2nd Corinthians – Godly Social Order

Ministry to the Saints

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Godly Social Order

Lesson: 18-25

Genre: Talk

Track: 18

Dictation Name: RR41610A

Location/Venue:

Year: 1998-2000

[Mark Rushdoony] How amiable are Thy tabernacles oh Lord of hosts, a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly. The Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee.

Let us pray. Our most good and glorious God and heavenly Father, we praise you for your goodness to us each day; your works are abundant to us in goodness and grace, and we thank you for them. We pray that you would help us to respond to your so great salvation, and your gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, that with obedience, with faith, with a desire to serve you with all of our heart, soul, and mind; we pray that you would encourage us to be productive for you, we pray that this would begin in our hearts and our minds and extend outward to our families and our callings; we pray that you would encourage us to be faithful in things great and small. We pray that you would be with all those who faithfully preach your word this morning, we pray with all those throughout the world who gather together to worship you; encourage their hearts. We think especially of those who suffer because of their faith in Jesus Christ, we pray that you would encourage them, and bless the efforts of all those who seek to comfort them and give them aid. We ask that Thou wouldst give us grace to do your will, we pray that you would give us grace to see our role, in some small way, of furthering your kingdom. We pray that you would bless now this time we have together in your word, in Christ our saviors name, amen.

I will be reading the scripture for this morning’s sermon, 2 Corinthians 9:1-8. 2 Corinthians 9:1-8. The sermon by Dr. Rushdoony will be entitled: The Ministry to the Saints.

2 Corinthians 9:1-8

“9 For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you:

2 For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many.

3 Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready:

4 Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting.

5 Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness.

6 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

8 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:”

[R.J. Rushdoony] We are now in those passages of Paul’s letter to the 2nd Corinthians that deal with giving. Now, in one sense these are among the easiest things Paul ever wrote when it comes to understanding them, and yet the most difficult, the most trying. Why? Well, let us back up a moment and see what the Bible has to say about giving.

First, the tithe. That is God’s tax. God requires it of every man living.

Then, second, there is above and over the tithe, the gifts, the offerings, which are voluntary on the part of the individual. They are not mandatory, God says: “You must pay me my tithes, but the rest, offerings; gifts.”

Then, third, there are the ministering’s or gifts to those who are in need.

So we have three kinds of giving required by God and yet the curious fact is, although He makes it clear that we are to give tithes, that is His tax, we are to give gifts, and while it is not on the same level as a tax, gifts show that we have a grateful heart; and then third there are the charitable gifts to people in need.

Now, the remarkable fact is that none of these three gifts are known really, outside of the Bible. In fact, the gifts, the tithes, the giving in paganism, was always a mandatory thing prescribed by the state to a particular temple or sanctuary. So that, under paganism you knew where you stood. You gave so much, you gave more if you wanted, but it was not a mandatory giving. It was something that was a kind of payment to the gods for permission to operate.

Well, we find this kind of thing in other areas with regard to the stat; you could not have a meeting unless it were licensed. Even though it were a meeting of just you and your neighbors to discuss some local things, you had to get a certificate of registration and permission, put it on the wall. Or else everyone would be liable for arrest. So it is important for us to know that between the world of the Bible and the world of all paganisms, there is a totally different concept. In effect what you are doing in the pagan religions, is to buy something. You pay for it, and then you are in the clear.

So the idea of ministering to the needs of the saints is not only strange, but really treasonable; because, Rome like every other civil government taxed its people. Taxes to take care of government, taxes to take care of welfare, taxes to take care of any special needs, and so on and on. When I state that, it is all recognizable because that is what we have today. Paganism. Paganism. The state is god walking on earth. The state tells you what you have to do in order to abide in peace with it. So you have an ugly situation.

The state lays down the law. But when you read the Bible, the three types of giving, nothing is said about anything being mandatory; oh yes, you should pay god His tax, but God doesn’t say that: ‘I give the church the right to punish you if you don’t.’ You are to give your gifts and offerings above and over a tithe, and your charitable gifts above and over a tithe, and the church may feel very strictly that this must be done, but it cannot punish you for not doing it.

Now, the minute you recognize that fact, you see at once that there is a world of difference between the life of a truly Christian people and a non-Christian one. Because, in a non-Christian state you have taxes to take care of every need. So if you go in to have surgery, you are not charged in most cases; the state takes over. In fact, it an ironic fact that if you just submit to it, fine, they will take care of it as far as they want to go and then punish you if you want more, and if you tell them: ‘You are not doing your job.’

On the other hand, if you go in as I have, and say: “Well, I can’t afford that.” “Why can’t you afford it?” it is an amazing fact that there is someone who is trying to pay for something himself.

What we have are two different worlds of government. According to the Bible, the people take care of themselves, and then they take care of one another. The power of the state is limited, it cannot tax 50% as it does today, let alone 10% as the church is allowed to do, but not given the power to do. You create when you have such a thing, a free society. You create a social order radically different from anything the world has known outside of the Bible.

So, the whole issue of giving and of taxation as the Bible sees it, is a very, very, different one. As long as Israel was faithful to God, it was very difficult if not impossible for the kings or judges to gain undue power. Again, in those parts of the Middle Ages where men were faithful to Scripture, and before they made tithe compulsory, you had a good social order, and a free one.

