The Bible Study Podcast, Episode 48.

This is the seventh episode in a series about what the church is and what it's called to be,

and this episode will focus on generosity.

Welcome to the Bible study podcast.

I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

As I'm recording this, it's Christmas morning,

so if you're listening to this any time in the recent future,

wish you a Merry Christmas.

And thinking of Christmas, we think of gifts,

and thinking of gifts, we think of generosity.

And so that's one of the reasons why this particular episode will focus on that attribute of the church.

This is an area where the church has sometimes done exceedingly well and sometimes done poorly.

And so let's look at first at some of the historical things the church has done

and then jump back to the Bible and what the Bible has to say about the church and its generous nature.

A lot of schools, hospitals, universities have been opened up by the church.

A lot of work is done to this day in parts of the world,

not necessarily for people who are Christian by the church.

And in this area, the church has done a really good job of emphasizing the generous love of God.

And yet there are other places where the church becomes insular and where the money that goes into the church is spent on the church building more as a clubhouse

than anything else. The first thing that the Bible says about generosity is that it is a characteristic of

God, that this is something that God does. And certainly we see that in the grace of God,

grace being when we're given things that we don't deserve.

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