My stewardship - whose business?

It is a challenge to preach about giving. Pastor Phil Kniss acknowledged this and proceeded to preach about it anyway. Pastor Phil set giving of finances in the context of an act of worship. Our culture highly values privacy when it comes to finances, and Pastor Phil suggested that in the Bible there is a strong tradition of public and celebrative giving in worship. If we understand that everything we have is from God and belongs to God, then we hold them lightly as a sacred gift and can joyfully give them back to God. In Exodus 35:4-9; 36:2-7, the Israelites understood this and had to be asked to stop giving...they were giving too much! The Christians of Macedonia also understood this and gave beyond their means to help the church in Jerusalem as recorded in 2 Corinthians 8:1-7. If we understand ourselves as a community different from our culture, then we may also give extravagantly to God through the church, not for the tax breaks but as worship to God.