The Cross, the Church, and the Offering Money: Three Symbols Alike

The Cross, the Church, and the Offering Money: Three Symbols Alike

The Church Is Not a Building, but a Community

The Greek word ekklesia means an assembly of people called out, not a physical building. Buildings only appeared after the 3rd century AD. The early church gathered in homes (Romans 16:5; Philemon 1:2), did not have sacred church buildings, and did not consider any particular place more holy than another. This logic is exactly the same as the logic of the cross: the error of worshiping a lifeless object like a wooden cross is corrected by the truth that the cross functions to remind us of Christ's sacrifice. Likewise, the error of considering a building more sacred is corrected by the truth that the congregation itself is God's temple. Paul said forcefully, "Do you not know that you are God's temple?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). Not the building, just as not the wood of the cross, but the community living in love is the reality.

The Use of Offering Money in the Early Church

The early church did not collect money to build magnificent buildings, buy golden liturgical furnishings, pay large pastoral salaries, or make expensive statues and crosses. Rather, "There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need" (Acts 4:34-35). The purpose of the collection according to the New Testament was to distribute to all who were in need (Acts 2:44-45), to send aid to brothers and sisters suffering from famine (Acts 11:27-30), to create equality where one person's abundance covered another's lack (2 Corinthians 8:13-15), to help widows who were truly in need (1 Timothy 5:16), and to care for orphans and widows in their distress (James 1:27).

The Consequence of Misguided Offerings

If a church as a community collects money and then spends eighty percent on buildings and internal events, ten percent on staff salaries, and ten percent on missions which is often also for administrative costs, then that church has done what Jesus criticized in the scribes: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness" (Matthew 23:23). They were diligent in bringing offerings to the Temple as a symbol, but they neglected the reality—namely, the neighbor in need.

The Complete Similarity between Symbol and Reality

The wooden cross as an object of worship is a mistaken symbol, whereas the biblical reality is a life of forgiving and sacrificing for one's neighbor. The church building as the house of God is a mistaken symbol, whereas the biblical reality is the congregation as God's temple. Money for buildings and sacred furnishings is a mistaken symbol, whereas the biblical reality is money for feeding, empowering, and setting free. The same principle repeats: objects, money, or rituals that direct attention inward—to sacred objects—are a deviation. The correct direction is outward, to the suffering body of Christ in the form of our neighbors.

The Test for Any Church Today

A church can be tested with one simple question: out of every hundred rupiah that enters the church treasury, how much directly touches the lives of the hungry, naked, sick, imprisoned, orphaned, or widowed? If the answer is less than fifty rupiah, then that church has spiritually built a bronze serpent—an object once used by God but now become an idol. If the answer approaches ninety to one hundred rupiah, then that church is living in the same reality as the early church.

The Early Church as an Example

The early church did not have crosses on the walls (that symbol came later), did not have magnificent buildings, did not have organs, stages, or sound systems, and did not have liturgical ornaments. What they had was love shared in the form of money and food, the water of baptism as a symbol of dying to self, and the Lord's Supper as a symbol of Christ's body and blood broken for others. Water and bread are very simple symbols, not expensive, and never at risk of becoming objects of lavish worship. They understood that symbols may exist, but the reality is feeding the hungry brother or sister.

Shalom, Lord Jesus, protect and bless us all. Amen. 🙏