Objective for this lesson: to achieve this lesson's objective, your students need to see a first century reality in the church. Christians of the American restoration movement [for decades] tended to "idealize" the church of the first century. The church [the community of Christians; the kingdom ruled by God] is ideal in God's mind and heart. When implemented as God wills, the church [the Christian community] can bring into existence good conditions and ideal situations among Christians that can exist in other contexts. The challenge we face is allowing God's heart and mind to be our heart and mind.
The first century church, as it actually existed in the converts from Judaism and idolatry, was not ideal. No congregation in the New Testament [presented in any degree of detail] "measured up" to God's ideals. [It is humanly impossible to "measure up" to God's ideals. That is why relationship with God through Jesus Christ is based on the biblical concept of faith in what Jesus does for us and God's grace.] The fact the first century church was in no way ideal should be evident from the content of New Testament epistles. Those letters challenged their recipients to understand the focus and conduct of godliness in Jesus Christ.
One of the greater challenges confronting the church in the New Testament was accepting this fact: God had [has] equal love for and willingness to save both the Jews [God's chosen people] and the people who were not Jews [who previously did not know God or the scriptures]. Read Ephesians 2:11-21 to see the problem and to note its prominence at Ephesus. That truth of God's universal love posed a problem anywhere Jewish Christians existed. This is evidenced by Acts 15 [Jerusalem, Palestine and Antioch, Syria], Romans 11 [Rome, Italy], and the letter to the Galatians [a Roman province in the region of Asia Minor].
The gulf that religiously, socially, morally, and culturally frequently divided the Jews from people who were not Jews was enormous. The Jewish policy of isolation made the gulf real and formidable. When individuals on each side of that gulf were baptized into Christ, conversion to Christ did not remove the gulf. It was common for some Jewish Christians to reject the salvation of non-Jewish Christians unless these Christians learned, accepted, and practiced Jewish religious rites, customs, and principles.
Since God's vision for Christians as His people was universal [to include all peoples], this problem created a major threat to God's purposes and objectives in the first century world. This problem had to be faced and addressed.
The Jerusalem principle: use Christian stewardship to address major challenges and problems dividing God's people. Stewardship can destroy problems between Christians that logic, reasoning, and discussion do not address. The objective of this lesson is to focus attention on the power of Christian stewardship.
People problems produce the most immediate, stressful challenges to Christian stewardship. People problems are life's primary source for stress. Being God's people among people who choose to reject God results in stressful situations. Christians have opportunity to be merciful because people wrong us. Christians have opportunity to love our enemies because some people are enemies. Christians have opportunity to reject vengeance because some people are unjust to us. Christians have opportunity to forgive because some people sin against us. Jesus said, if we only love those who love us or greet those who greet us, we behave precisely as godless people behave (Matthew 5:46,47).
God uses Christian stewardship to heal sickness in human relationships. What sickness? Prejudice. Arrogance. Attitudes of superiority. Attitudes of condescension. Rejection. God's love is demonstrated powerfully through the human acts of Christian stewardship.
Israel was taught [correctly] that they were God's chosen people. God promised Abraham the nation of Israel would exist through his descendants. God rescued Abraham's descendants from Egyptian slavery and transformed them into that nation. God sustained Israel in the wilderness. After forty years, God gave Canaan to Israel as their homeland.
The Old Testament people called Israelites are the New Testament people called Jews. In the New Testament, the Jews who lived in their homeland segregated themselves from people who were not Jewish. A primary reason for this self-imposed isolation was religious. The isolation restricted the religious influences of people who were not Jewish. Jews in Palestine carefully monitored association with people outside the Jewish community.
When Christianity began in Acts 2, only Jews or Jewish converts became Christians. Early in Christianity, Jewish Christians regarded Christianity as a Jewish religious movement that fulfilled God's promise to Israel. The earliest Christians understanding of Jesus' great commission: "take the gospel to all the Jews scattered throughout the world."
The baptism of non-Jewish people who believed in Jesus Christ created a major crisis. First, the initial reaction of Jewish Christians to the conversion of people who were not Jewish was this: it is improper and inappropriate to include such people in the Christian community (Acts 11:1-3). Second, some Jewish Christians insisted that people who were not Jews could become Christians only if they observed Jewish customs and requirements (Acts 15:1,5).
How would you react if Christian strangers told your congregation (1) all of you were not saved and (2) your baptisms were meaningless. Would you feel rejected and resented? If you can be honest about your feelings in that situation, you can empathize with the feelings of many Christians who were not Jews.
