9:1–2 To be understood clearly, verse 1 must be taken with the verses that immediately follow it. On first reading it may sound odd for Paul to say it is “superfluous” for him to write the Corinthians about collecting money for the saints in Jerusalem; after all, this is precisely what he wrote about for all of chapter 8!

But in context we note that Paul goes on to explain that the reason there is hardly any need for him to write to the Corinthians in order to elicit financial generosity is that they themselves (those in “Achaia”) have been leading the way in generosity. Paul did not make this point in 8:1–5. There he simply spoke of the extreme and sacrificial giving of the Macedonians. Now in chapter 9 he circles back to the Macedonians and identifies the Corinthians’ own generous willingness (“readiness”; also in 8:11, 12, 19 [the latter of which is translated “good will”]) as that which he has boasted about to them. Moreover, this “zeal” (another way of speaking of the Corinthians’ “readiness”) is precisely what has ignited the Macedonians’ own giving.

This is a delightful, healthy game of gospel competition. Paul elsewhere tells the Roman church to “outdo one another in showing honor” (Rom. 12:10). Here Paul is unveiling to the Corinthians the generosity of the Macedonians, yet this is not to shame the Corinthians nor to motivate them out of guilt. Paul never does that (remember 2 Cor. 8:9!). On the contrary, the Corinthians’ themselves have been integral to impelling Macedonian giving. Paul is simply calling the Corinthians to consummate their initial “readiness” and “zeal” to give. They are being called to finish what they have started.

9:3 Paul returns to speak of the three-man delegation he outlined in 8:16–24. He continues to carefully clarify why he is—and by implication why he is not—sending them. The reason for their visit is to grease the gears of the Corinthians’ readiness to give (9:3b), which giving would thus vindicate Paul’s boasting to the Macedonian believers about the Corinthians (v. 3a). Paul does not send the delegation to threaten or berate or judge. Their purpose is to provide an outlet for the Corinthians’ pent-up desire to give generously for the needs of the saints.

Paul continues to let the Corinthians know that he has been speaking with warm confidence of their openhandedness to others (“our boasting about you”; “as I said you would be”). We are all familiar with the way such knowledge softens our hearts. When we are suspicious that another is speaking ill of us behind our backs, our thoughts grow dark. Our hearts withdraw. But when we discover another has been speaking well of us, our hearts relax and we wish to be true to what has been said well of us. Paul’s pastoral wisdom is to be noted and followed.

9:4–5 Here Paul clarifies a further detail of his travel plans: he intends to follow up the delegation’s visit to Corinth with a visit of his own. Not only that, he is bringing some of the Macedonians with him! Much is on the line in the Corinthians’ following through on their original intentions toward generous giving for the saints in Jerusalem. Should they fail to come through, all of Paul’s boasting in them to the Macedonians will come crashing down and be shown to be hollow and misguided. And there will be Paul, with the Macedonians, face to face with the Corinthians, the very Corinthians whose celebrated generosity had impelled the Macedonians to give “in a wealth of generosity” despite “a severe test of affliction” (8:2). Jaws would drop; relationships would implode; the gospel itself would be betrayed (8:9). Paul, the Macedonians, the Corinthians—all would be “humiliated” (Gk. kataischynō, “to be put to shame”; also 7:14).

Paul’s two-stage travel itinerary is further amplified in 9:5, with his conclusion that he deemed it best to send along the three-man delegation ahead of his own arrival along with some Macedonians. Once again Paul shows his concern that their giving be pulled, not pushed; invited, not forced. Nowhere does Paul crowbar his readers’ behavior into place. His motivational strategy is ever tied to the gospel of grace (cf. 8:9). God in the gospel did not force us into newness of life but wooed us with loving welcome and embrace. Paul likewise encourages the Corinthians to prepare the funds as a “gift” (eulogia, twice in this verse; often translated “blessing”). The alternative to preparing a financial amount as a “gift,” willingly and freely released to the saints in Jerusalem, is to prepare it “as an exaction” (pleonexia, generally rendered “greed”).

