Giving Out of Lack

by Jonathan

We were recently at a missions conference and during one of the workshops we attended, the speaker was mentioning how in church planting it was good to receive hospitality from those who welcome you into their homes.

One of the participants asked how they could do this when the people in many villages they visit did not even have enough to eat.

The speaker replied:

“Then they would kill their only chicken or pig in the house and serve it to you just to show their appreciation and welcome you”

Thinking about how people who have little and yet willing to give so much brought a deeper significance to a passage i have been thinking about recently.

In Acts 13:1-3, while the leaders of the Church in Antioch worshipped God and fasted, the Holy Spirit spoke for them to set aside Paul and Barnabas for the work God has called them to. So they simply prayed and fasted before laying hands on both men and sending them off. And that is the start of the first of Paul’s missionary journeys.

This is a commendable gesture of the church, but the message it sends is even greater when we read Acts 12. Acts 12 tells of a church in crisis. James, one of the church’s top leaders, was just killed. Peter, another church leader, was imprisoned. It was only through God’s providence that He was miraculously rescued. But the church was unstable and on shaky ground.

It was in the midst of a time when the church should be considering its own stability and ministry that God spoke for them to send out Paul and Barnabas, 2 more of the church’s leaders, out into the Gentile lands, fulfilling God’s initial commission of Paul to preach His Name among the Gentiles.

Perhaps it is foolish for a church to ignore its own need and send out much needed resources to people who may not even appreciate it. Perhaps it is unwise for a church to put its own welfare second to those who they may not even know.

But perhaps, it should be like the poor villager who is willing to give its only chicken or pig to a mere traveller.

It is common and prudent to give to others out of sufficiency or excess, but maybe what God desires is a church wish is willing to giving not out of sufficiency but in the midst of lack. For them to live out the Biblical principle in Philippians 2:4 to ponder how God has blessed them and to consider the welfare of others above their own.

Perhaps the stability of any church is less important than the strengthening of the bigger global Church and for the knowledge of the glory of the Lord to fill the earth to overflowing as the waters fill the seas (Habakkuk 2:14).

Today the church in Asia, Africa and South America is fluorishing. And while the church in Antioch may not be as large as it could have been, we remain indebted to the small church at Antioch that was willing to give out of lack to bless the rest of the world.