Original Meaning

THE IMPORTANCE OF the collection within the argument of 2 Corinthians (not to mention within Paul’s theology) is often underestimated. Far from being a digression in Paul’s thought, the practical point of 2 Corinthians as a whole is actually expressed in these chapters: Those Corinthians who have not accepted the grace of God in vain (6:1–2), as evidenced by their repentance (7:9–11), are to prepare for Paul’s third visit (cf. 13:1) by purifying the church (6:14–7:1) and by completing the collection (8:1–9:15).

There is also an important apologetic motive behind these chapters: Paul wants to demonstrate his integrity regarding this sizable sum of money (7:2; 8:20; 11:20; 12:15–18) and to pave the way for transferring it to Jerusalem, since its favorable reception was by no means guaranteed (see Rom. 15:30–31; cf. Acts 21:15–26; 24:17). Thus, when it comes to the collection for Jerusalem, both the status of the Corinthians and the reputation of the apostle are on the line (cf. 1 Tim. 5:8).

In 8:1–15, Paul argued theologically and ecclesiologically for the resumption of the collection. Now in 8:16–24, Paul commends the three-man delegation that he is sending to Corinth to administer it: Titus, the chief delegate (vv. 16–17), and two other unnamed brothers (vv. 18, 22). The main purpose of this commendation is the corresponding admonition in 8:24 that his readers respond to them and to their task appropriately. But inasmuch as the apostle is always a pastoral theologian, his recommendation is not merely a matter of administrative detail. Rather, it is laced with theological and scriptural argumentation, while as a whole it unfolds under the rubric of praising God (8:16a), which once again is the literary and theological formula Paul uses to open up a new section of his letter (cf. 1:3 and 2:14).

The paragraph in 9:1–15 directly supports the command of 8:24 by outlining why the collection in Achaia must be completed before Paul arrives and by supporting this necessity theologically (Rom. 15:26 indicates that Achaia did in fact respond!). Hence, rather than being a fragment from a separate letter that was subsequently incorporated into what we now call 2 Corinthians, chapter 9 requires chapter 8 in order to be understandable. The reference to the brothers in 9:3 builds on 8:16–23, and the need to complete the collection before Paul arrives requires the obligation stated in 8:7–15 (cf. 9:5 with 8:20; 9:1–2 with 8:24).

Paul wants the collection completed before he returns in order to avoid any possibility of coercing the collection by his presence (9:5), since he knows that when he returns, it will be to judge the church (cf. 10:2–6; 13:1–4). Paul does not want people participating in the collection because of their last-minute fear of being judged by God, but because of the continuing grace of God in their lives. Paul’s concern is to show that giving is not a way to stay in the church under the threat of punishment, but a way of demonstrating that they belong to the church because of their continuing trust in what God has done, is doing, and will do for them.

The anticipation that God will be praised through the generosity of his people (9:11), the main point of 9:1–15, also reflects this same theocentric focus. For this reason, Paul’s discussion of the collection ends where 8:16 began, with thanksgiving to God (9:15). Hence, not to participate willingly in the collection as an act of worship to God does not remove one from the church; it merely indicates that one is not part of God’s people to begin with.

The Necessity of Sending the Delegation (8:16–24)

LIKE ITS PARALLEL in 2:14, Paul’s praise to God in 8:16 introduces a new literary unit. Moreover, in the same way that 2:14 introduced Paul’s commendation for himself, 8:16 introduces Paul’s commendation for Titus and the two brothers from Macedonia. Just as having the Corinthians in his “heart” commended Paul in 2:14–3:3 (cf. 3:2), so too the “concern” (or better, “eagerness,” cf. NRSV) in Titus’s “heart” regarding the Corinthians commends him (8:16). These parallels support the NIV’s decision to interpret the “same” eagerness or concern in 8:16 to be a reference to Titus’s sharing the same concern Paul had for the Corinthians, rather than drawing a comparison between Titus’s concern and the Corinthians’ concern for Paul (cf. 7:11–12; 8:7) or that of the Macedonians (8:8). Paul himself is the point of comparison.

The evidence of Titus’s eagerness was his willingness to accept Paul’s assignment and the “enthusiasm” and “initiative” with which he took it up (8:17). In the light of Paul’s argument in 8:1–15, this zeal to complete the collection is a zeal for the good of the Corinthians themselves. Though such a willingness to serve is often mentioned in Hellenistic letters as the most important qualification for administrators,¹ Paul’s point in 8:16–17 is that, as with the Macedonians (cf. 8:1), God is the one who put the desire to help the Corinthians in Titus’s heart. Titus is commended not because of his own innate qualities, but because of the way in which God has worked in his life. This is why Titus is commended, but God is praised (cf. Matt. 5:16).

Verses 18–21 concern the sending of the second brother, who remains unnamed. Though all attempts to identify him remain pure conjecture, suggestions have ranged from Luke (cf. Col. 4:14; 2 Tim. 4:11; Philem. 24), Barnabas, or Apollos (Acts 18:24–28), to one of the men listed in Acts 19:29; 20:4. Paul’s designation of this person as simply “the brother” (8:18) indicates that he is a Christian, but that within the delegation he probably has less status than Titus. Whereas the latter was sent on Paul’s own recommendation, this brother is sent because of his reputation among “all the churches” in Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia (cf. 11:28; also Acts 20:3–4; 1 Cor. 7:17; 14:34). He is praised for his “service to the gospel,” which likely refers to his work as an evangelist (cf. Rom. 1:9; 10:14–15; Eph. 4:11; 1 Thess. 3:2; 2 Tim. 4:5), though it may simply denote his support for the evangelistic work of others (as in Phil. 1:5; 4:3).

