CO 16:1{CO 16:2{In the above Scripture we get a connection with the Lord's day which is worthy of notice. The apostle says, " Concerning the collection for the saints, as I gave order to the assemblies of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him [or at home] in store whatsoever he may be prospered in, that there be not collections then when I come." Here is a duty of love associated with the first day of the week. If it were a mere question of the saints remembering their poor brethren, there seems no reason why the collections might not have been from time to time as need was made known. Nor is it certainly a bare question of laying by at home, though it is well known that some learned commentators declare this to be the meaning of " by him" (par' heautou). As if it were some great matter, they tell us that " laying by him," as a phrase taken by itself, means nothing more.
Supposing this to be certain, and I am not going to dispute with them about it, is this all? Did the apostle mean nothing more? It does seem to me that the truth greatly supplements what they say; for one may justly ask the question, Why, if so, stress should be laid on the first day of the week? Why not on any other day? Why was the collection (for this it was) on that day above all others? Beyond a doubt it is good and wholesome for a Christian to lay by at home for the need of others. It is well that he should consider gravely, and not on mere impulse or when he is on the spot, what he is going to give in the Lord's name. It is evident that the Lord meant each believer to challenge his heart in view of any prosperity he may have had in the course of the week. But that each was to accumulate a separate store in his own house from week to week appears to me the merest assumption, and indeed mistake. The apostle would have it to be a grave matter of inquiry before the Lord, and of course therefore rather a question raised at home than, as is common in modern times, an emulous act when people flock together, or perhaps at haphazard, whether they be duly provided or not, and often under moving appeals to act on their feelings. All these are but poor ways of giving, and by no means answer to the intention of the Spirit of God here for His saints on the first day of the week.
The apostle wished giving to be a grave habit, and one that should be settled, as we have been prospered, with one's self or at home. He wished to avoid a special collection at the time of his visit, not merely, as it seems to me, because his time could be better employed than in such diaconal work, but because he felt it to be an affair for the Christian conscience and heart, not for influence of his own, still less for emulation, nor yet the gusts of some passing impulse. What a contrast is the getting a popular man to come and preach a moving sermon in order to work upon people's feelings! Far different is the principle laid down here. He urges on the saints to consider gravely before the Lord, and each by himself to lay by at home, not to act on impulse, but conscientiously, according as he had been that week prospered.
Accordingly the saints at Corinth, as elsewhere, are called in the name of the Lord to give on the first day of the week. " Let every one of you," i. e., each of them. Is this always remembered? It is not the rich alone. Is there not sometimes the thought that they are to give that can out of their abundance? Is Christ in this thought, or self? Not a word about wealth is breathed here, but " as he may have been prospered." The poor man may be prospered just as really in proportion as the rich; perhaps it might be even more sensibly. Many a rich man has nothing in particular different one week from another, but the poor man may often have; and the Lord thinks about the poor. The Spirit of God takes care to give him, who has been ever so little prospered during the week a living and personal interest in everything that is connected with the name and saints of the Lord. Certainly it is not meant that those who are always in prosperity, and may not have any special abundance, should think themselves absolved from their duty of gravely considering with a view to giving. God forbid! Thus did the Lord ordain, that the poorest might not conceive himself left out, that the simplest might know that he has an integral interest in all that concerns the glory of God. There is, too, the gracious wisdom that connects all with Christ and His resurrection, and thus with the joy and the deliverance and the eternal blessing into which we are brought, and know we are brought, and which we are intended to manifest in gathering together to His name, breaking bread in the remembrance of Him. What an association for our little contribution to the poor saints!
This then is the meaning of the first day of the week as here introduced, showing plainly that, as in the verse stated, there is a laying-up by each at home, so on the first day of the week they contributed when they came together; for we know, from Acts 20:7, that they met on that day to break bread. Be it so, then, that the laying-up was at home, the day on which it was done implies that whatever might be thus separated to the need of the saints was not to be kept there. As they came together then, so they had fellowship in casting their offerings into the common treasury of the church in the name of the Lord. This appears to me the point here in connecting all together. Where would be the force of pressing the collection for the saints on the first day of the week, if it went no farther than each laying by at home? Why might it not be as well done on any other day? We can see its importance if they contributed on that day what each laid by at home, when they came together to break bread. Thus was communion best maintained among those that belonged to Christ; especially as it was also for the express purpose of avoiding collections when the apostle came. He would not mix it up with personal feeling. He desired not that money should be drawn out because Paul was there. He would have souls exercised in love and liberty but withal conscientious care, and the motive Christ for the needy that are His. And He is always there; and this especially, let me repeat, on the first day of the week. No doubt withal there is liberty for every holy service in prayer, preaching, and visiting; and we may well thank God for all. But these are not confined to the Lord's day, having their place as God gives opportunity on any if not on every day; whereas the breaking of bread is the standing institution of the church's communion; and the Lord's day is the standing day for it, though it might be every day. The Lord' supper and the Lord's day answer to each other, being mutual complements in the witness of Christianity; and as the one is especially the expression of Christ's death, so is the other especially of His resurrection.
Thus too is all duly kept in its place and tone. For we are not meant to come together in sadness, in a spirit of mourning, or with garments of heaviness. There is set forth then the most affecting sign of our Savior's humiliation in unfathomable love, the most solemn witness of our sin and shame and ruin. How overwhelming the evidence in His death that we were sinners, and what sinners we! But no less is it a demonstration of our blessedness, through His infinite work, as believers. God is not only satisfied as to sin and our sins, but glorified, and ourselves by grace washed, sanctified, justified, in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. And our Lord, though on high, deigns to be with us till He come again and take us to be with Him.
Meanwhile the Lord's clay, where the grace and truth expressed in it is understood, and the Lord's supper, observed as it should be in its original integrity as the central institution for the gathered worshippers in Spirit and in truth, have their own appointed and appropriate aim-the best means according to God's wisdom-for the testimony and enjoyment of Christian privilege here below in His assembly to His glory. May our part, if indeed we are Christ's, be holily and happily in it all evermore. Amen.