[aron]

What if...

Acts 12:25 " and Barnabas and Saul did turn back out of Jerusalem, having fulfilled the ministration, having taken also with [them] John, who was surnamed Mark." (YLT)

Acts 6:1,2 "And in these days, the disciples multiplying, there came a murmuring of the Hellenists at the Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily ministration, and the twelve, having called near the multitude of the disciples, said, `It is not pleasing that we, having left the word of God, do minister at tables;'"

What if God's economy were the ministration (meaning to dispense, or to minister) to those who lack means to repay in this age? What if man's economy was "Each one for themselves, and the devil take the hindmost" and God's economy was to dispense, or minister, to those very hindmost?

Witness Lee said God's economy was to eat God and become God. He said, God was processed to dispense. . . okay, but what dispensing is cited above, in the NT? That of ones who have something sharing with those who don't. Dorcas made shirts for the widows. Evidently they couldn't pay her, otherwise they wouldn't have wept so copiously when she died. If she'd sold them shirts for profit, it would have been a pecuniary transaction, and the widows would not have wept when their merchant expired. But out of love she poured out her heart for them, and in love she made shirts and tunics for them. She was in God's economy. Her reward was their gratitude. And God was watching. "Are not all my deeds recorded in your book?"

When Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:3,4 not to teach things other than God's economy, he doesn't define God's economy other than that it's "in faith". But look at what repeatedly happened: dispensing, or what Youngs Literal Translation calls 'ministration'. Caring for others through real, actual one-way transactions that have the expected payoff not on earth but in in heaven. In Galatians 2:10 Paul says, "They urged us to remember the poor, which very thing I was eager to do".

How do we "fulfill the ministration", a la Saul and Barnabas in Acts 12:6? When we see Lazarus lying there, covered in sores and flies, thirsty and broken, do we say, "Sorry Bud, but I'm off to a meeting with the good building material. Be warm and be filled"? Is that God's economy? I don't think so. That's the Kingdom of Self. "That member which lacks is shown the most abundant honour" - how do we show honour to those who lack? By sitting in chairs and pray-reading verses, and then giving one another empty platitudes?

I'm not suggesting that we must give half our possessions to the poor, as Zechaias told Jesus he had done. But there's a pattern there, in Zechaias' testimony, in Barnabas and Saul in Acts 12 and Galatians 2, and of course in Jesus, that of helping others in need. "It is better to give than to receive". This pattern of giving action, of outreach toward those who can't reach back out to us, suggests a picture of God's economy, what it looks like and what it is. It is indeed a dispensing, but not to self. It is a dispensing to the forgotten, lonely, overlooked other. "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me". It is love outpoured.

Just thinking aloud here. But the pattern I see in the NT seems to invite a re-orientation, from self to the neglected other... when you give to those who can't repay you in this age, you do so in faith, in faith that there will be a reward in heaven. This is what Paul referenced - "God's economy, which is in faith". In faith, we can reach out to the unreachable. This is the miracle of God's love. It reached me, and now it wants to keep going.