1 Corinthians 16:1-4

PAUL’S TENTH RESPONSE: CONCERNING THE COLLECTION FOR THE JERUSALEM POOR, 1 Corinthians 16:1-4.

Why the Jerusalem Christians were chronically poor does not very clearly appear from the explanations of commentators. Why they needed the benefactions referred to in Acts 11:29-30, we have explained in our note on Acts 11:29; but that was now thirty years ago. That they were more oppressed than the Churches of Rome, Philippi, or Corinth, does not appear. We may therefore venture the suggestion that they were not much, if any, poorer than the other Churches. When the cause of a poor people is pleaded, we usually have very moving descriptions of the depth of their poverty; but if any thing of this kind is said in any of the paragraphs on the subject it has escaped our examination. On the contrary, St. Paul is afraid, in Romans 15:31, that his contributions will not be received by the Jerusalem Christians; which indicates that if poor they were also proud and fanatical. On the other hand, we know that it was the Jewish custom throughout the world, recognised by Roman law, to send a poll-tax of a didrachm to Jerusalem. Note Acts 9:2. To Christians, as well as to Jews, Jerusalem was the mother-city. There were the scenes of the atonement and the pentecost. And Paul, in Romans 15:27, gives as the reason why Gentiles should contribute, the fact that they have received “spiritual things” from Jerusalem. Yet Jerusalem-Christianity had concentrated itself into an anti-Gentile narrowness. How noble an effect, then, might it not have for the Pauline Churches to show Jerusalem that they were not partisans against her, by making a unanimous contribution for the benefit of her poorer people! In what disaster the whole generous project resulted when Paul arrived at Jerusalem is told in Acts 21:18-40, where see notes.