As these designations indicate, though this “brother” is sent by Paul, he is not Paul’s personal envoy but a chosen delegate of the churches. The word translated “chosen” in 8:19 is a technical term for being elected by the raising of hands in the assembly (cf. Acts 14:23; Titus 1:9). Paul is lending his apostolic authority to the decision of the local church (for this same procedure, see 1 Cor. 16:3). As 2 Corinthians 8:19 indicates as well, the churches commissioned this brother to travel to Jerusalem with Paul and the collection before it was decided to send him to Corinth too (here again, the collection is referred to literally as a “grace” [charis]; cf. 8:1, 4, 6, 7, 9; 9:8, 14, 15).

Thus, Paul is simply expanding this brother’s appointment to include preceding him to Corinth in order to help complete the collection. The presence of this respected brother will help certify the integrity of the enterprise both before God (8:20) and, more important (since God knows of its integrity), before others (see in 8:21; cf. Prov. 3:4; Rom. 12:17). Paul sends the delegation to ward off all suspicion that he is somehow using the collection to line his own pockets (cf. 2 Cor. 2:17; 4:2; 6:3; 7:2–4; 11:7–12; 12:16–18).²

It is significant, therefore, but not surprising, that in a passage detailing the sending of church delegates to ensure the purity of the offering, we again encounter Paul’s self-understanding. He relates everything he does to his role as an apostle. Accordingly, in 8:19–20 he says that the collection is “ministered by us,” using the same Greek phrase as found in 3:3 to describe his new covenant ministry of the Spirit (the NIV obscures this parallel with its translation, “administer”). For Paul, the collection is not simply a practical matter or merely an application of his message. Instead, it is an integral part of his ministry of the gospel itself. This is reflected in the purpose of the collection as stated in 8:19: “in order to honor the Lord himself [lit., for the glory of the Lord] and to show our eagerness to help.”

In other words, the collection is an essential aspect of Paul’s ministry precisely because it glorifies God and demonstrates the reality of the Spirit through Paul’s enthusiastic willingness to meet the needs of others (cf. 3:18; 4:15; 9:12–13; Rom. 15:7; 1 Cor. 10:31; Phil. 1:11; 2:11). Indeed, the latter accomplishes the former. Once again, Paul himself models the same God-glorifying quality of Spirit-given “eagerness” that he calls for in the Corinthians (cf. 2 Cor. 8:11–12; 9:2).

The third member of the delegation is introduced in 8:22. Paul’s description of him as “our brother” suggests that he too, like Titus, has been appointed directly by Paul, not the churches, though his responsibility is not to represent Paul per se, but the concerns of the congregations (cf. 8:23b). Like Titus in 8:16–17 and Paul himself in 8:19, this brother’s key qualification was his being “zealous” or “eager to help.” When Paul appoints someone to represent the ministry of the gospel, he looks for this tangible sign of the Spirit’s work (cf. its presence in the Macedonians in 8:8). The greatest fruit of the Spirit is love, since “love is the overflow of joy in God which gladly meets the needs of others.”³ Indeed, according to 8:22b, this man’s zeal to serve the Corinthians had been fueled all the more by the renewed, Spirit-induced zeal of the repentant Corinthians themselves (cf. 7:11–12; 8:7). Love begets love.

In 8:23–24 Paul draws two conclusions; the first concerns the delegation (v. 23); the second, derived from the first, is aimed at the Corinthians (v. 24). (1) Given what Paul has said about Titus in 8:16–17, he now describes Titus as his “partner and fellow worker” (8:23), a “formula of authorization” designating him as Paul’s own representative.⁴ “Fellow worker” is Paul’s favorite description of his associates in ministry.⁵ In contrast, the two brothers of 8:18–22 are designated “representatives” (lit., “apostles”; cf. 1:1 in contrast to Phil. 2:25), not of Paul but “of the churches” (8:23). As such, they are “an honor to Christ” (lit., “a glory of Christ”).

Paul’s equation of the two brothers with the “glory of Christ” reflects his earlier assertion in 3:18 and 4:4–6 that those who encounter the glory of God in the face of Christ are transformed into that same glory. Since Christ is the one who creates in them their eager desire to serve the Corinthians, these “apostles,” like the apostle Paul (cf. 1:1), are manifestations of Christ’s life-changing glory. This means that to reject their work among the Corinthians is to reject the reality of Christ in his church and within her apostles.

(2) Given the representative status of the delegation, Paul concludes this section by calling the Corinthians to respond appropriately to its presence and purpose among them (8:24). The delegation that has just been commended is, of course, the very one that has delivered the letter they are now reading (i.e., our 2 Corinthians) and are at work completing the collection. The Corinthians must therefore demonstrate the reality of their renewed love for Paul and his gospel by complying with the call to contribute. Just as the Macedonians are an example to the Corinthians (8:1–7), the Corinthians are to be a reciprocal example to them, demonstrating that the same expression of God’s grace they experienced is now being replicated among the Corinthians.

Paul has boasted that the majority of the Corinthians, having genuinely repented, would indeed respond. Now it is time for them to confirm that confidence by living out what they have confessed (cf. 8:2, 8; 9:13). To discipline their own is one thing, but to reach out across ethnic, social, religious, and cultural boundaries to the Jews in Jerusalem will be the ultimate test of their “earnestness,” “eagerness,” and “concern” (7:11–12). For as will become clear in 10:12–18, one can only legitimately boast about those things for which there is concrete evidence that God has been at work. This explains why Paul’s boasting concerning the Corinthians in 8:24 is the ultimate ground for the praise to God with which this section began: His boasting is, at the same time, a declaration of thanksgiving to the One who made their lives possible.

