Giving is Living
Our Lord's teachings as to money gifts, if obeyed, would forever banish all limitations on church work and all concern about supplies. These teachings are radical and revolutionary. So far are they from practical acceptance that, although perfectly explicit, they seem like a dead language that has passed out of use. Should these sublime and unique teachings be translated into living, the effect not only upon benevolent work, but upon our whole spiritual character, would be incalculable.
Stewardship.
The basis of Christ's teaching about money is the fundamental conception of stewardship (Luke 12:42; 16:1-8). Not only money, but every gift of God, is received in trust for his use. Man is not an owner, but a trustee, managing another's goods and estates, God being the one original and inalienable owner of all. The two things required of stewards are that they be "faithful and wise," that they study to employ God's gifts with fidelity and sagacity - fidelity so that God's entrustments be not perverted to self-indulgence; sagacity so that they be converted into as large gains as possible.
Investment.
"Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers" (Matthew 25:27). Money-changing and investing is as old business. The "exchangers," as Luke renders, are the bankers, who received money on deposit and paid interest for its use, like modern savings institutions.
In view of this, the argument of our Lord refutes the unfaithful servant on his own plea, which his course showed to be but a pretext. He dared not risk trading on his own account; why not, without such risk, get a moderate interest for his master by lending to professional traders? It was not fear but laziness that lay behind his unfaithfulness and unprofitableness.
Thus indirectly the valuable lesson is taught that timid souls may link their incapacity to the capacity and sagacity of others who will make their gifts and possessions of use to the Master and His Church.
Idolatry.
With all his attractive traits, the rich young ruler of Matthew 19:16-26 was a slave. Money was not his servant, but his master. And because God alone is to be supreme, our Lord had no alternative; he must demolish this man's idol. When he dealt a blow at his money, the idolatry became apparent, and the slave to greed went away sorrowful, clinging to his idol.
It was not this man's having great possessions that was wrong, but that his possessions had the man; they controlled him. His "trust" was in riches; how could it be in God?
How few rich men keep the mastery and hold money as their servant, in absolute subordination to their own manhood, and to the masterhood of the Lord!
Recompense.
"Give, and it shall be given unto you" (Luke 6:38). God is an economist. He entrusts larger gifts to those who use the smaller ones well. The future may reveal that God has been withholding from us because we have been withholding from him.
Whatever the blessedness of receiving, that of giving belongs to a higher plane. Whatever I get, and whatever good it brings to me, only I am benefited; but what I give brings good to others - to the many, not the one. But, by a singular decree of God, what I thus surrender for the sake of others comes back to me in larger blessing. It is like the moisture which the spring gives out in streams and evaporation, returning in showers to supply the very channels which filled the spring itself. "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).
Real giving.
The Lord Jesus watched the offerings cast into the treasury. There were rich givers that gave large amounts. There was one poor woman, a widow, who threw in two mites, and he declared her offering to be more than any or all the rest, because, while they gave out of a superfluity, she gave out of a deficiency - they of their abundance, she of her poverty.
She who cast her two mites into the sacred treasury, by so doing became rich in good works and in the praise of God. Had she kept them, she would have been the same poor widow.
He tells us here how he estimates money gifts - not by what we give, but by what we keep - not by the amount of our contributions, but by their cost in self-denial.
Not all giving, so-called, has rich reward. In many cases the keeping hides the giving, in the sight of God. But when the one possession that is dearest, the last trusted resource, is surrendered to God, then comes the vision of the treasure laid up in heaven.
"Do good and lend, hoping for nothing again" (Luke 6:35). Much of our giving is not giving at all, but only lending or exchanging. He who gives to another of whom he expects to receive as much again, is trading. What he is after is not another's profit, but his own advantage.
True giving has another's good solely in view, and hence bestows upon those who cannot and will not repay. That is the giving prompted by love. This sort of giving shows God-likeness, and by it we grow into the perfection of benevolence.
Worship.
"The altar...sanctifieth the gift" (Matthew 23:19) - association gives dignity to offering. If the cause to which we contribute is exalted, it ennobles and exalts the offering to its own plane. No two objects can or ought to appeal to us with equal force unless they are equal in moral worth and dignity.
God's altar was to the Jew the central focus of all gifts. The gift laid upon it acquired a new dignity by so being deposited upon it. We are at liberty to set aside some objects which appeal for gifts because they are not sacred. We may give or not as we judge best, for they depend on man's enterprises and schemes, which we may not altogether approve. But some causes have divine sanction and that hallows them; giving then becomes as act of worship.
Eternal purchases.
"Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations" (Luke 16:9). This contains one of the greatest hints on money gifts that our Lord dropped.
Mammon here stands as the equivalent for money, practically worshiped. It reminds us of the golden calf that was made out of the earrings and jewels of the crowd. Now our Lord refers to a second transmutation. The "golden calf" may in turn be melted down into Bibles, churches, books, tracts, and even souls of men. Thus what was material and temporal becomes immaterial and spiritual -and eternal
Here is a man who has a fifty five hundred dollars. He may spend it all on a party, and the next day there is nothing to show for it. On the other hand, he invests in Bibles at $5.50 each, and it buys a thousand copies of the Word of God. These he judiciously sows as seed of the Kingdom, and from that seed springs up a harvest, not of Bibles, but of souls. Out of the unrighteous mammon he has made immortal friends, who, when he fails, receive him into everlasting habitations. This is true riches - the treasure laid up in heaven in imperishable goods!
