Introduction

• Colossians 3:17

Local churches are authorized to provide for worship and edification, continued

Notice that New Testament churches were focused on spiritual edification

• Not any type of edification is a work of the church.
• There is a difference between edification and what might be done simultaneously with it.
  • Acts 2:46-47
  • Matthew 9:11

Local churches are authorized to provide for needy Christians

God authorized churches to provide for needy saints.

• Acts 2:44-45
  • Acts 5:4
• Acts 4:32-35
  • Acts 5:2
  • Acts 22:3 – “at the feet of Gamaliel”
• Acts 6:1-3
• Acts 11:27-30 – Some use this verse to argue for the sponsoring church arrangement, but that is not the arrangement we see in scripture.