O'Donoghue MTh_Thesis-FinalCopy.pdf - South African Theological ...

e for the benefit of the believing community. It is in this sense open-ended, in that adisciple could practice generosity to both the believer and non believer. Later in timePaul wrote in Galatians that the church should do good to all people, but especiallyto fellow believers (Gal 6:10). I.e. Christian generosity goes to believer and nonbeliever, even if priority might lie in goodness to a fellow brother or sister of God’shousehold.The church was shown in the theological analysis to be a community that was tomake God known. God was portrayed as caring for the needs of His people. Thusgenerous stewardship of money entrusted to the believer by God is a reflection ofGod’s character. Particularly as good stewardship of wealth was shown to create adisposition of purity, revelation, truth and blessing. These are attributes which reflectGod and can be seen as follows;a) Purity – Jesus is known to be absent of any sort of moral defilement.b) Truth – Jesus claimed to be truth incarnate (John 14:6).c) Revelation – It is a common NT theme to note Jesus as revelation of who Godis.The Historical context suggests that the kind of generosity expected in the churchcommunity must happen regardless of the nature of community a disciple findsherself or himself in. For example, the historical analyses showed that the audiencewas a largely Jewish Christian Audience. The Jewish community contained severalgroups that prospered financially, but at times many in the Jewish community wouldbe exploited by the rich land owners in the Jewish community.The application for the believer here is obvious. It would be to practice generosity.Perhaps one could conclude that as the historical analysis showed the believingcommunity of Matthew’s church to definitely include people in want, the modern day“well off” believer could be sensitive to the needs of the less fortunate around them.She or he could also take stock of her or his life and ask the question as to whether itis characterised by generosity.98