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Practice Gathering: Fellowship (Sharing Resources)
Pastor Andrew Schmidt continues a new sermon series called, “Practice Gathering”. This series focuses on Acts 2:42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” This week focuses on how the early Christians in Acts devoted themselves to gathering together for the purpose of sharing resources with one another. (See notes below for more)
Sermon begins at about 27 minutes.
Audio:
You can listen to the sermon below, or you can subscribe to our Celebrators Podcast wherever you listen.
Scripture References:
Things To Remember:
When the church was birthed in Acts followers of Jesus met together every day to keep their relationship with God vibrant.
They devoted themselves to [the] fellowship. (Acts 2:42)
The Greek word koinonia can be both a noun and a verb so they committed themselves to fellowshiping (actively participating and sharing) in a fellowship (community bound by the common purpose of following Jesus).
Acts 2:44 shows that this including sharing financial/material resources.
Of the approximately 30 times a form of koina or koinonia is used in the New Testament at least 11 times it is connected to this kind of sharing financial resources (Acts 2:44, Acts 4:32, Romans 12:13, Romans 15:26, 2 Corinthians 8:4, 2 Corinthians 9:13, Galatians 6:6, Philippians 4:14 & 4:15, 1 Timothy 6:18, Hebrews 13:16).
The Bible promotes the contributing of financial resources to the ministry for the Lord in the Old and New Testament in principles that include:
Tithing: giving 10% of your income to God's kingdom work
Firstfruits: setting aside a portion of your income (perhaps your tithe) before spending
Offerings: additional giving beyond the tithe
Giving to the poor: Sharing financial with those in need
We are encouraged to excel in the grace of giving and operate in the same generous spirit of Jesus. (2 Corinthians 8:7-9)
God promises to bless our generosity by meeting our needs and in order to allow us to continue to be generous. (2 Corinthians 9:8-11)