Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 9
April 25, 1957
NUMBER 1, PAGE 7b

The Corinthian Collection

Tant Williams, Jr., South Houston, Texas

The idea has been advanced that the collection mentioned in First Corinthians 16:1, 2 has to do with a specified obligation and that alone. Thus, according to the idea or argument, there is no pattern or example for the church to collect anything on the first day except benevolence. This argument has been brought forward to counter a contention that Second Corinthians 8 and 9 have limits in the use of collected funds.

It is interesting to note that the scholar McGarvey has this to say about the above portion of Scripture:

"The word "thesaurizoon," translated "in store," means, literally, "put into the treasury;" and the phrase "par' heauto," translated "by him," may be taken as the neuter reflexive pronoun, and may be rendered with equal correctness "by itself." MacKnight thus renders these two words, and this rendering is to be preferred. If each man had laid by in his own house, all these scattered collections would have had to be gathered after Paul's arrival, which was the very thing that he forbade. Again, had the collection been of such a private nature, it would have been gathered normally at the end instead of at the beginning of the week. But the first day of the week was evidently set apart for public worship (John 20: 19-26; Acts 20:7; Rev. 1:10), and this offering was part of the service. It was put in the public treasury of the church, but kept by itself as a separate fund. The translation of the Revised Version is unfortunate, as it obscures the idea of the weekly service of the church.

(Standard Bible Commentary, p 161)