What revelations await us in that day of transmutation! Then, whatever has been given up to God as an offering of the heart, "in righteousness," will be seen as transfigured. Not only the magi's gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and the alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very precious, and the houses and lands of such as Barnabas, but fishermen's boats and nets, the abandoned "seat of custom," the widow's mites, and the cup of cold water - yes, when we had nothing else to give, the word of counsel, the tear of pity, the prayer of intercession - all will be transfigured.
Never will the work of missions, or any form of service to God and man, receive the help it ought until there is a new conscience and a new consecration in the matter of money. The worldly spirit blinds us to the fact of obligation, and devices flimsy pretext for diverting the Lord's money to carnal ends. The few who learn to give on scriptural principles learn also to love to give.
God's unspeakable gift to us should make all giving to him a spontaneous offering of love. Like Mary's, it should bring its precious box of spikenard and lavish its treasures on his feet, and fill the house with the odor of self-sacrifice!
Excerpt from A.T. Pierson
Our Lord's teachings as to money gifts, if obeyed, would forever banish all limitations on church work and all concern about supplies. These teachings are radical and revolutionary. So far are they from practical acceptance that, although perfectly explicit, they seem like a dead language that has passed out of use. Should these sublime and unique teachings be translated into living, the effect not only upon benevolent work, but upon our whole spiritual character, would be incalculable.
Stewardship.
Investment.
In view of this, the argument of our Lord refutes the unfaithful servant on his own plea, which his course showed to be but a pretext. He dared not risk trading on his own account; why not, without such risk, get a moderate interest for his master by lending to professional traders? It was not fear but laziness that lay behind his unfaithfulness and unprofitableness.
Thus indirectly the valuable lesson is taught that timid souls may link their incapacity to the capacity and sagacity of others who will make their gifts and possessions of use to the Master and His Church.
Idolatry.
It was not this man's having great possessions that was wrong, but that his possessions had the man; they controlled him. His "trust" was in riches; how could it be in God?
How few rich men keep the mastery and hold money as their servant, in absolute subordination to their own manhood, and to the masterhood of the Lord!
Recompense.
Whatever the blessedness of receiving, that of giving belongs to a higher plane. Whatever I get, and whatever good it brings to me, only I am benefited; but what I give brings good to others - to the many, not the one. But, by a singular decree of God, what I thus surrender for the sake of others comes back to me in larger blessing. It is like the moisture which the spring gives out in streams and evaporation, returning in showers to supply the very channels which filled the spring itself. "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).
Real giving.
She who cast her two mites into the sacred treasury, by so doing became rich in good works and in the praise of God. Had she kept them, she would have been the same poor widow.He tells us here how he estimates money gifts - not by what we give, but by what we keep - not by the amount of our contributions, but by their cost in self-denial.
Not all giving, so-called, has rich reward. In many cases the keeping hides the giving, in the sight of God. But when the one possession that is dearest, the last trusted resource, is surrendered to God, then comes the vision of the treasure laid up in heaven.
"Do good and lend, hoping for nothing again" (Luke 6:35). Much of our giving is not giving at all, but only lending or exchanging. He who gives to another of whom he expects to receive as much again, is trading. What he is after is not another's profit, but his own advantage.
True giving has another's good solely in view, and hence bestows upon those who cannot and will not repay. That is the giving prompted by love. This sort of giving shows God-likeness, and by it we grow into the perfection of benevolence.
Worship.
God's altar was to the Jew the central focus of all gifts. The gift laid upon it acquired a new dignity by so being deposited upon it. We are at liberty to set aside some objects which appeal for gifts because they are not sacred. We may give or not as we judge best, for they depend on man's enterprises and schemes, which we may not altogether approve. But some causes have divine sanction and that hallows them; giving then becomes as act of worship.
Eternal purchases.
Mammon here stands as the equivalent for money, practically worshiped. It reminds us of the golden calf that was made out of the earrings and jewels of the crowd. Now our Lord refers to a second transmutation. The "golden calf" may in turn be melted down into Bibles, churches, books, tracts, and even souls of men. Thus what was material and temporal becomes immaterial and spiritual -and eternal
Here is a man who has a fifty five hundred dollars. He may spend it all on a party, and the next day there is nothing to show for it. On the other hand, he invests in Bibles at $5.50 each, and it buys a thousand copies of the Word of God. These he judiciously sows as seed of the Kingdom, and from that seed springs up a harvest, not of Bibles, but of souls. Out of the unrighteous mammon he has made immortal friends, who, when he fails, receive him into everlasting habitations. This is true riches - the treasure laid up in heaven in imperishable goods!
Never will the work of missions, or any form of service to God and man, receive the help it ought until there is a new conscience and a new consecration in the matter of money. The worldly spirit blinds us to the fact of obligation, and devices flimsy pretext for diverting the Lord's money to carnal ends. The few who learn to give on scriptural principles learn also to love to give.
God's unspeakable gift to us should make all giving to him a spontaneous offering of love. Like Mary's, it should bring its precious box of spikenard and lavish its treasures on his feet, and fill the house with the odor of self-sacrifice!
Excerpt from A.T. Pierson
