What does the Bible say about giving?

• Exodus 23:10-11, every seven years let the fields rest
• Exodus 35:5, give to God with a generous heart
• Leviticus 19:9-10, leave the edges of your field when you harvest for the poor to harvest
• Leviticus 27:30, all the tithes belong to the Lord
• Deuteronomy 15:7-8, open your hand to those in need
• Proverbs 11:4, those who give freely, grow rich
• Proverbs 19:17, be kind to the poor and you will be repaid
• Matthew 5:2, give to those in need
• Matthew 6:3-4, give in secret
• Matthew 25:34-36, give to those who are hungry and thirsty
• Luke 3:11, share your extra with those who have none
• Luke 6:35, do good and expect nothing in return
• Luke 21:1-4, a poor woman gave from what she had
• John 3:16, God gave his only son for us
• Acts 20:35, it is better to give than to receive
• 2 Corinthians 9:6-7, 11, if you give sparingly, you will also get sparingly
• Hebrews 13:16, share what you have
• James 2:15-16, what good is it if we don't give to those in need?

Sermon ideas about giving

The main goal of charity

The main goal in charitable giving is to imitate God, who from creation on through providence and salvation is a robust giver. In fact, God gave his only Son to the world. If God is generous, and we are images of God, being renewed in righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24), how would we even think of being stingy? Stinginess, tightfistedness, and selfishness move us toward or even beyond the perimeter of the kingdom of God, which is alive with generosity. Charitable giving, on the other hand, shows that we understand how life is to go within the kingdom of God.

Charitable giving is obviously intended to meet the needs of those who have less. People who have less need us. They count on us. Their need calls to us. And God observes. After all, "whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord" (Proverbs 19:17).

Moreover, our goods and services help build up the kingdom. As the essay on "good works" says, charitable giving has over the centuries built an impressive array of kingdom ministries. In one of his books, the historian Jaroslav Pelikan asks us to imagine passing a super magnet over the history of the world and drawing up everything good that has been influenced by Jesus and his gospel and supported by charitable giving — all the billions of people whose broken hearts have been mended, all the hospitals and orphanages and adoption agencies and schools, including the foundings of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, every missionary movement, all organized efforts to welcome refugees, all the outreach efforts in housing and home finance and hunger relief, the movements for abolition and women's rights, all the groups of Christian businesspeople who band together to give an African village a well or a Haitian village a new clinic. If you were to draw a magnet over all this plus everything else that's good and has been provided by the charitable giving of Christians, let's just say you'd need quite a magnet and that you'd leave quite a hole in history. (Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus Through the Centuries (Yale University, 1985, p. 1)

Giving as a spiritual discipline

Charitable giving is also excellent spiritual hygiene for the giver. Stinginess often stems from fear: What if I run out? What if I don't have enough? And, of course, prudence in making provision for the future is no vice. But our security lies not in our bank accounts and stock portfolios, but in God's providence. Our "only comfort in life and in death" is that we belong to "our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ" (The Heidelberg Catechism, A. 1). This truth needs to have full play for a Christian, overshadowing or at least accompanying prudent provision for a rainy day. Robust charitable giving mortifies our stinginess and disciplines our fears. Some Christians, intent on realizing the maximum spiritual benefit from their charitable giving, deliberately give smaller amounts frequently rather than larger amounts infrequently. They want to move regularly against their fear and stinginess.

But Christians (and others) may sometimes offer charity as a poor substitute for justice. If we acquiesce in the second-rating of people in our country, becoming impatient and irritated with calls for their equality, we may pacify our conscience by providing plenty of our used clothing and canned goods to these folks. They would like justice; we would like them to have our old shirts and socks instead. This swap is entirely likely to be an abomination to the Lord, who wants us both to "do justice and to love kindness" (Micah 6:8). Justice is the base. Charity is a welcome add-on to the base.

We usually think of charitable giving as openhandedness with material goods (principally money), but one may be generous as well with "possessions, time, attention, aid, encouragement, emotional availability, and more." (University of Notre Dame, "Science of Generosity Initiative," http://generosityresearch.nd.edu/more-about-the-initiative/what-is-generosity/)Except for the first, each of these things is nonmaterial. Indeed, some of the greatest forms of generosity in the universe are nonmaterial, such as God's grace for sinners manifested in the incarnation and the self-giving death of Jesus Christ. As the parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35) shows, God's generosity to us (in the form of forgiveness, for instance) is meant to spur our generosity to others.

Proverbs 11 and 2 Corinthians 9 represent a strand of biblical teaching that recognizes the benefits to the giver of her generosity. Givers tend to thrive. They don't finally lose by giving. (Scientific evidence supports the thesis that, in generosity, those who do good also do well.) (University of Notre Dame, "Science of Generosity Initiative," http://generosityresearch.nd.edu/more-about-the-initiative/what-is-generosity/)Does this corrupt their motives? Not necessarily. Healthy givers act out of gratitude for God's generosity to them and out of love of neighbor. They do not give just to insure their own thriving, but it is not wrong for them to notice that those who act generously do in fact tend to thrive. It's just the way God has arranged things.