Why were the saints in Jerusalem poor?
The Jerusalem saints became poor because they had sold their land and houses and put everything into a common fund, expecting the Kingdom. When it did not come, many visiting believers who had given all they had were left as strangers without means or fare home.
Les explains that the poor saints in Jerusalem had given everything they had: they cashed in their CDs, sold their land and houses, and put it all into a common kitty in Acts chapter 2 and 3 in light of the Kingdom. But the Kingdom didn't come because they had rejected it. Many had come for Passover or Pentecost from places like Babylon and Rome, got involved, gave what they had, and didn't even have ship fare home. They lived off the kitty, didn't have to work and couldn't work because they were strangers. God in His providence took care of them through the offerings of Paul's converts from Gentiledom, brought back to Jerusalem. Paul instructed the churches of Galatia and Corinth to collect on the first day of the week, Resurrection Day, not the seventh-day Sabbath, for this collection.
More Questions
Why were the saints in Jerusalem so poor that Paul had to take up a collection for them?
The saints in Jerusalem had been left destitute because of their own offerings into the common treasury that began back in Acts chapter 2.