Here and throughout this passage Paul is saying once again that we can do the right thing from the wrong motives. The question is not only what we do, but also why. In 2 Timothy 3:1–5, the longest vice list in the NT, Paul speaks of those who are “lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God”—and then Paul adds the final item in the list—“having the appearance of godliness.” One can be a lover of self, and it looks like godliness on the outside. One can be a lover of money (especially relevant to 2 Corinthians 8–9), and it is disguised as godliness. And so on. The question for the Corinthians is not whether they will give money. The question is whether they will do so heartfully, out of an overflowing sense of God’s abounding generosity in Christ to them. That same question confronts us today.

9:6 Paul has been multiplying reasons the Corinthians should be generous, and he now lays down what he deems to be a fundamental principle, presented in the Greek as two chiasms which, rendered woodenly, would look like this:

(A)  The one sowing

(B)  sparingly

(B')  sparingly

(A')  also will he reap

(A)  The one sowing

(B)  bountifully

(B')  bountifully

(A')  also will he reap

The exegetical impact of this literary feature is to draw attention to the inside elements—in this case, the all-determining nature of one’s giving: “sparingly” or “bountifully.” This observation underscores the insight we have just received in verse 5: the question is not whether we will “sow.” Everyone sows. The question is how we sow. Sparingly? Or bountifully?

While a single Greek adverb is used for “sparingly” (pheidomenōs), the Greek construction underlying “bountifully” is the Greek preposition epi (on, at, on the basis of) with the noun eulogia (“blessing,” rendered just above in v. 5 twice as “gift”). As in verse 5, so here in verse 6 the idea of “sowing bountifully” or “sowing that is driven by an impulse to bless others” is that it is fundamentally outflowing. It is, essentially, love. This is a generosity that is not calculating but liberal. It is releasing to others monetarily in a way that echoes what God has released to us spiritually.

And yet Paul’s point in this text is not simply one of self-divestment. He is saying that self-divestment is the best investment. Sowing bountifully inevitably terminates in reaping bountifully (cf. Gal. 6:7–8). Outflowing generosity redounds back to the giver. Not necessarily financially (though in God’s ways this sometimes happens) but in the way that really matters—we are walked into deeper felt communion with God.

9:7 The subsurface theme running all through chapters 8–9 breaks the surface again: Give not as an external behavior only, crowbarred into action, reluctant and forced; give rather out of an internal delight in God, aware of God’s grace to us personally in the gospel, and thus freely and cheerfully. Note the healthy individualism of the text: “Each one . . .” No pressured groupthink here.

The phrase for “not reluctantly” is “not from lypē,” with lypē being the word used for “grief” throughout chapter 7 as Paul contrasts worldly grief and godly grief. “Compulsion” (Gk. anankē) is the same word translated “hardships” in 6:4; 12:10. It means distress caused by what is forced upon one from the outside. A gospel-formed person does not have generosity dragged out of him, even by himself. That is no generosity at all. Giving is something one does delightedly. That is, giving is simply what a gospel-formed life looks like. Even more deeply, it is what a Christian does because it reflects who we now are. A stingy Christian is a contradiction in terms. We ourselves have been gifted into new life in Christ. We have been gifted into becoming givers.

And such giving is what “God loves.” This does not mean we earn our way into God’s love by financial generosity—or by any other gracious action, for that matter. It means simply that God’s giving heart finds deep delight when that heart is reflected and recapitulated in his people.

9:8 Paul returns to the point of verse 6, that liberal openhandedness is a sure investment that will accrue to our own joy in due course. Here, however, Paul piles up the superlatives as he broadens out from the financial realm to make explicit that the blessings that wash into our lives through financial generosity are spiritually comprehensive. We are fully supplied and satisfied.

Paul had said it was “superfluous” (Gk. perissos; v. 1) for him to write the Corinthians about the collection, but now he uses the same word root in a contrasting way, saying that God has the power “to make all grace abound to [perisseuō]” them.72 The exhaustive provision in which Paul is about to exult is not dependent in any way on human strategies or ingenuity but rests wholly on God’s divine power: “God is able.” But Paul says more than this. God’s power is not simply to give grace, but to give grace abundantly. The deepest heart of God is not stinginess. His very nature is a giving nature. Grace floods out from his truest being to needy, weak sinners.

