Paul’s Forgotten Project: What Roger Wheeler’s Work in Zambia Reveals About Fairness in the Kingdom

The most widely published book in human history reveals that we are created in the image of God. If that is true, then the way we handle surplus and scarcity is not a side issue. It is a test of whether our systems—and our hearts—reflect His image or something else.

On a recent episode of Created in the Image of God, I talked with Roger Wheeler, who has spent years working with churches in Zambia to live out a very specific New Testament pattern: Paul’s “collection for the saints” in Jerusalem.

For many of us, that collection is a footnote in our Bible reading. For Roger, it’s a blueprint.

He and his brother Bob are trying to answer a simple question:

If Paul’s collection for Jerusalem was an expression of fairness and justice in the kingdom, what would it look like to do something similar today—when one part of the global church is drowning in surplus, and another lives with chronic hunger?

Let’s walk through that together.

Paul’s Not‑So‑Small Offering

When we read Paul’s letters, we usually focus on doctrine, ethics, church order. But woven through his correspondence is a very practical, very economic project: a multi‑year, cross‑church effort to gather financial support for poor believers in Jerusalem.

You see it in:

1 Corinthians 16: instructions about setting aside money weekly.
2 Corinthians 8–9: extended teaching on giving, “fairness,” and mutual care.
Romans 15: Paul describes taking aid from Macedonia and Achaia to Jerusalem.

This was not a one‑time emotional appeal. It was:

Planned.
Coordinated across multiple congregations.
Rooted in theology, not just sentiment.

Paul uses striking language about fairness and equality:

“At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need.”
“The goal is equality” (or fairness, depending on translation).

He roots this in Israel’s manna story: those who gathered much did not have too much, and those who gathered little did not have too little.

In other words:

Within the body of Christ, surplus in one place is not meant to sit idle while deficit crushes another.

That pattern is what Roger Wheeler has tried to revive.

Zambia as Our Jerusalem

Zambia is a landlocked nation in southern Africa, with roughly 20 million people. According to World Health Organization–style estimates, around a quarter of the population lives with some degree of starvation or malnutrition.

Roger has spent years connected to churches there, helping facilitate what amounts to a modern “collection for the saints”:

Local Zambian congregations identifying real, concrete needs—especially food.
Western believers and churches recognizing their surplus and sharing it.
All of it framed very deliberately as kingdom fairness, not charity.

He put it simply on the show: we have surplus here; they have deficit there.

The New Testament doesn’t ask us to feel bad about that. It asks us to close the gap.

This isn’t “social justice” as the world often defines it—centralized programs that erase individual responsibility, or grievance‑driven politics that pit groups against each other. It’s not a guilt‑trip to force everyone into the same material outcome.

It is churches—freely, intentionally—aligning their finances with Paul’s model:

Surplus is recognized as something entrusted, not earned in isolation.
Deficit is recognized as our family’s problem, not “their” problem.
Giving is framed as worship and justice within the one body of Christ.

And yet, as Roger emphasized, he is not only thinking about the poor in Zambia.

He is thinking just as much about us.

Why Roger Worries About the Rich

Roger’s brother, who works alongside him, is driven by compassion for the starving. And rightly so. Starving people understand their need very clearly.

Roger is driven by a different burden:

He is concerned about the spiritual condition of those with surplus.

The poor in Zambia know they are poor. They know they need help. They may not know where it will come from, but they are under no illusion about their dependence.

The wealthy in the West—by global standards, that’s most of us—often have no idea they are in danger.

We have:

Food, and then more food.
Savings, retirement accounts, discretionary spending.
Churches that raise millions for buildings and programs with relative ease.

None of this is inherently evil. Scripture is clear: some are entrusted with more, some with less. The parable of the talents honors the servants who steward and multiply what they are given.

At the same time, Scripture is equally clear:

“You cannot serve God and mammon.”
It is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom.
“If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”

In other words, biblical justice is not sentimentality. It does not commend supporting idleness or erasing responsibility. The same Paul who organized a transnational relief offering also wrote that those unwilling to work should face the consequences of that refusal.

This is where much of what passes for “social justice” today goes astray.

When human systems of redistribution:

reward persistent refusal to contribute,
or disconnect provision from responsibility entirely,
they collide with other biblical principles.

God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. His justice holds multiple truths together at once:

Radical generosity to those truly in need.
Serious expectations of diligence and stewardship.
Accountability for what we do with what we are given.

What I appreciate about Roger and Bob Wheeler is that they are trying to operate in that tension, thoughtfully.