The Necessity of Completing the Collection in Advance (9:1–5)

DESPITE THE CHAPTER division in our Bibles, 9:1–5 is a direct support for Paul’s admonition in 8:24, not the introduction of a new topic, much less the beginning of a separate letter fragment (note the gar [“for”] in the Greek text, unfortunately not translated in the NIV).⁶ Paul calls the Corinthians to respond to the three-man delegation (8:24) because its task is to ensure that their earlier desire to give will be fulfilled before he arrives (9:3) and that their giving itself will express God’s blessing in their lives (9:5). His point in 9:1–2, therefore, is that his command in 8:24 does not concern participating in the collection as such, since they have already shown their “eagerness” or “enthusiasm” to do so (in 8:7–15 the issue is their generosity and completion of the project, not their desire to participate per se). Rather, Paul’s burden is that the Corinthians respond positively to the delegation by completing the collection before he himself returns.

So Paul really has “no need” to write to the Corinthians about “this service to the saints” itself (9:1). This qualification is more than merely a rhetorical device intended to gain their goodwill. Paul had already boasted about their desire to give in response to Titus’s previous initiation of the collection last year, before all the trouble had begun (8:6, 10, 24; cf. 7:4, 14). Indeed, their earlier willingness had proved to be an example to the very Macedonians who were now providing an example for those in “Achaia” (9:2; cf. 8:1–7).

Most likely, Paul employs the geographical designation of “Achaia” here to match his corresponding reference to the “Macedonians,” especially since Corinth was the senatorial and provincial capital of Achaia. Paul’s concern is not only with the central church in Corinth but also with all the churches or believers in the wider environs (cf. 1:1; 11:10; also 1 Cor. 16:15).⁷ His point in 2 Corinthians 9:2 is that their renewed readiness (paraskeuazo, a military term describing preparation for military actions; cf. 1 Cor. 14:8⁸) should now be brought to fruition, since their desire must be matched by action for it to be considered genuine (cf. 8:11–12).

Despite their readiness, past and present, Paul has nevertheless sent the three brothers⁹ in order to ensure that his boast concerning the collection, which is the visible fruit of his ministry among them, will not be “emptied” (9:3; NIV, “prove hollow”). The verb used here (kenoo) belongs to the same stem as the noun used in 6:1 to refer to the danger of the Corinthians’ accepting the grace of God “in vain” (kenos).¹⁰ This parallel is not accidental. As we have seen, the genuine nature of the Corinthians’ renewed repentance is at stake in completing the collection (cf. 8:8). Repentance must bear fruit.

This means that the character of the Corinthians will soon be evident to all. For what was only a possibility in 1 Corinthians 16:3–4 has now been decided. A delegation of Macedonians will accompany Paul with the collection, which means that they will also be with him when he returns to Corinth on his way to Jerusalem (2 Cor. 9:4; cf. 8:19; Acts 20:2–4; Rom. 15:25–28). This, then, is the final basis for Paul’s concern that the collection be completed before he arrives. He is well aware of the shame both he and they will incur if these Macedonians, to whom Paul has boasted about the church in Achaia, find the Corinthians unprepared (9:4b).¹¹

Paul’s positive purpose in sending the brothers in advance of his arrival is made clear in 9:5: If the collection is completed before he arrives, the suspicion presently being cast on his motives will be dispelled (cf. 8:20), and no one will be able to say that the collection was extracted from the Corinthians under the fear of judgment. In other words, the collection will remain what it is called here and what it ought to be—namely, a “blessing” (eulogia; NIV, “generous gift”), and not something given “grudgingly” (9:5).

Paul’s choice of the word “blessing” in 9:5 to describe the collection reflects his earlier argument in 8:6–9 that the Corinthians’ giving is to be a response to God’s grace in their lives. At the same time, it points forward to his explication in 9:6–15 of the specific nature of this response (cf. esp. 9:6, 8, 14). By contrast, its antonym, pleonexia (which the NIV translates “grudgingly given”), refers to the covetousness or idolatrous greed that parts with money only when forced to do so (cf. this terminology in Rom. 1:29; 1 Cor. 5:10–11; 6:10; Eph. 4:19; 5:3; Col. 3:5; 1 Thess. 2:5). Paul’s purpose in sending the delegation is to preserve the former and to avoid tainting the collection with the latter.

In 9:5, Paul is consequently pointing to two opposite ways of giving: the kind of generosity that flows from experiencing God’s blessing and from trusting in the sufficiency of God’s grace, versus the kind of begrudging greediness and self-reliance that selfishly seeks to keep as much as possible for oneself. The former realizes that everything is a gift of grace and that God can be depended on for the future (cf. 1 Cor. 4:7; 2 Cor. 4:14, 18); this is the pathway of salvation. The latter views everything as a deserved reward to be hoarded out of insecurity and self-gratification, which are fundamental acts of unbelief in the faithfulness and goodness of God (8:7–8; 9:6–8, 11; cf. Luke 12:13–34). Some argue that in 9:1–5 Paul is playing one church off against another; others posit that he is merely trying to keep the Corinthians from losing face. But, as 9:5 indicates, the apostle is concerned with their souls.

The Theological Ground and Purpose of the Collection (9:6–15)

IN 8:1–9:5, PAUL dealt with the necessity of completing the collection; in 9:6–15, he addresses why this participation must be characterized by generosity and joy. In short, giving must be generous and joyful because only such giving is an expression of faith in God as the one who provides the gracious means to being righteous (9:8–11a). As a result, it brings his approval (9:6–7) and leads to gratitude to him (9:11b). Ultimately, then, such grace-driven generosity, through meeting the needs of others, redounds to God’s glory (9:11b–15).

