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Church Life
Questions Concerning Church Collections (1)
G Van Rongen - published in Una Sancta Volume 50, Number 9, 8 March 2003
Several Times
During the last year-and-a-half I have several times been asked a few questions about our church collections. From this we can draw the conclusion that this matter is living in the midst of our churches.
The first question was about the tradition, maintained in some overseas sister churches, to have a container or bowl placed on each end of the Lord's Supper Table, into which the participants can put their monetary gifts. The other question regarded the "purposes" of the weekly church collections: Could collections for non-ecclesiastical purposes be put on the collection-roster? In this context some illustrations were added: for example for the Red Cross, particularly in days of national calamities.
For a proper answer to these questions we must take a dip into church history. For where does the tradition of having collections in our worship services come from? What is their origin? And therefore also: Which were their original 'purposes'? Here again it will be proved that - over against "the spirit of times", which considers knowledge of the history as being unimportant, because "we are not living in the past but today!" - many questions can be answered by our knowledge of history.
Origin
Historically the collections in our worship services can be traced back to what was done in the church of the days soon after Pentecost. Acts chapters 2 and 4 teach us that the believers in Christ were looking after each other, so that there was no one among them who lacked (4:34). In the young congregation of Jerusalem they were looking well after the needy. There used to be a daily distribution distribution (6:1), also in the form of having joint meals from house to house (2:46).
What happened was that most believers brought food and drink with them, doing so in such a way that others, who had no private income, could enjoy free meals. This was based upon the Old Testament command that the rich must share their goods with the needy, because they too owed everything to God's grace Who had brought His people out of Egypt's bondage. As soon as problems arose, this care for the needy was taken from the hands of the apostles and laid into the hands of seven other brothers (Acts 6:1ff).
Those love meals, as they were called, found their way to other congregations, for example to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 11). Also Jude's epistle makes mention of them (Jude:12). Such a love-meal included the celebration of the Lord's Supper (Acts 2:42). So there was a close relationship between the celebration of that sacrament and charity.
This tradition appears to have been maintained in other regions as well. At the end of the first century A.D., or the beginning of the second century, a document was written, entitled The Didachè or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles , a kind of liturgical church order, in which rules were set for the worship services, those during which the Lord's Supper was administered included. It clearly suggests that this sacrament was enjoyed in the context of a love-meal. After having referred to a thanksgiving for the wine and the broken bread it says: And after you have had enough, give thanks as follows:... The phrase after you have had enough is a clear suggestion that the celebration of the Lord's Supper was part of what we could call a full meal.
Decline
Then a process of decline set in. During the second century Gnosticism presented itself. It considered the material aspects of life to be inferior. Over against this it was emphasised that God has given man many gifts, also of a material character, and that, when the believers looked after each other also in material respect, they offered something of these divine gifts back to their Giver. When this happened during the love-meals, this form of charity, which was closely related with the celebration of the Lord's Supper, was more and more considered as an "offering" [1] to God. Reference was made to the pure offering of Malachi 1:11.
A well-known author of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Hippolytus, tells us that these offerings were closely connected with the Lord's Supper. In the 4th century this led to the tradition of depositing these gifts in an annex to the church building or in the church itself, and presenting them to the Lord in a solemn way. These gifts were partly used as ingredients for the Lord's Supper. Soon afterwards, however, these ingredients for the sustenance of the needy and the celebration of the "Eucharist" (the original name of the Lord's Supper, meaning: thanksgiving), were supplemented with all sorts of other gifts, such as candles, flowers, grapes, fowl, and objects of arts.
Here we recognise a few traditions that still play a role in other churches. When the doctrine of transubstantiation got hold of the Eucharist, the Mass (as it has been called since then) became a showcase. Participation in the Communion (part of the Mass) by 'ordinary' people was no longer essential, neither was it necessary to offer the ingredients: the Mass itself became an "offertorium", sacrificed by the priest. The original sacrament had become a priestly affair, a kind of repetition of the sacrifice offered by Christ at Calvary. Gifts 'in natura' were replaced by a collection of moneys.
Soon afterwards it became an obligation: One had to 'pay' for the privilege of participating in the Communion. This led many to abstain from it, because they could not afford it (the was much poverty during the Middle Ages). It also caused a change in the
'underlying ideas'. Monetary offerings became an expression of self-offering and participating in Christ's Self-sacrifice as actualised in the Mass. Somewhere I read: Christ's sacrifice becomes present in their offerings.
Reformation
A gracious God gave reformation also in this respect. The concept of the congregational members' gifts having an atoning character was radically rejected. John Calvin referred back to the situation in the ancient church of Jerusalem. The gifts that are brought together in church are tokens of gratitude for Christ's sacrifice, a matter of voluntarily doing what the Law of God requires, namely that no one shall appear before God without a gift. Calvin's lifelong ideal was that the Lord's Supper would be administered every Sunday and the alms gathered. He saw a close relationship between the Offerings and the Lord's Supper, for isn't the latter a matter of having communion with one another, rich and poor alike?
The Questions
Now that we have traced the origin of the church collections, the way lies open to deal with the questions received from different sides. However, we must leave this to the next issue of our magazine.
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This is the origin of the name "Offertory", still used for part of the Roman Mass. We should not use this term. In the Book of Praise, pages 581-3. it should be replaced by "Offerings", which sounds more Scriptural and Reformed.
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