What a barrier between Christians in God's family! God's community could never become the people God wanted as long as that barrier existed. Christian alienation could never achieve God's purposes. God removed the barrier (Ephesians 2:11-22), but many Christians did not.
Christian stewardship assaulted the barrier.
Read Acts 11:27-30.
The prophets came from Jerusalem (from Christians there) and went to the Christians in Antioch.
Agabus declared a worldwide famine was coming. "Worldwide" would refer to their known world. A famine was produced by crop failure. Since few means for food preservation existed, a widespread crop failure among societies dependent on the success of annual agricultural production meant widespread suffering and death among the poor.
These Christians [a congregation composed primarily of people who were not Jews] decided to send financial help to provide relief to poor Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. The Christians who sent the help were not Jews. The Christians who received the help were Jews. Verses 20 and 21 state people at Antioch who heard and responded to the message about Christ were not Jews. This is the reason that the church in Jerusalem [Jewish Christians] sent Barnabas to evaluate those responses and Christian community in Antioch.
They collected a gift and commissioned Barnabas and Paul [Saul] to take the gift to the elders of the Jerusalem congregation.
Read 1 Corinthians 16:1-4.
Verse one reveals the church at Corinth and congregations in the Roman province of Galatia were asked to participate in the collection.
Each Sunday Christians were to contribute to a fund on the basis of their ability, decision, and desire. The fund was to be set aside for use in the relief project. Paul requested the fund be collected and ready when he arrived.
They would select someone [perhaps more than one person] to accompany Paul when he took the gift and the letters [probably from the congregations who contributed to the gift] to the Christians in Jerusalem. It is possible that the people named in Acts 20:4 were the people appointed by the congregations to accompany Paul as he took the gift.
It was appropriate for Paul [God's messenger to the Gentiles] to take this gift, and it was appropriate for the congregations to send representatives to accompany Paul. Consider: Jewish Christians would receive a needed gift from Christians who were not Jews, and non-Jewish Christians who accompanied the gift.
Read Romans 15:25-27.
Paul was going to Jerusalem to serve Christians there.
They were pleased to make a contribution to be used to help poor Christians in Jerusalem. Again, note Christians from predominantly non-Jewish congregations helped poor Jewish Christians.
These non-Jewish Christians were pleased to make this contribution because they realized their spiritual indebtedness to the Christians in Jerusalem. It was appropriate for them to feel this indebtedness. That is where the Christ died. That is where the first congregation came into existence. That is where the apostles began their work as Christ's witnesses. That is the beginning point for the declaration of the gospel.
It was appropriate for Gentile Christians to express their appreciation for the opportunity to share in the spiritual things that began in Jerusalem by sharing their material things with the Christians in Jerusalem.
The two areas are "spiritual things" and "material things." They are so interrelated that they minister to each other. Those touched by the spiritual in Christ use the material for Christ.
The barrier between many Jewish Christians and Christians who were not Jewish was enormous. The barrier was constructed of religious perspectives, cultural views, moral and ethical criteria, social customs, and physical heritage. From the Jewish perspective, God laid the foundations of that barrier in His promises to Abraham, erected the barrier in God's covenant with Israel at Sinai, and renewed the barrier in His promises through the prophets.
Paul stressed the fact that people who were not Jews [Gentiles] were included in the covenant God established with Abraham (Genesis 12:3b; 22:18; 26:4,5; Galatians 3:8).
God intended Jewish Christians and Christians who were not Jewish to be God's single community. Since the barrier was real, strong, and ancient, how could that happen? (1) It could happen if Jewish Christians, as God's stewards, shared spiritual things with Christians who were not Jews. (2) It could happen if Christians who were not Jews, as God's stewards, shared material things with Jewish Christians. Christian stewardship is that powerful today.
Note to teachers: as powerful as Christian stewardship can be in addressing problems among Christians, it will not change the hearts and minds of those who pursue their own agenda rather than God's agenda. When Christians do not keep their minds and hearts open to God's purposes and objectives, nothing touches them--not even the blessings produced by Christian stewardship. Though Antioch sent famine relief to Jerusalem (Acts 11:27-30), Christian Pharisees demanded that the gulf between Jews and non-Jews be respected even when the non-Jews were Christians from Antioch (Acts 15:1-5).
Link to Student Guide Quarter 4, Lesson 8