Within Paul’s ongoing argument, 9:6–15 therefore serves to support 9:5, the main point of 9:1–5, by expressing the collection’s theological basis (God’s abundant grace) and purpose (the praise of God’s glory). In order to do so, the goal of 9:6–15 is to make clear why the Corinthians’ gifts must be an expression of “blessing” rather than being wrenched out of greedy hearts by the threat of God’s impending judgment.

Paul’s argument begins in 9:6 with a proverbial statement, variations of which are common in Israel’s wisdom tradition: “You reap what you sow.”¹² But Paul expands this basic principle in a chiastic (ABBA) structure that emphasizes the respective degrees of reward associated with sowing and reaping respectively. In doing so, he again uses the terminology of “blessing” (eulogia; NIV, “generously”) to describe the nature of the giving, thereby making the link between 9:5 and 9:6 explicit. Formally translated, 9:6 thus reads: “The one who sows sparingly, sparingly will he also reap, and the one who sows with/because of blessings, with/because of blessings will he also reap.”

The point here is not how much one gives, but that one gives as freely as possible, knowing that the “return” will be of like kind. Since the manner of one’s giving reflects the character of one’s heart, there is a principle of divine retribution here. God gives back “blessings” to those who give as a matter of “blessing,” but withholds his blessings from those who withhold from others.

The logical conclusion to be drawn from this maxim is Paul’s counsel in 9:7 that “each man should give what he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion” (for an illustration of cheerful giving, see Acts 11:29). Paul’s exhortation echoes Deuteronomy 15:10, an admonition to lend and give freely to the poor without being reluctant or grieving in one’s heart, knowing that the Lord will bless such actions. The original context of this passage concerns the “Sabbath year of remission” in which, in remembrance of their deliverance, Israel was to forgive all debts (cf. 31:10–11). This year of remission every seventh year pointed forward to the fiftieth year (after seven times seven years of remission), the “year of Jubilee,” which was to be a symbol of the ultimate redemption of God’s people (cf. Lev. 25:8–55, cf. esp. vv. 38, 42, 55).

Paul’s use of Deuteronomy 15:10 is yet another indication that he understands the church, as the continuation of the faithful remnant within Israel, to be the eschatological people of God (cf. Lev. 25:20–22, where keeping the year of remission, like the Sabbath, was a call to exercise faith in God’s ongoing provision). Therefore, what was given to Israel to do every seventh year is now, under the new covenant, to be the daily pattern of those in Christ. The symbol has been replaced by its reality, albeit not yet in all its fullness. In giving freely to the poor, the church continually celebrates her own “year of remission” by remembering her deliverance at the cross, while at the same time anticipating her final redemption on that “year of Jubilee” when Christ returns. The kingdom is here, but not yet here in all its glory.

The rule of divine recompense that was the basis for giving in 9:6 is restated as a matter of principle in 9:7c: God rewards those who, because they belong to the new covenant in Christ, give freely and generously, “for God loves a cheerful giver.” Put negatively, there is no divine approval for giving to others merely out of duty. Instead, obedience, in order to count before God, must flow from a happy reliance on and contentment in God’s gracious gifts to his people.

Here Paul is most likely alluding to Proverbs 22:8 (in the LXX; this passage does not occur in the Hebrew text; cf. also Rom. 12:8). His statement differs somewhat from the LXX, which reads, “God blesses a cheerful and giving man,” though the LXX of Proverbs 22:8 also contains an expression of the “sowing” and “reaping” maxim as found in 2 Corinthians 9:6. Paul’s choice of “loves” over “blesses” is likely influenced by Proverbs 22:11 (LXX,“The Lord loves pious hearts”), where, as here, “loves” carries the sense of “approves” and where, as in 9:7, the concept of the “heart” is also found. Hence, Paul combines two related texts from the same context in order to make his point: The Lord approves of those who show by their willingness to give cheerfully to the poor that their hearts are holy (cf. Prov. 22:9).

Verses 8–9 continue to ground Paul’s call to give by indicating why God approves only of those who give cheerfully (9:7c). Note 9:8: The foundation and focus of faith is that God has the power to do what he has promised (cf. Rom. 4:21; 14:4). Specifically, as an expression of his grace, God is able to provide for his people whatever it is they need in order to provide for others. Giving to others is simply what trusting in God’s promises looks like in a different dress. As a consequence of these promises, believers will always have “all that you need”¹³ (autarkeia; lit., “contentment”; cf. 1 Tim. 6:6 and a related adjective in Phil. 4:11), a virtue that the Cynics and Stoics of Paul’s day prized as well.

The Hellenistic ideal, however, linked this contentment to a self-reliance brought about by self-discipline that led to a passive detachment from external circumstances and people. In striking contrast, Christian contentment, relying on God’s promised provision, leads to doing “every good work” for the sake of others. Among the ancients, the motive for giving was to show one’s moral superiority. For Paul, the motive was to glorify God for his grace (see 9:11–13, 15; cf. 4:15; Acts 14:15–17; 17:25).

The quote in 9:9 from Psalm 112:9 is intended to provide scriptural support for Paul’s affirmation in verse 8, especially its assertion that, given God’s provision, God’s people “will abound in every good work.”¹⁴ Such an expectation is in full accord with the description of the righteous man of this psalm, whose righteousness is manifest in his providing for the poor. This righteousness, having shown itself to be genuine through giving, “remains forever”—that is, beyond the Day of Judgment, just as Paul asserted in 3:9 (cf. 5:21; 6:7).¹⁵

Neither Psalm 112:9 nor Paul, however, is advocating a works righteousness in disguise. The righteous act of giving to others does not merit or earn God’s blessing. Within its original context, the vindication of the righteous man in the psalm, in view of his “good works,” is based squarely on the “good works” of the Lord manifest in the divine provisions of redemption and food outlined in Psalm 111. The “righteousness” of the one who gives to the poor “endures forever” (Ps. 112:9) only because it is created and sustained by the Lord’s “righteousness,” which also “endures forever” (111:3). All human righteousness owes its existence to and is an expression of God’s righteousness. According to 112:9, the righteous person is the one who is gracious in his giving to the poor because he fears the Lord and delights in his commandments (cf. 112:1, 5).