Indeed, one senses a smiling frustration in Paul as he strives to speak adequately of the abounding grace of God. Beyond the use of perisseuō (to abound) Paul uses variations of the Greek word “all” (pas) five times in this single verse, underlined as follows. “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” Paul is at pains to head off our dark thoughts of divine reluctance or begrudging doling out of grace.

And what does this grace do? As is usually the case throughout 2 Corinthians, Paul has in mind not forgiving grace but empowering grace. This is grace that, like coursing electricity, sustains the financial generosity into which Paul is beckoning the Corinthians—but also “every good work.” Paul knows of no partial Christian obedience. Nothing tepid here. This is all-in, grace-fueled obedience that happily yields all to God in the firm knowledge that everything that really matters in this life can never be taken away.

9:9 On first reading it may sound as if the subject of verse 9 is God, since God was the subject in verse 8. But in Psalm 112, from which Paul is quoting, the “he” is the one who steadfastly fears and trusts in the Lord in such a way that his piety flows out in magnanimous and upright dealings with other people. Paul cites the text to give an example of a saint for whom 2 Corinthians 9:8 has proven true. The saint of Psalm 112 has been liberally generous (“he has distributed freely”) in how he has handled his money with regard to those in need (“he has given to the poor”). This is the kind of generous openhandedness that establishes one’s uprightness before God both in this life and on into the next (“his righteousness endures forever”). He will never stop receiving dividends down through eternity for his giving heart and hand.

Paul has likely drawn on this psalm because it continues the agriculture metaphor that has been sustained from 2 Corinthians 9:6. The word here translated “distributed” more specifically denotes the scattering of seed. Throughout this passage Paul is focused on the point that the more seeds of generosity one sows, the more one will finally reap.

9:10 Paul continues the agricultural imagery, bridging the quote from Psalm 112 directly into the experience of the Corinthians. He speaks of both the very beginning of the harvest (“seed to the sower”) and the final end (“bread for food”), affirming that God himself provides both (“he who supplies . . .”). Humans work with their hands to facilitate the harvest, yet even through human hard work God himself is the true provider. But Paul then turns to make his real point, transposing this truth from the agricultural realm to the spiritual one.

Yet as he does so, we notice that, like Psalm 112, Paul does not dissociate the material from the spiritual but binds the two together. Psalm 112:9 connects generosity to the poor and enduring righteousness; so here in 2 Corinthians 9:10, God will provide “seed for sowing” (i.e., he will grant financial resources to be given to the needy) and will also “increase the harvest of your righteousness” (i.e., your stability and solidity before God himself is being nurtured and secured and vindicated). And we note that for both the material and the spiritual realms Paul speaks not only of God providing but of God multiplying. The divine math of heaven’s economy defies our sense of calculated reciprocity. For the generous, God multiplies the very resources from which they give to others. The little that we give, in ways we cannot explain, fills up with even more in its place.

9:11 Paul amplifies verse 10, returning again (as especially in v. 8) to the use of “all/every” language (Gk. pas). As the Corinthians step into the delighted, relaxed, God-trusting generosity of chapters 8–9, they “will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way.” Enrichment is for the sake of others, not oneself. And yet the happy way God has set up the world is that when we live in such a way, we ourselves also find our deepest enjoyment and contentment. This is no final sacrifice. To give of one’s resources, as God multiplies them for this very purpose, is to cultivate not only present blessing for others but future blessing for oneself. To divest is to invest. To sow is to one day reap.

The “through us” refers to Paul and his colleagues as the facilitators and channels of the gift from the Corinthians to Jerusalem. And Paul now turns to a theme he will sustain through to the end of the chapter: thanksgiving to God. Because God himself is the true source of all capacity to give, he is the one to whom true gratitude is to be rendered. This does not mean the humans who give (the Corinthians) or who facilitate the gift (Paul et al.) should not be thanked; it is simply to place the emphasis in the right place, for even what the Corinthians have (as recent verses have been driving home) is from God and not their own ingenuities.

