"Money, it's a crime. Share it fairly, but don't take a slice of my pie." The song "Money" by Pink Floyd starts out with the sound of coins clinking as a lead in to the song that's a semi cynical look at money. Lines like "Money, it's a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash" and "Money, get back, I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack" primarily highlight the selfish uses of money, but also look at the efforts to acquire it. It even refers to the passage about money being the root of evil in 1 Timothy 6:10.

When it comes to churches and money It really is a crime how so many have turned from serving God to raising money. Many will do so with no concern for God or man. They'll do just about anything to get a "stash" or "stack" without any concern about God's instructions on the subject. So today's Morning Minutes in the Bible on Traditional Tuesday is going to look at the collection methods found in the NT.

The first noted method of contribution in the NT, other than generically sharing as all had need (Acts 2:44-45), was by members bringing their money to the Apostles (Acts 4:35-37). The text makes it clear that those were free will contributions, but more about that in a later video.

The next specific example was because of a famine in Judea and the Christians in Antioch of Syria took up a collection according to each person's ability and sent relief for the poor Christians in Judea. There it was delivered to the elders of the church (Acts 11:27-30). The details of how it was collected weren't revealed, but it was clearly collected into a common treasury.

We also know that the church in Philippi created a treasury and sent funds from it to Paul, not once, but several times. Read Philippians 4:10-19 very carefully.

The last example of a specific collection method was Paul's instruction to the church in Corinth to "put aside and save," or to be more precise in the Greek language, “treasuring up”, on Sunday (1 Corinthians 16:1-2). Yes it is literally treasury in Greek. Paul was instructing them, and other churches, to have individuals make free will contributions to be collected in a common treasury when they met on the first day of the week so there wouldn't have to be a collection when he came. Whether they passed a plate, as most churches do today, or set out a box is not stated so either way works.

Don't make collecting money and creating a church treasury a crime, but don't forget His church isn't a fund raising organization either.