Hence, while 2 Corinthians 9:9 quotes Psalm 112:9, 2 Corinthians 9:8 reflects the point made in Psalm 111. Paul’s argument follows the argument of the two psalms exactly. Believers “abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8), as the psalmist declares, since the righteous work of God on their behalf ensures that their righteousness, manifest in this good work (along with many others), will also endure forever (9:9; cf. Phil. 1:6, 11; 4:17; 1 John 3:7, 10, 17; Rev. 22:11). Paul’s insistence that the collection be completed before he arrives (2 Cor. 9:5), supported by his call to give from the heart (9:7), are therefore both grounded in his concern for the salvation of the Corinthians themselves.

Paul summarizes the point of 9:8–9 in verse 10 by alluding to two more passages from Scripture, Isaiah 55:10 (“he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food”) and Hosea 10:12 (“the harvest of your righteousness”). The God who supplies what believers need will also ensure that his provision brings about its desired consequences: Their “seed” will increase and their “harvest of righteousness,” that is, their good works, will grow.

This summary is important for two reasons. (1) These Old Testament texts make clear that the “seed” and “harvest” that God supplies and promises to be multiplied cannot simply be equated with material provisions. The context of both Isaiah 55:10 and Hosea 10:12 is the provision of God’s Word (i.e., the seed), which brings about the final redemption of his people. God’s promise in 2 Corinthians 9:10 is not to make his people rich but to use them as instruments of his presence for the salvation of others. (2) In making this point, Paul’s summary in 9:10 provides a transition from the purpose of the collection in regard to the Corinthians themselves, as the manifestation of their righteousness in Christ (9:8–9), to the significance of their righteousness for others, that is, its “harvest.”¹⁶ It is this latter point that Paul goes on to outline in verses 11–14.

In the original text, verses 10–14 form one long, complex sentence. Verses 11–14 support verse 10 by detailing the way in which God will “enlarge” the Corinthians’ “harvest”: God will provide for the Corinthians “in every way” so that they can be generous to others (vv. 11a, 12a, 13a). These people in turn will give thanks and pray to God (vv. 11b, 12, 13b), for God is the one who makes all this possible (v. 14b; cf. 1:11; 4:15 for this same principle, there applied to Paul). The Corinthians’ own “harvest of righteousness” will increase as their lives are blessed through being instruments for the praise of God and as recipients of the love and prayers of those whose needs they meet. For as we have seen, the righteousness of God is his just character as demonstrated in the consistency of his actions toward his creation.

God’s righteousness consists, therefore, in his unswerving commitment to glorify himself by maintaining his moral standards in judgment, by revealing his sovereignty in election, and by showing his loving mercy through meeting the needs of his people. Hence, to those in rebellion against him, his righteousness is revealed in judgment. But on behalf of his people it begins with their redemption and transformation in the midst of this evil age and culminates in their final restoration in the age to come (cf. 3:9, 18; 5:21). In 9:10–14, we see clearly that one divinely orchestrated means to revealing this divine righteousness within the church is the creation of the kind of interdependent relationships among God’s people that flow from their primary dependence on God as the one who meets their needs.

Since Paul is speaking of giving money to those in need, in 9:11 he uses the terminology of wealth to describe God’s commitment to meet the needs of his people (“you will be made rich”). But Paul’s own suffering as an apostle and his argument throughout 2 Corinthians both make it evident that in speaking of such “wealth,” he does not have material prosperity in view (cf. 1:5–6; 2:14; 4:8–10, 17–18; 6:10; 8:9, 14). The Corinthians may have financial resources at this point in time, but there is no promise from God, and hence no guarantee, that such circumstances will continue. What they can be assured of is that God will sustain his people by meeting their needs in himself, at the same time providing for them circumstantially, for the sake of others, as he deems wise (cf. 1:10; 4:13–14, where this principle is applied to Paul).

In that the Corinthians’ righteous giving is the manifestation of God’s righteousness, in 9:12 Paul can describe their participation in the collection as “the ministry [diakonia] of this service [leitourgia]” (lit. trans.). Diakonia refers here to the administration of that with which one is entrusted, namely, the collection, and recalls Paul’s earlier use of this same terminology to refer to the ministry of the old and new covenants (cf. its use in 3:7–9; 4:1; 5:18; 6:3). Leitourgia (cf. Rom. 15:27, where this word is also used for the collection) can refer to any act of public service (cf. Rom. 13:6), including the specifically religious ceremonies conducted by priests (cf. this religious connotation in Luke 1:23; Phil. 2:17, 30; Heb. 9:21; cf. also Phil. 4:18).

The combination of this terminology in 9:12 reflects Paul’s conviction that giving to fellow believers in Jerusalem is an essential part of the ministry of the gospel and a genuine expression of worship. Indeed, the collection is a ministry of the gospel precisely because it brings about worship. Its purpose is praise and prayer among those to whom it is ministered, the two essential elements of magnifying God’s character: We praise God for what he has done in the past, and pray for what we depend on him to do in the future.