They are not advocating a global leveling of outcome. They are asking Western Christians to recognize that our surplus may be spiritually numbing us, and that Paul gives a concrete way to address it: intentional, accountable sharing with genuinely needy brothers and sisters.

One Body, Many Economies

Paul’s “collection for the saints” wasn’t just about money. It was about identity.

Gentile churches scattered around the Mediterranean were being asked to:

Recognize impoverished Jewish believers in Jerusalem as family.
Accept a financial obligation to them as part of what it means to be “one body.”

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says:

“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.”
“There should be no division in the body.”

Now bring that into the 21st century:

One part of the body—Zambian believers—lives with persistent hunger and malnutrition.
Another part—Western believers—debates carpet color and AV systems, plans conferences at resorts, and frets over brand upgrades.

Again, buildings and budgets aren’t evil. But if our abundance never meaningfully intersects their lack, can we honestly say we are living as one body?

Roger’s work in Zambia raises uncomfortable questions:

When a quarter of a nation’s population is undernourished, how should that reality show up in our church budgets?
How much of our “ministry spending” is actually reinforcing our own comfort and visibility, rather than relieving genuine suffering among fellow believers?
Do we feel their hunger in our liturgies, or only in occasional special offerings?

If we truly believe we share a common destiny in the image of God, then “Jerusalem” is never just a line on a map. It is wherever the family of God is in need.

Right now, part of that Jerusalem is in Zambia.

Recovering “Collections for the Saints” Today

So how do we recover Paul’s pattern without slipping into unbiblical versions of “social justice” that ignore work, stewardship, and responsibility?

Roger’s example suggests several principles.

1. Name surplus honestly.
One of the hardest spiritual disciplines for affluent believers is to see what is extra.

Do we need this much building, this much technology, this many programs?
Do we need this level of lifestyle, travel, or consumption?

Not everyone has the same baseline. But virtually all of us in the West have more than we require to live and to work. Learning to name that “more” as surplus is the first step.

2. Treat global sharing as a core, not a leftover.
Paul didn’t treat the Jerusalem collection as spare change. He organized it, revisited it, and tied it to the very credibility of his ministry.

Likewise, churches and individuals can:

Build regular, significant “collections for the saints” into their core budgets.
Shift from occasional emotional responses to crises toward ongoing partnership with specific communities—like Roger’s networks in Zambia.

3. Aim for fairness, not forced equality.
Paul’s language of “equality” is not a blueprint for flattening everyone to the same income. It is a picture of a family in which:

No one has far too much while others starve.
Those with more recognize a responsibility to those with less, and vice versa over time.

That’s a very different thing from state‑driven redistribution that severs provision from work, or from ideological versions of “social justice” that ignore personal agency and virtue.

4. See giving as mutual salvation from mammon.
Roger’s concern for those with surplus is not merely that we “aren’t doing enough.” It’s that we may be in spiritual danger without knowing it.

When we participate in targeted, Pauline sharing:

The hungry receive food and possibility.
The comfortable receive a concrete way to loosen mammon’s grip and realign their hearts.

Both sides are being saved—from hunger on one side, from idolatry on the other.

We began with the conviction that we are created in the image of God and woven together toward a common destiny.

Paul’s forgotten project—the collection for Jerusalem—was one of the earliest, most practical expressions of that reality. Roger Wheeler’s work in Zambia is a quiet, modern echo of that project.

The question for us is not whether we can do exactly what Paul did, in exactly the same way.

The question is whether we will allow the pattern to challenge our habits:

Will we see Zambia, and places like it, as part of our Jerusalem?
Will we relearn how to recognize surplus and call it what it is—entrusted, not ultimate?
Will we treat “collections for the saints” as central to church life, rather than optional charity?

If we are truly one body in Christ, created in the image of a just and generous God, then fairness in the kingdom cannot remain an idea. It must become a practice.

Sneak Peek: Next Week on Created in the Image of God

Next week, we’ll continue exploring what it means to live out God’s image in our economic and social lives—but from a different angle.

I’ll be joined by a guest who has wrestled with what happens inside our communities when we try to practice this kind of fairness: the tensions, the misunderstandings, and the unexpected fruit that comes when we refuse both cheap “social justice” slogans and selfish isolation.

We’ll ask:

How do we build churches that are generous without becoming enabling?
What happens to our identity when we shift from “owners” to “stewards”?
And how can ordinary believers begin re‑ordering their lives—body, budget, and relationships—around God’s vision of justice?

Join me next week at 8:00 p.m. Central as we keep pressing into what it really means to be created in the image of God in a world of hunger and surplus.