Sharing

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

SHARING

Rom 12:3-8

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

NIV

Now we need to investigate this gift of contributing to the needs of others. First, we should note this is not about our tithing in our local church. Of course, tithing is an all together different concept then the gifts, or the expression of the Spirit in various ways through each of the members of the body of Christ, according to the divine influence in our lives by God. Tithing is not contributing to the needs of others, as its main purpose is to support the expenses of the local church. We would have to believe the major portion of the tithe is spent on the salaries of those who serve on the staff of the church as well as all the utilities and other upkeeps of the church building, with a percentage sent to denominations' higher authorities. So then, what exactly is this contributing to the needs of others outside the needs of those paid positions, for our tithe does meet their needs. It is interesting this Greek word, metadidomi, is not aimed specifically at monetary giving. Its direct meaning is to share a thing with someone. The question then is what is this “thing”? This could be applied to a financial matter, as in sharing some of our money with another person. It could be applied to sharing our time with another person, which could imply sharing ourselves with someone. However, the other interesting concept is how we are to share a thing with others. This translation uses the word generously, however, in looking at the Greek word, haplotees, we find more than generously. Once again, its direct meaning is with singleness, simplicity, sincerity and mental honesty, which include the openness of our heart manifesting itself by benefactions. In other words, we are to share whatever it is without any ulterior motives whatsoever, which would include feeling good about ourselves because we shared something, again, either money, clothing, food, time, or ourselves with another person. We think this is, for the most part, contrary to our human nature, with of course, those few who through their sense of humanitarianism meet the needs of others, are not predisposed to share what we have with others. Even then many who give in a corporate sense do so through the contributions of many others. So we are left with this gift, or this expression of the Spirit in certain people who he determines to express himself through, so that their hearts are open to the needs of others and they have but a singleness of heart in the most simplistic and sincere way, without any mental reservations, or in their thinking more highly of themselves then they should. This requires the Spirit working, expressing himself within a person in the most intimate of ways.