Why did God take care of the poor Jerusalem believers?
They had believed the Gospel of the Kingdom and stayed in Jerusalem expecting the King, selling their goods and living from a common fund that ran dry. Caught there in a legitimate cause, they became poor; God justly provided for them through Paul’s agreement to remember Jerusalem’s poor saints.
Les explains that after Pentecost, when Peter and the eleven preached, many Jews believed Jesus was the Messiah and that the Kingdom was coming. Since the King was just over the horizon, these believing Jews saw no reason to return to Babylon, Rome, Spain, or North Africa among pagan Gentiles. They stayed in Jerusalem and lived out of the common kitty as a stopgap until the King would come and the Kingdom would be set up. But Israel did not respond, the King did not come, and the kitty ran out. They had sold their goods, ended up poor, and probably could not even buy a ticket home. Yet God is just. They were caught in a legitimate cause because they had believed the Gospel of the Kingdom, so God would take care of them until they would die a natural death. God did this through the agreement Paul made with Peter, James, and John that wherever he went in his ministry, he would remember the poor saints in Jerusalem.
More Questions
Why was God just in taking care of the poor Jerusalem believers?
God is just, so because these people were caught in a legitimate cause by believing the gospel of the Kingdom and the coming King, God would take care of them until they died a natural death.