Paul leaves Ephesus with the intention of returning to Jerusalem to deliver the collection to the Jerusalem church at Pentecost. The collection was a gift from the Gentile churches to the Jerusalem believers. Romans 15:26 states that “Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem,” a text written from Corinth in the three months after Paul’s Ephesian ministry.
Paul has done this sort of collection for Jerusalem before. Before the first missionary journey in Acts 13, Paul delivered funds to Jerusalem that had been collected by the Antioch church. This visit is the subject of Gal 2:1-10. In Gal 2:10, Paul said that James had only encouraged him to “remember the poor.” The “poor” in mind here are the members of the Jerusalem church, the very people the famine visit was intended to help.
Jerusalem appears to be still living in a sort of shared community, supported by gifts. Given a famine (and possibly a Jubilee year), the poor believers in Jerusalem were even more dependent on Antioch than ever. Ben Witherington wonders if the handshake was an agreement to continue the financial arrangements between the Antioch church and the Jerusalem church (Acts, 429). This is possible since the same sort of language appears in Acts 15 as well, although the collection is not mentioned.
The Collection was unique in the ancient world. The Greco-Roman world has a system of public benefaction, but nothing like a modern “fund-raiser” where people are solicited for money, which is then distributed to the poor. Likewise, in Judaism, the poor received Alms from individuals, but money was not collected in mass for redistribution to the poor. Except Queen Abiabene, who brought relief to Jerusalem (Antiq. 20:51-51), there are no other examples of this sort of collection of funds.
Since Paul is collecting this money in the Greek world, it would have been unprecedented and would have looked very suspicious. Likely, the inclusion of church representatives was meant to give the churches confidence that Paul would not steal the funds and disappear. Notice that in Acts 20:4 there is a list of names traveling with Paul, all likely representatives of Paul’s churches in Macedonia (Thessalonica, Berea), Asia Minor (Derbe). Paul was careful to separate his own ministry from the Collection for the Saints. While he did not require churches to give to support him, he is adamant that churches “give what they can” to the Collection.
What is unusual is that Luke does not mention the collection at all, although that seems to be the point of a large part of the group traveling back to Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost. Why Luke would omit this collection is a mystery – some have speculated that the collection was not well-received by the Jerusalem church, perhaps even rejected. The scene in Jerusalem is rather tense when Paul arrives with a large contingent of Gentiles to deliver the gift.
Bibliography: Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, 932-947. S. McKnight, “The Collection for the Saints” in DPL, 143-147. The collection is mentioned in 1 Cor 16:1-4, 2 Cor 8-9, and Rom 15:25-32.
When reading Acts 20:1-5, it is interesting that it is talking about collecting funds for the churches in Jerusalem. When you read the passage you notice that Paul is traveling visiting people, and that some of them are starting to go with them on a journey. It is interesting these churches collect money and then they having a (conference). I wonder if the money was not received well because of the fact that the money came from Gentiles, Christians too.
I love the scriptural basis,you ve given!ty I can definitely pray’the Father for their relief,but cannot give financially at this time.God bless
pardon my skepticism here but where do you find ‘collection of money’ in these 5 verses?
I’m not sure if you’re responding to me or this rather old comment. In the original post I said “The collection is mentioned in 1 Cor 16:1-4, 2 Cor 8-9 and Rom 15:25-32” and “What is unusual is that Luke does not mention the collection at all.” Most people who work in the book of acts think that Paul’s return to Jerusalem at this point is to deliver the collection of money that he mentions in the previous passages I listed. It’s an inference, but it seems of fair reading of the evidence.
I’m not sure what the point is. Is the point that the Jerusalem church was prideful and did not want to accept a gift because it may make them look incapable of taking care of themselves? Or, was a cultural thing, like when Abraham refused to accept the field for a burial site, and insisted on buying it and therefore owing nothing to anyone? Or, was it a problem because the people delivering the gift were Gentiles? Either way, if pride was involved, and people were in need, there was a problem with the church…which would not be surprising since the Jewish Christian converts seemed to struggle with pride.
I can agree that seems to be prideful of the Jews to not accept the gift. It could have also been just a cultural, “we are doing alright, so don’t worry”. It is odd to find that it is not in this section of Acts, either it was forgotten about, unnecessary, or they decided it was an unneeded section of the book. It’s hard to tell.
This is important to think about because the early church was about love and being unified. It should be that way today, but this story seems to emphasize how the church, as Cary said, has always had problems. They also were just beginning to understand how to work as a unified “body”, even unified in connection to the other churches.
But who’s to say it was a bad rejection of the collection? It could just be that they rejected it for the same reasons we reject help today: they thought they didn’t need it.
Keep that in mind when we get into the next chapter, since Luke drops the whole thing once Paul gets to Jerusalem. Did James refuse it? Maybe, or made it conditional on Paul’s sponsor of a vow in the temple.
Local governments might dole food to the poor (Rome, for example), but no real social welfare system existed.
I am a bit confused here. The idea that the Jerusalem church rejected (or even reluctantly accepted) the funds seems to have no basis in scripture. The text simply indicates that the leaders welcomed Paul, with concerns about the Jews outside of the church (Acts 21:17-26). Luke might not have mentioned the collection (which could have been either money or grain- the latter more useful in time of famine) because it was not of interest to him.
I guess I’m engaged here in some speculation, obviously there is nothing in the text that says what happened to the collection. This is a well-known problem for people who study the book of acts in the Pauline letters.
Acts, likely written by the Philippian leader, Epaphroditus, is writing in competition with Corinth, represented by Titus, who is never mentioned in Acts, and leaves him out of the collection taken to James, the communist dictator in Jerusalem. After the death of Paul, church leaders were just trying to survive. It is wise to side with Paul whenever Acts contradicts him.
Woodrow Nichols
antinomianuniversalism.com.
I see the Truth is offensive to you.
No, I’m pretty good with the truth. However, all comments are held in a spam filter until I approve the reply. Since it took me about a minute and a half in this case to approve your message, I’m not really dodging your rather odd assertion offered without any proof whatsoever.