“Church project of family need – to which should I give?”

April 2013 – Grace & Truth Magazine

QUESTION: If I have money with me and the church announces a financial need for a project, when at the same time there is an immediate need in my family, to which should I give?

ANSWER: There are several principles we must consider in attempting to answer this question about priorities. Sometimes we think the principles of God’s Word to be contradictory, but we know that God never contradicts Himself. He is always right, His Word is always right, but we must rightly divide the Word of Truth.

First of all, our Lord Jesus Himself tells us in Matthew 6:33 (NKJV) to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” And 1 Timothy 5:8 tells us, “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” These are important principles of Scripture, clear and easy to understand. The question may well be how to properly apply them.

In 1 Kings 17:8-16 God tells His prophet Elijah to go to the heathen town of Zarephath to live, telling him that He has commanded a widow there to provide for him. Elijah obediently goes, meets a widow outside the town gate, and asks her for a drink of water and a piece of bread. The widow tells him that she has just enough flour and oil left to prepare a final meal for herself and her son. Elijah tells her, “Make me a small cake from it first ... and afterward make some for yourself and your son,” assuring her that the Lord would provide for them until He would again send rain on the earth. The woman did so and the results were exactly what Elijah said they would be. God’s interests were directly involved in this incident. If the widow was to provide for Elijah then God must provide for her. One can readily see faith in what God said both on the part of Elijah and on the part of the widow.

Yet together with this we would have to ask: What is the “immediate need” the questioner is referring to? Is it a true need, a matter of life and death, or is it simply something that the family desires? Is it a question of a deadline that cannot be extended?

How willing am I or my family to sacrifice? Are we willing to make do with less, or to get along without something important to us, to be able to give to the Lord for use in His service or to alleviate someone else’s suffering? Of the Corinthians Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:2-4 “that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality, for I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.”

On the other hand if a local church announces a financial need for a project it is undertaking, this is not the same as what we’ve seen in the account of Elijah and the widow at Zarephath. A church undertaking a project for which finances are needed is not the same as God sending His prophet somewhere and telling him how his needs will be met. Besides, the Church is neither to command nor to demand. Scripture views the entire Church as subject to Christ (Eph 5:24), and if this is true for the entire Church, it should certainly characterize every local church.

Israel in the Old Testament was commanded to give God a tithe – 10 percent of what God blessed him with. This was God’s due. Sacrifices and free will offerings were given on top of this.

The Christian today is not under law. There is no command for the Christian to give a stated percentage of his income to God. He is told, “So let each one giver as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7). We learn principles of Christian giving in chapters 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, Hebrews 13:15-16, Galatians 6:10, Acts 11:27-30, Acts 20:35 and elsewhere in the New Testament. Sad to say, many Christians, and especially preachers, fail to see the difference between what Israel was commanded to do in the Old Testament, and what the Christian is privileged to do in today’s dispensation of grace.

Ultimately the decision is yours to make. Be sure to make it prayerfully, looking to the Lord to guide you rather than yielding to pressures from your family or from a church.

Answered by Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.