Verse 13 indicates the twofold manner by which this praise (vv. 11b, 12) and prayer (cf. below, v. 14) will actually be brought about: “through the proof/evidence (dokime) of this ministry” (lit. trans.; NIV, “because of the service by which you have proved yourselves”; cf. 2:9; 8:22; 13:3). The Corinthians will express the genuine nature of their own faith by “the obedience that derives from¹⁷ [their] confession of the gospel of Christ” (lit. trans.), here interpreted in terms of their generosity. Just as the righteous one in Psalm 112:9 gives to the poor out of a delight in God’s righteousness (2 Cor. 9:9), so too the Corinthians’ willingness to contribute to the needs of the saints expresses their righteousness (9:10), for they are obeying a command that derives “from their confession of the gospel of Christ” (9:13). At the same time, the Jews in Jerusalem will praise God for this manifestation of his righteousness in the Corinthians. Moreover, their participation in the collection, here identified as the Corinthians’ “ministry,” is also concrete evidence of the validity of Paul’s ministry among the Gentiles (cf. 8:8, 24).

In 9:14, Paul draws out the second consequence of the Corinthians’ generosity: The saints in Jerusalem will pray for them out of the longing created by their newly formed unity in the gospel. Paul anticipates a deep bond being formed between those in whom God’s “surpassing grace” has been poured out. Thus, for example, in 7:7, 11, the Corinthians’ longing for Paul was evidence that God’s grace was indeed at work in their lives.¹⁸ This is the final step in his argument in support of 9:6, 10. Those who sow generously because of God’s blessing will reap generously because of God’s blessing, both in their own lives and among others. The collection will bring this about “because of the surpassing grace of God” that has, through their giving, been demonstrably granted to them (9:14b).

This reference in 9:14 to God’s grace at work in the Corinthians picks up the thread that Paul has woven throughout this unit (cf. 8:4, 6, 7, 9, 16, 19; 9:8) and repeats the point with which he began (cf. 8:1), thus cementing chapters 8 and 9 together. Furthermore, the parallel between 9:14 and 8:1 indicates that Paul is anticipating that the grace granted to the Corinthians will be no less than that given to the Macedonians, since God’s “grace” is the basis of all giving (cf. again 9:8).

The reason for Paul’s expectation is that he understood deeply that God’s “surpassing grace” toward his people in 9:14 is the manifestation of his “surpassing glory” as described in 3:10.¹⁹ There Paul argued that God’s glory under the new covenant is “surpassing” that of the old, not in terms of quality or quantity, but in terms of its life-transforming impact as it encounters those whose hearts and minds are no longer hardened (cf. 3:16–18; 5:15–17). Paul’s point here is that the transforming impact of the “surpassing glory” of God’s “surpassing grace” under the new covenant is seen in the Corinthians’ giving to others.

This is why the “surpassing grace” being poured out on the Corinthians by God is described in 9:12–13 in terms of the Corinthians’ own “ministry,” which not only meets the needs of the saints, but also becomes the vehicle through which “many expressions of thanks to God” are “abounding [NIV, overflowing]” (cf. 3:9b for this same use of the verb, trans. “is” in NIV). As in 3:9b, here too the “ministry” (diakonia) of the gospel is pictured in terms of its function as that which “abounds” in its manifestation of the “glory of God.” And where God’s glory is made known, praise and prayer result.

It is therefore fitting that in 9:15 Paul draws 8:16–9:15 to a close by returning to the thanksgiving with which he started. That the Corinthians’ giving to others (8:24; 9:3; 9:5), which begins in God’s grace (8:4, 6, 7, 9; 9:8), will also rebound to their own blessing from God (9:6–10) in response to the praise and prayers of others (9:11–14) is an amazing “gift” of grace worthy of praise (9:15). God’s gift is “indescribable”; it exceeds our most profound attempts to portray it (though attempt we must!), while at the same time evoking our deepest praise. In the end, Paul’s theology inevitably leads to doxology (cf. Rom. 11:33–36).

Bridging Contexts

ISSUES OF GIVING in the ancient world. In Paul’s day, like our own, participation in charitable giving and the administration of financial affairs were matters of public concern and conversation. It is not surprising, therefore, that each of Paul’s three major themes finds echoes in his contemporary culture: (1) a concern for the integrity of the collection, as reflected in the need to send the delegation (8:16–24); (2) a concern that giving be uncoerced and generous, as seen in the necessity of completing the collection in advance (9:1–5); and (3) a concern for maintaining the proper purpose of the collection, as expressed in Paul’s emphasis on the theological character of the collection as a response to the grace of God (9:6–15).

On the issue of integrity, the Roman orator and statesman Cicero (106–43 B.C.) declared that “the chief thing in all public administration and public service is to avoid even the slightest suspicion of self-seeking.”²⁰

In regard to motivation, Paul’s admonition in 9:5, 7 to willing and generous giving out of a joy-filled heart, though directly fueled by the Old Testament and Jewish tradition, parallels the longstanding wisdom of the ancient world in which giving, to be genuine, had to be a matter of the heart. Note, for example, Hesiod’s statement (eighth/seventh century B.C.): “For when a man gives willingly, though he gives a great thing, yet he has joy of his gift and satisfaction in his heart, while he who gives way to shameless greed and takes from another, even though the thing he takes is small, yet it stiffens his heart.”²¹

Similarly, Paul’s contemporary, Seneca (d. A.D. 65), states: “Let us give in the manner that would have been acceptable if we were receiving. Above all let us give willingly, promptly, and without hesitation.”²² Seneca’s first support for this principle is that “no gratitude is felt for a benefit when it has lingered long in the hands of him who gives it, when the giver has seemed sorry to let it go, and has given it with the air of one who was robbing himself.” His reason for emphasizing willing and prompt giving parallels Paul’s principle in 9:5: “For, since in the case of a benefit the chief pleasure of it comes from the intention of the bestower, he who by his very hesitation has shown that he made his bestowal unwillingly has not ‘given,’ but has failed to withstand the effort to extract it.” Seneca therefore enjoins one to give as promptly as possible for the joy it will bring: “One who acts thus readily leaves no doubt that he acts willingly; and so he acts gladly, and his face is clothed with the joy he feels.”