I know one economist told me it was a shock to him to see how ordinary people lived in one godly area that he studied. Well, Paul is trying to teach these Corinthians this new way of life. They are not to sit back and say: “Well, let’s let Rome take care of it” or the Roman office of charitable activities, make a handout in due time. On the contrary, we take over. We meet the need; and that is important.

And of course, that is what we as Christians try to do. We have all kinds of organizations created to meet human needs in the name of Christ, and for His purposes. For example. our financial manager who is abroad now and whose wife Miriam is with us, is trying to meet charitable needs in Africa and South America and elsewhere, through Christian giving. To replace in one part of the world after another, giving, that is, pagan giving, with giving that is Godly. To turn the whole thing upside down, to make it a matter of bounty where we give because we have been given to by God, and we help others that they may help themselves.

You can see why Paul takes so much time with this. It is not an old subject with him except with the Jews in the congregation, it was a new one. The non-Christians (Jews) were not familiar with it. Paul commends them in these verses, the non-Jewish Christians in Corinth, because they did respond so readily; they saw here another way of life. Another way of meeting human needs, without creating a vast bureaucracy. Whenever the Federal government seeks to do something, it creates a bureaucracy.

I recall a few years ago talking to one man who came from a particular fair-size city in Arizona, and had a very fine Christian, very able, earning good pay, who was going to move out of the community. Why? As a black, he was the only black in that small city, and an office had been set up in the city to take care of charity to blacks, and he was not cooperating, and they were turning his life into a nightmare.

Well, that is the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian worlds. And Paul as he speaks to the Corinthians says: ‘When I was first there you gave very generously, and I believe you will again, because it is a matter of bounty with you, not a matter of covetousness.’

“He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”

‘God,’ he says: ‘loveth a cheerful giver.’ Paul is creating a whole new world for these non-Jewish believers. It is a world of charity, of love. For a long time there was confusion about those two words, charity and love, because the world of Rome didn’t really recognize the difference, or the true meaning of either, and when it did accept the word charity, it took it in a statist type of sense; it saw it as something mandatory, from Gods government, so that just as Rome required it of you to give as much as they specified, so did God. And this is the radical thing about Paul. Paul is carrying on what the Bible from the beginning taught, that we live in a different world, and therefore we behave ourselves differently. The world for us is not a world without God, but a world with God, and we are to recognize that we are called upon by Him to give as He specifies, cheerfully, because we know that this creates a totally different world order. It creates a world that is increasingly Christian and Godly, and governed by men who are not state bureaucrats, who do not give because they are told to give, but because as cheerful givers they are happy to meet these Christian needs.

So, Paul is commending the Corinthians and others for their Godly giving, but he also takes time to explain to them what it means, how radical a requirement it is by God.

We are in process of creating a different world. “The government shall be upon His shoulders.” We are told. And how can it be so unless we stop all statist activities and replace them with Godly ones?

Let us pray. Our Father, we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word, and for Thy plain speaking. We thank Thee that Thou hast created a way of meeting the problems of this world, cheerfully and joyfully, and with success; and becoming in the process brothers one of another. Grant that we listen to the words of Paul, and begin to re-make our world, in Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience Member] In some segments of Christendom today there is a movement referred to as sacrificial giving, thereby obligating God because I am giving sacrificially above these three things, any Biblical basis for that?

[Rushdoony] Well… no, really, because God specifies the three forms of giving, and He tells us that if we meet our obligations here we are taking care of the world and its needs. And one of the interesting and sad things about the century just ending is that at the beginning, Christians accomplished so much in the way of Christian giving.

For example, as an Armenian I can call attention to the fact that with the massacres, about 2 million out of 3 million Armenians, lives of the other million were saved by such groups as the Near East Relief. The remarkable things they did, and how one organization after another was created to meet the needs of this or that group of people somewhere in the world; for example, the massacre of the Greeks in Smyrna; the starvation of the peoples and children in Russia after the Revolution; and while that was done through an agency of state and under the direction of a political figure, Herbert Hoover, the fact is that it still had all the echoes and forms of Christian charity, and was seen by many as no different.

During the twenties and thirties as troubles developed all over the world, a variety of groups provided their members with little wooden banks about so big, for the various charities, emergency reliefs all over the world. And this was a remarkable fact, because the amount collected and distributed was phenomenal! We have lost a great deal of that. We have lost the presence of those relief boxes at the dinner table, breakfast lunch and dinner every family had them in plain sight; they were passed around before you ate, and before prayer, and that was not all; from time to time depending on the family and the church, you sat down and you fasted; all you did that meal was to have portions of scripture read, and then an empty plate put on the table to indicate you were sacrificing your meal that day for human needs elsewhere.

Well, that kind of thing was doing wonders to change the world, as it had again and again over the centuries. It can do it again.

Any other questions or comments?

Well, we shall continue in 2 Corinthians with the texts that deal with giving to the needs of others, and we can begin to understand that while Corinthians represents a very hard group of people, not the best church imaginable, yet what is remarkable is that they saw this as a remarkable fact, unusual an able solution to the problem of human need, that it would create a different world order.

And this is why Paul is so deeply hurt again and again by the Corinthians, he is also deeply moved and praises them as none other. “Those Corinthians, foolish Corinthians” as they were called, had come to understand with their pagan background: ‘Why, here is a way being provided by God to change the world, without statism having anything to do with it!’

Well, if there are no further questions let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word and for the plainness of Thy word. Thou hast given us therein a way to create a different world; Thou hast told us that Thou art God, “this is the way, walk ye in it.” Teach us to do so, and bless us as we serve Thee.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.