“And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward.”(Mt. 10:42) With this saying the local followers were ordered to submit to the authority of itinerant missionaries and to support them. However, when the local congregation formed itself and grew up, they needed the resident leaders. There arose competitions and conflicts between the resident leaders and the itinerant missionaries. Thus the missionaries transferred gradually from the itinerant life to the resident one.
Then the house community became the center of mission and meeting, which was supported materially by the patron. However, the house community with patrons disappeared gradually, because it could not overcome the problem of difference among member’s social status. Therefore the Christian congregation should solve the economic problem, without patrons, with the egalitarian spirit and the brethren love.
The early Christians who knew the Judaic custom of offerings offered the donations for the church. The donations and the immovables which the members offered formed the church property. Notwithstanding Jesus’ critics of the wealth, the early church gathered the property for the solution of the economic problem.
The early church could not furnish her preachers with the nourishment regularly. But as the Christian believers increased and the church grew up, professional ministers were needed. “For the workman is worthy of his meat”: Jesus intended this saying originally for his itinerant disciples, but the history proved that this was said for church ministers.
It is a invariable truth that the change of the life conditions brings about that of the economic life. In the situation of itinerant life Jesus criticized the wealth (to say more exactly, the dependence on the wealth). But thereafter his disciples gave up the itinerant life for the resident life. By the above research I intended to show that a new possibility of the economic life had beginned. The choice of the resident life led to a new economic life, so that the church developed in the other direction than Jesus intended originally. This is the teaching which the history gave to us.

• 황정욱(한신대학교) | Hwang, Jeong Uck