Hence, as Betz points out, Paul’s concept “that gifts offered as sacrifices are the human response to blessings received from the god, and that the human response expresses the expectation of receiving still more” (cf. 9:8) corresponds to ideas that “have become commonplaces in oratory.”²³ Clearly, when it came to public behavior, Paul shared fundamental starting points with the prevailing culture of his day, especially since it was predominantly religious in its worldview and it often understood the link between outward actions and inner states of being.

The modern culture of independence and isolation. The parallels between the method and motivation for charitable giving in the ancient world and in Paul’s own thought remind us that Christian conduct in every age takes place within a cultural framework that reflects, rightly or wrongly, on the same set of fundamental issues, since Christian concerns are basic to the fabric of society itself. The same set of questions confronts believers and unbelievers alike. There are, of course, many exceptions to every cultural norm. Nevertheless, understanding the particular culture in which we live is crucial for understanding the implications of what it means to be Christian in our world. Such an analysis will inform the church concerning where she must resist the values that surround her, where she has already been compromised by them, where she must adapt to them for the sake of witness, and where she may build on them profitably. Fundamental to these concerns is the basic question of whether and why we should give of our own resources to others, since this question goes to the heart of our modern self-understanding.

Accordingly, when it comes to addressing the Christian call to give, it is important to keep in view that the dominant cultural practices in the West stand in sharp contrast to those both of the ancient world in general (at least in its philosophical reflection—the views of the common person are largely lost to us) and of Paul in particular. In contemporary culture, an emphasis on personal integrity as essential for the success of public projects has taken a back seat to pragmatic efficiency. And Paul’s concern for the integrity of the collection, which led to his sending the delegation to Corinth, is often replaced with a concern that everything be done “legally” (to avoid being sued), regardless of the “hidden” motives of the heart (which are beyond litigation).

Even within the church, generosity in giving has often become a “tax advantage,” an opportunity for self-actualization, or an expression of one’s “indebtedness to society,” rather than an expression of the blessings of God. Paul’s comparison of the Corinthians to others in whom God is at work as a basis for evaluating and encouraging moral acts (cf. 9:2–4) has consequently given way to a “none of your business” privatization of all such acts. The church today, for the most part, no longer shares Paul’s working assumption that God’s grace is inevitably expressed in the public behavior of God’s people. As a result, comparison to others among God’s people as a means of self-examination (cf. 9:2–4) is no longer considered appropriate.

Such attitudes and actions within the church are not biblical, but derive in large part from the self-understanding of human independence and isolation that still runs through contemporary culture. With the dawn of the “modern world,” the predominantly religious worldview in which Paul lived gave way to a pervasive naturalism that rendered humanity merely a product of its own abilities to manage and cope with its environment. Humanity was separated from its Creator and put in competition with itself. And, if anything, the current move toward a postmodern emphasis on humanity’s cultural embeddedness has only served to heighten this sense of separation from a God who is outside of us and from those who do not share our particular social location.

As a result, the prevailing assumption of Paul’s day that all people have received gifts from a deity and are part of a larger community has been replaced by the conviction that we control what we possess because we have earned it “on our own.” At the most, we may admit that the circumstances of our birth and the opportunities afforded by our race or social location may have played a role in acquiring the status and material benefits we enjoy. But even then, we are quick to attribute our wealth to our own hard work, either as the expression of our own will or as the embodiment of our cultural values. When all is said and done, we are convinced that we possess more than others because we work harder. God may provide the “raw material,” but it is up to us to make the most of the opportunities he brings our way.

Thus, the Enlightenment emphasis on independence and isolation from God and others, whether expressed in the modern view of the self-determining individual or in the postmodern emphasis on our cultural captivity, has led to a self-understanding in which contemporary men and women view their “hard-earned” resources as their own possessions to do with as they please.²⁴ Add to this the suffocating materialism of our age and Paul’s worldview and words in this passage go through our culture, and our churches, like an electric shock. Indeed, nowhere is the myth of having “pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps” more powerful than in our attitudes toward the acquisition and disposition of our personal resources. Any basic commonality that Paul could assume with the culture of his day has evaporated.

The countercultural context of Christian giving. But even in his day, Paul was not merely parroting his culture. The parallels between the dominant culture of Paul’s day and his own Christian convictions serve to highlight all the more the distinctive aspects of Paul’s biblical frame of reference. The religious worldview of Paul’s day makes the unique features of his “religion” all the more apparent. Paul does not approach the topic of giving from the standpoint of being “religious,” but from his perspective as an apostle of Jesus Christ, called to be a minister of the new covenant. When he speaks of God, Paul is not referring to some general spiritual consciousness of an undefined higher being, nor to one’s own favorite form of the deity, but to the God of Israel, who made himself known supremely in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. Thus, when Paul speaks of “blessings,” he does not mean some nondescript sense of “having it good,” but the specific acts of the one true God on behalf of his people.

