, and in order be guided by the biblical text instead of a private, social, or political agenda, it seems best to take Paul’s underlying principles as our own starting point, those being: a shared sense of mission, a conscious and deliberate partnership, a relational connection, and ungrudging mutual benefaction. It is, of course, somewhat artificial to consider these principles in isolation from one another. For instance, any kind of effective partnership would necessitate a relationship based on a shared sense of mission. Nevertheless, since Paul finds it worth commenting on each of these principles as he lays out his case for the collection to the church in Corinth, we might follow his example, with a couple of caveats. First, we must recognize that these are all facets of the same reality. Second, these are, after all, very general principles that need to be fleshed out. How, exactly, that will happen will look very different depending on the parties involved and the goals they are working toward.
This leads us to the question of “who.” Who, today, should be in relationship with whom? Who should share a sense of mission? Who should partner with whom? For Paul, it was both the Gentile churches relating to the church in Jerusalem through mutual benefaction and, in their efforts to raise the money for the collection, the Gentile churches from different regions relating to one another. Today, for the purposes of this article it would seem appropriate to consider our initial divide to be churches, agenices, and parachurch organizations in the West with their long history and rich resources and churches in the Majority World with their strong sense of commitment and rapid growth. Beyond that, perhaps, one might imagine partnerships growing between churches in different Majority World countries.
So let us begin with the idea of a specific, shared mission. This is something more immediate and specific than the broader missio Dei. For Paul, it had to do with a single, achievable project of providing financial help for the church in Jerusalem. Although Scripture does not say anything about the nature or cause of their hardship, it appears to have been a chronic, long-standing situation rather than a catastrophic event that came upon them suddenly. What is important is that Paul communicated a significant need on the part of the church in Jerusalem and invited churches in Achaia, Macedonia, and Galatia to band together to meet that need. It was something very tangible and specific. It was achievable within a relatively short period. People would see the result. It was, in sum, the kind of thing that people could visualize and support.
We may have many good intentions for developing strong relationships between churches and church-related organizations in the West and the Majority World. Certainly much of what goes on in the short-term mission movement bears testimony to this desire. However, without a sense of a shared objective in which all parties are able to contribute something of worth, we face significant barriers. It is difficult to rally people behind a vague sense of “relating to others.” Lacking specific goals or a sense of contributing to a project of inherent value, most efforts will probably die from lack of interest. People need something more concrete to be involved in than a mere sense of being brothers and sisters in Christ.
This naturally leads to the idea of partnership. As we noted in Paul’s writings, the English word fellowship does not go far enough in communicating the intention behind the Greek koinonia. “Fellowship” connotes warm feelings of togetherness, group discussions, and potluck dinners. However, in Paul’s world, koinonia communicated an established partnership with a common purpose and terms of responsibilities for the involved parties. The church in Jerusalem lived up to its part in this partnership by their endorsement of Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. The churches in Corinth, Macedonia, and Galatia participated by sharing their financial resources to meet the needs in Jerusalem. They knew what the mission was and what part each church had to play.
For our purposes today, it is well to recognize that even a sense of a shared objective between churches in the West and the Majority World will not accomplish much if there are no conversations about who will be responsible for what. This creates an opportunity for all parties to have an equitable (though not necessarily equal) share in the work. It may be that different church groups and organizations have different types of resources upon which to draw. One may contribute financial resources, another educational resources, another may have relational connections with governmental or other agencies, and another may be able to provide the workforce needed to carry out an initiative. The sense of shared benefaction expressed by Paul showed his concern that every church group had something to contribute to this effort and that each group could somehow benefit from the others through their participation. Paul, through his letters, helped coordinate the communication for his churches so that everyone understood their role in the partnership. Today, churches and parachurch organizations need to find their own means of coordination.
This sense of shared mission and partnership is both based on and leads to a stronger relational connection between parties. Paul speaks of the saints in Jerusalem longing and praying for the Corinthians because of how God’s grace has enabled them to share so generously (2 Cor 9:13–14). He hopes to bring a delegation from Corinth to present their gifts personally to the church in Jerusalem (1 Cor 16:3). He uses the generosity of one church as a means to encourage other churches (1 Cor 16:1; 2 Cor 8:1–7; 9:2). For Paul, what happens with the church in one region is a matter of importance for churches in other regions. Beyond what it does for other churches, their partnership results in thanksgiving and worship (2 Cor 9:12–13).
Many church leaders today express their desire for greater church relationships across cultural divides. To be sure, these are often isolated expressions and do not necessary filter down to congregations or individuals within those congregations. However, perhaps that desire, if fleshed out and combined with the kinds of shared participation in mission mentioned above, will be able to take root among church members and thereby lead to stronger relationships between Christians and congregations in Western and Majority World countries resulting in greater missional impact.
Finally, Paul showed no hesitation in urging the churches he had planted to be faithfully liberal in their contributions to the collection. The churches in Macedonia had set an example by giving in spite of their own poverty. The Corinthians had an opportunity before them not only to share in God’s blessings through their own generosity, but also to produce even more thanksgiving to God by being a part of what he was doing. For Paul, this act of putting others’ needs first was not only an indication of the godly character of the Corinthian Christians, it was a means of further growth and formation. “Paul has recast salvific categories into economic terms, so that self-giving is a way to generate abundant wealth and well-being for others” (Brueggemann, 2016: 218). As the church in Jerusalem had already blessed them spiritually, they could now take on the role of reciprocal benefactor and, using their own resources, bless the Jerusalem Christians in return.
What kind of impact would this level of self-giving based on equity make on the church around the world today? Are there ways in which the church in the West can put its resources to greater use in other parts of the world for the deepening and expansion of the faith? How might resource-rich Western churches and agencies cooperate with others in ways that encourage mutuality and shared governance? Such efforts would require a high level of trust and release of control of how those funds might be used in Majority World churches. That, in fact, could prove to be the greatest sacrifice, beyond the amount of money contributed.
Conclusion
The scriptural texts dealing with Paul’s collection provide us with a window into his intentions for the broader relationships of churches, both Jewish and Gentile, throughout the Roman world and the possibility of those relationships moving the church’s mission forward. While the details of this project cannot remain the same in the world of the 21st century, the underlying motives and values expressed by Paul provide us with some valuable guidance for cross-cultural church partnerships in today’s complex world. Are there opportunities for churches in the Majority World to bless churches in other regions, including the West, through stories of how their efforts are bearing fruit? Are there specific partnerships that we might forge through the selfless use of Western funds or educational resources and Majority World evangelists and pastors? Can churches around the world experience the blessings of mutual benefaction that Paul was promoting in the early church? The Pauline collection, viewed in this light, suggests that such a partnership, characterized by mutuality and generous self-giving, might be a key element in the church accomplishing its mission.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
