What about giving?

Question 11004.

Christian giving is one of the few subjects where almost everyone agrees in principle and disagrees in practice. We all know we should be generous. Most of us give rather less than we imagine we do, and almost nobody wants the sermon.

So let me try to make the case honestly, without guilt-driven appeals and without pretending the New Testament is casual about money. It is not casual at all. It is simply interested in something other than a percentage.

Why Christian giving matters so much

Christian giving matters because money is the nearest rival God has. Jesus said you cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24), setting them opposite each other as competing masters rather than as a spiritual matter and a practical one. He talked about possessions more than He talked about heaven and hell combined.

That tells us what giving is for. It is not primarily fundraising. It is the ordinary, repeated way a believer breaks the grip of a rival, and it works rather like exercise. You do not become generous by admiring generosity; you become generous by giving, repeatedly, until the reflex changes.

Jesus put it in terms of the heart following the treasure rather than the other way round. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Move the money and, over time, the affections follow. I have watched that happen in other people, and rather more slowly in myself.

Giving as worship, not taxation

Paul describes the gift he received from Philippi as a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God (Philippians 4:18). That is temple language applied to a bank transfer. Christian giving belongs in the same category as praise, and it is one of the ways an ordinary believer functions as a priest.

This changes the atmosphere entirely. If giving is a tax, the only sensible question is how little I can get away with. If it is worship, the question becomes what I would love to give, and that is a question with no ceiling on it.

It also explains why God cares about the manner as well as the amount. Nobody wants worship extracted under duress. Paul insists on giving that is not reluctant or under compulsion, because a grudging offering misrepresents the God it is offered to.

Proportionate, planned, and quiet

The New Testament pattern for Christian giving has three plain features. It is proportionate, each one giving as he may prosper (1 Corinthians 16:2), which means the person on a low income who gives faithfully is not a lesser giver than the wealthy donor. It is planned, set aside on a fixed day rather than left to whatever is in the pocket on Sunday. And it is quiet.

Jesus was blunt about that last point. Do not sound a trumpet, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:1-4). Named giving boards and donor tiers sit awkwardly beside that instruction.

Planning is more spiritual than spontaneity here, whatever our instincts say. A settled proportion, reviewed once a year, will outgive a decade of generous impulses, and it keeps giving steady when your feelings are not.

Who should receive it

The first claim is the local church that teaches and cares for you. Paul says the labourer deserves his wages and that those who preach the gospel should get their living by it. A congregation that will not fund its own ministry is not humble, it is being subsidised by somebody else’s obedience, and I have made the practical case for committed church life elsewhere.

The second is the poor. Scripture is relentless on this. Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD (Proverbs 19:17), and John asks how God’s love can abide in someone who sees a brother in need and closes his heart. Christian giving that never reaches anyone hungry has lost a whole dimension.

The third is gospel work further afield. Paul’s collection for the Jerusalem saints crossed provinces, and the Philippians funded a missionary they would rarely see. Giving beyond your own line of sight is a healthy corrective to congregational self-interest, and it pairs naturally with the church’s missionary calling.

Hard cases and honest questions

What about debt? Pay it. Owing money is a real obligation and Scripture treats it seriously, so giving generously while defaulting on creditors is not devotion but theft with a religious accent. Give something, reduce the debt aggressively, and increase the giving as the debt falls.

What about saving? Scripture commends the ant who stores in summer and warns against the man who builds bigger barns to secure a comfortable soul. Provision for your family is a duty; accumulation as a form of security is idolatry. The line between them is drawn in the heart, and each of us knows roughly where we stand on it.

What about giving to people who may misuse it? Jesus told us to give to the one who begs, and He did not attach a means test. I take that seriously while also thinking it wise to give through people and agencies who know the situation. Discernment is not an excuse for a closed hand.

Christian giving when money is tight

I pastor in a country where a good many households are one broken boiler away from a crisis, and I am not going to preach Christian giving as though everyone in the pews has slack in the budget. Some do not. Some are choosing between heating and a school trip, and they do not need a sermon on generosity delivered from a comfortable distance.

What I will say is that Scripture never treats poverty as a disqualification from giving. The widow with two small coins gave out of her poverty, and Jesus commended her without a hint of embarrassment (Mark 12:41-44). The Macedonians were in extreme poverty and their giving overflowed. Christian giving is measured against what you have rather than against what somebody else has.

It also runs in both directions. Paul’s principle of fairness in 2 Corinthians 8:13-14 is that present abundance supplies present need, and that the arrangement may be reversed later. A church where Christian giving flows only from the congregation to the institution has understood half of it. The other half is the church quietly supporting its own people when the boiler does break.

So if money is tight, give something, without shame at the size of it, and tell someone in leadership if you are struggling. A congregation that will fund a building project but not a member’s electricity bill has misread the New Testament rather badly.

The gospel underneath the giving

Paul’s argument for Christian giving never rests on obligation. It rests on Jesus. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Generosity is a response before it is a duty.

That is also why guilt is such a poor motivator. Guilt produces one grudging payment and then avoidance. Gratitude produces a lifetime of open-handedness. Any appeal that leans on shame has already stepped outside the New Testament pattern.

And there is a promise attached, though not the one the prosperity preachers advertise. God is able to make all grace abound to you so that you may abound in every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8). The supply is given so that the giving can continue, not so that the giver can upgrade his car.

So, now what?

Look at what actually left your account last month rather than what you feel you give. Most of us are working from a flattering estimate. Then choose a proportion, set it up as a standing order, and give it before anything else claims the money.

Then push a little past comfortable. The Macedonians gave beyond their means and Paul treated it as evidence of grace rather than as recklessness. You will not miss it as much as you fear, and you may find out something about your own heart that you had not suspected. I have written separately on whether the tithe still applies.

And take a moment to thank God for what you have before you decide what to release. Christian giving flows most freely out of gratitude, and gratitude is a good deal easier to come by when you have actually stopped to count what has been given to you already. Most of us have never done the sum.

What would it take for your giving to be the first decision you make with your income rather than the last?

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

2 Corinthians 9:8, ESV