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Counsels on Stewardship
things in order to supply the needs of others. When the apostle would
have restrained them, they importuned him to accept their offering. In
their simplicity and integrity, and in their love for the brethren, they
gladly denied self, and thus abounded in the fruit of benevolence.
When Paul sent Titus to Corinth to strengthen the believers there,
he instructed him to build up that church in the grace of giving; and
in a personal letter to the believers he also added his own appeal. “As
ye abound in everything,” he pleaded, “in faith, and utterance, and
knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye
abound in this grace also.” “Now therefore perform the doing of it;
that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance
also out of that which ye have. For if there be first a willing mind, it
is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he
hath not.” “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that
ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every
good work: ... being enriched in everything to all bountifulness, which
causeth through us thanksgiving to God.”
2 Corinthians 8:7, 11, 12
;
9:8-11
.
Unselfish liberality threw the early church into a transport of joy;
for the believers knew that their efforts were helping to send the gospel
message to those in darkness. Their benevolence testified that they
had not received the grace of God in vain. What could produce such
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liberality but the sanctification of the Spirit? In the eyes of believers
and unbelievers it was a miracle of grace.—
The Acts of the Apostles,
342-344
.
Liberality Rewarded
“So he [Elijah] arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came
to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering
of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little
water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it,
he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in
thine hand.”
In this poverty-stricken home the famine pressed sore; and the
pitifully meager fare seemed about to fail. The coming of Elijah on
the very day when the widow feared that she must give up the struggle
to sustain life, tested to the utmost her faith in the power of the living