9:12 Paul picks up on the note of thanksgiving to God on which verse 11 ended. He is now focusing less on the giving itself and more on the result of the giving.

Paul identifies this Corinthian gift-giving in a very specific way: “the ministry of this service.” The Greek word translated “ministry” is diakonia, used twelve times in 2 Corinthians (more than in any other letter of Paul’s), most recently in 9:1 (“the ministry for the saints”). It fundamentally denotes others-centered activity that serves rather than demands, gives rather than takes. The word for “service” (leitourgia) is a more specific term tied to Jewish temple activity (cf. Luke 1:23; Phil. 2:17; Heb. 9:21), though it often refers more generally to personal help from one Christian or group of Christians to another (e.g., Phil. 2:30).73 In bringing the two terms together Paul is emphasizing the others-centered nature of this giving to the saints in Jerusalem, a giving that reflects the heart of the gospel itself.

Paul mentions two results of this “service”: (1) “supplying the needs of the saints” and (2) “overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.” The first simply reiterates what he has been saying all through this broader passage, while the second is his present point of emphasis. Paul’s point here is that Corinthian generosity will not generate tepid thanksgiving to God but will issue in a flood of thanksgivings. Thanksgivings will become the very tone, the culture, the vibrant atmosphere, of the church in Jerusalem. Only this is sane and healthy Christianity. A thankless Christian is the greatest contradiction.

9:13–14 “Service” picks up the word rendered “ministry” in verse 12 (Gk. diakonia). Paul speaks of “their approval of this service,” referring to the Jerusalem saints’ receiving the donation funds as evidence of the Corinthians’ authentic Christianity, and glorifying God—precisely what happens in Acts 21:19–20 upon Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem.

But what precisely will the Jerusalem believers discern to be true of the Corinthians in light of Corinthian generosity? (1) Their “submission that comes from [their] confession of the gospel of Christ,” and (2) “the generosity of [their] contribution [lit., “fellowship,” koinōnia] for them and for all others.” The Corinthians will prove that they are functioning out of basic health both vertically and horizontally. True submission to Christ necessarily spills out sideways into how we treat other believers. We must not fail to note here the way in which Paul binds together fidelity to Christ and love for fellow believers. One cannot exist without the other. Our love for each other flows from our submission to and love for God. Putting fellowship with one another before fellowship with God destroys both.

The uniting of upward fellowship and outward fellowship carries into 2 Corinthians 9:14 as Paul continues his hopeful anticipation of the Corinthians’ giving and the Jerusalem saints’ response. Paul peers into the hearts of the Jerusalem believers and discerns what will ignite as they receive these funds from their brothers in Achaia. Their hearts will be drawn out in longing and prayer. They likely will never meet. But their souls will be bound up with the Corinthians in profound solidarity. And this horizontal reality is itself reflective of a deeper vertical reality: “the surpassing grace of God upon” the Corinthians. Christian love always reflects divine initiative and heaven-sent empowering mercies.

9:15 The Greek word charis occurs eighteen times in 2 Corinthians, and ten of these are clustered here in chapters 8–9. Usually it is translated “grace” or “act of grace,” sometimes “favor” (e.g., 8:4), and sometimes “thanks,” as here in 9:15. The very fact that the word is clustered here in the two chapters on financial generosity reflects important truths about Paul’s theology: earthly obedience is always the result of divine grace. As Christians receive grace, they naturally pass it on. Interpersonal Christian relationships draw their strength and character from relationship with God.

Here, though, Paul concludes this section of the epistle by drawing the Corinthians’ minds up toward heaven in thanksgiving to God. Gratitude has been a major theme of these concluding verses to chapter 9. In drawing these two chapters to a close with such an emphasis on thanksgiving, Paul is heading off any vaunted sense of sacrificiality on the part of the Corinthians. Whatever they give, it hardly compares to what they have been given. The grace of God that has come to them in Christ (8:9) is “inexpressible.” We impoverished sinners have been given Christ, with all his riches. Such mercy softens our clenched fists’ hold on our financial resources. Thanks be to God indeed.