God has never stopped blessing people with good things, including material ones. The NT did not wipe out God’s provision, the same provision he made to people. God told Joseph in the OT to prepare for famine, and He told the Church through Agabus the prophet in the NT to prepare to help meet the needs of those affected by famine. God provides regardless of Old or New Covenant because He loves us.

Do material gains pass away while spiritual ones remain? Of course! And we should be striving more for spiritual gains. However, you and I both know that we clothes, food, and shelter, and that those come from the hand of God. The Bible says that it is God who makes some rich and others poor. That’s within His sovereign right as God. But regardless of rich or poor, He is the one who provides. In the OT he did it through the wealth of the nation and in the NT he does it through the generosity of the Church.

As for the Hebrews passage, not every one of the patriarchs was like the maligned prophets. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all rich and died in their old age. All the righteous kings enjoyed the lavish riches poured out on them by God.

So I’m not sure we can make a hard and fast rule here on this except to say that God provides. Sometimes just what we need and sometimes more than we need.

I was merely trying to give some sense of how, at times, unexpected socio-economic differences do manifest themselves and, as you well noted, we need to be on guard to whatever creates chasms versus bridges in local bodies.

Ironically, I’m convinced reverse socio-economic discrimination can occur in the body just as well. I’ve seen subtle traces of both in my experience.

Christians should tear down relational barriers, not erect them. Whatever it is that gets in the way of fellowship must be addressed. More than once I have seen fellowship groups price some people out of the group.

I attend an SGM church that, while far from perfect, does a better job then not surmounting the socio-economic barriers that I suspect you’re speaking of. In fairness, at least to some degree and extent.

It’s a “highbrow” church as a bud of mine likes to say (who hails from a small, “lowbrow” church?) and we seem to have a better then not range of socio-economic scope in our body.

Still, as hinted at, it’s not to the extent I think some of us would like to see (it’s clearly tilted way upper-middle class, white folk). On one level, it’s a stark contrast to the small, “poor” black church right across the street.

I know for my family, we have very good friends we love and appreciate but, to be frank, we cannot always fully relate to –on a practical level– due to simple economic disparity.

For example, I have groups of these friends and we strive to maintain relationship via meals. At one point I noticed the hospitality had shifted to dining out. Not only was I convinced dinning out missed critical nuances of in-home hospitality but we simply couldn’t afford to routinely eat out with this collection of believers.

Now I’m not down on a bunch of believers going out for a meal but what was par for the course for some was cost prohibitive for others. It’s just a reality at times that can make, perhaps, relating difficult but one that can be overcome, I’m convinced, as goes true fellowship. Rich or poor, you’re still a brother. If that makes sense?