Paul enlightens us on one of the purposes of the 4th commandment where God says, “six days you shall labor and do all your work” in Eph. 4:28, “let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.” Why are we to work? To amass great wealth for ourselves? God certainly blesses faithful labors, but no.
God says that we are to labor so that we “may have something to give him who has need.” As I seek to follow the idea of alms-giving through the Bible, I find that this giving is separate from the normal giving to the Temple in the Old Testament or to the Church in the New Testament. Solomon writes in the Proverbs 19:17 “He who has pity on the poor lends to the LORD, and He will pay back what he has given.” Generosity to the poor is giving to God. I love the even hand of the Proverbs. As one reads through proverbs, Solomon again and again mentions reasons that people are poor, and he says that usually they are poor through some error they have made. Yet, Solomon says, Pr. 21:13 “Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, Will also cry himself and not be heard.” Though it may well be their own fault that they are poor, if we shut our ears to them, God promises that we will cry and ourselves not be heard. We are to be generous with what God has given us. Jesus said to the rich man, Mt. 19:21 “Jesus said to him, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’” The man could not, because he loved his things more than God.The need for alms-giving was remembered in the reformation. It became the practice to gather alm safter church services, and especially after the Lord’s Supper.
So much was gathered that Strasbourgand Geneva (centers of the reformation) became centers of help for the poor throughout Europe. In closing, I should note that I am not here condoning or referring to government “generosity” with our tax dollars.
Alms-giving is a personal practice and forced generosity is no generosity at all. There is a whole office of the Church, ordained in Acts 6, which is to take care of the needs of the poor. We have, sadly, left that office to the government which fails miserably at it.
The Church, and we as Christians, could and should resume that ministry for the furtherance of the Glory of our Savior.
Rev. James Grossmann