Paul’s God is not a privatized version of the Self. Nor for Paul are all visions of the deity equally valid. God is the One who has revealed himself to us from outside of us. Thus, giving to the needs of the poor in Jerusalem was rooted in the character of God as made known in his works on our behalf. This specifically theological ground becomes critical whenever we speak about the necessity of giving. We must keep in mind that within our context Paul’s relating every aspect of giving to God is inherently countercultural. As David Wells observes:

Ours is the first major civilization to be building itself deliberately and self-consciously without religious foundations. Beneath other civilizations there have always been religious foundations, whether these came from Islam, Hinduism, or Christianity itself. Beneath ours there are none, and it is no surprise to learn that 67 percent of Americans do not believe in the existence of moral absolutes and that 70 percent do not believe in absolute truth…. We are building a world of the most marvelous ingenuity and intricacy but it is arising over a spiritual vacuum.²⁵[As a result] we have also rewritten the religious question. That question was always how we might be consoled in our journey through this valley of tears. Socrates found consolation in the good, the beautiful, and the true; the New Testament finds it in Christ’s redemption; Marx and liberation theology found it in the journey toward a more just world. But we find it simply in ourselves. We have become both our own patients and therapists, deeply committed to the gospel of self-fulfillment.²⁶

Faced with the recent attempts to fill such a spiritual vacuum with the Self, it is imperative that we cultivate the theological tenets of the Christian counterculture if we intend to live in ways that honor God. If we fail to do so, the values of our culture will simply sweep us away as they rush in to fill the void. This is certainly true when it comes to spending our money. In moving from Paul’s day to our own, the issues are more pervasive and profound than simply replacing one set of actions with another. There is, of course, nothing wrong with possessions in and of themselves, though they are an extremely dangerous temptation (cf. 1 Tim. 6:3–10, 17–19). Nor is it illegitimate to take a tax deduction for giving, to be concerned to do things legally, or to want to be fulfilled. Instead, what is needed is an evaluation of all that we do, including our giving, from a consistent and thoroughgoing theological perspective.

God the Giver. The structure of Paul’s argument in this text makes clear that the starting point for applying this passage is the distinctive theological context from which he interprets the wisdom of both his tradition and his culture. This same theological perspective must be brought to bear on our own cultural attitudes and actions. As even Hans Dieter Betz, who emphasizes above all the similarity between Paul and his Greco-Roman environment, concludes, “Both Paul and Seneca were concerned with the same group of ideas, but they treated them quite differently in both length and conceptuality.”²⁷Most important, Paul differed from the mainstream of Greek philosophy in that he did not think that the goal was to attain “inner freedom” from possessions in order to be truly self-sufficient.²⁸

Paul’s goal was not to attain an inner detachment from material things through some sort of Stoic self-mastery, but a recognition that God is the giver of all things. Perhaps nothing today is more radical than to assert that God, not our own “Self,” is responsible for all that we are and have. Our resources originate from him as a blessing, not from us as an expression of what we deserve. This insight is as profoundly life-changing as it is simple. That God is the giver of everything is the foundation of our giving to others. The key to generosity is not caring less about what we have in the world, but caring more about God’s purposes in granting to us his gifts.

Wealth is a gift of God, freely given as an expression of God’s commitment to his people; hence, for those who trust in him, it can be freely given away. “Cheerful givers” are not so by nature. Only those who realize that they have received great benefits from God have both the material means and inner disposition to become cheerful givers.²⁹

Giving as an act of grace to the glory of God. Since our giving is an expression of God’s having already given all things to us, we must follow Paul’s lead by focusing on God’s grace as the basis for giving. This entails resisting the cultural temptation to turn the necessity of giving into a voluntary opportunity “to do something great for God.” Giving to others should not become yet another way of contributing back to God for what he has done for us. God does not need our money to further his causes. He is not dependent on us. God gives out of his sovereign self-sufficiency and love, not in order to receive back, as if he needed anything (Acts 17:24–25).

Nor should we give “in order to show God how thankful we are.” Our job is not to prove our sincerity to God. Those who recognize God to be the giver of all things are thankful, and God knows our hearts. Instead, in chapter 9 the motivation for giving is as radically God-centered as its foundation. Far from being our contribution back to God or our way of showing God the depth of our gratitude, giving to others is a response to what God has already done for us in the past and a demonstration of our continuing confidence in what he has promised to do for us in the future. Giving is an act of faith in response to God’s grace. As such, our giving is not a decision to participate in the projects of the church, but an expression of the fact that we are the church—that is, that we belong to God and hence to one another.

This is why integrity is such a key issue for Paul, why he can call the collection itself an act of “grace,” and why the collection becomes for him part of the “ministry” of the gospel. For in it, God’s own righteous character is being displayed in the faith-driven righteousness of his people (cf. 8:16, 19, 23; 9:9, 11–14). For Paul, participation in the collection was not a “practical” outworking of faith as something done in addition to trusting in God; it was an expression of faith itself. Paul wanted the Corinthians to see that they could not claim to trust in God and then give begrudgingly only when threatened or put on the spot.

The reality of the Spirit is to be seen precisely in their eager willingness, like that of Titus, to meet the needs of others. Paul therefore models the same God-glorifying, Spirit-given “eagerness” that he calls for in the Corinthians (cf. 8:11, 12; 9:2). For in the end, eager participation in the collection is a ministry because it reflects and glorifies God’s eager participation in our lives (8:16; 9:15).

The new covenant context of giving. Since the goal of life is the glory of God, Paul is not interested in theology in a detached or speculative sense. Nor does he engage in cultural analysis for the sake of speaking to society at large. Paul speaks as an apostle to the church. In doing so, he approaches giving, as he does all aspects of the Christian life, from within the biblical framework of the new covenant. He views all of life, even giving money to the poor in Jerusalem, through the lens of what God has done, is doing, and will do for his people as a result of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

That Paul’s argument in 9:6–15 presupposes the framework of the new covenant becomes evident in that his reference to the “surpassing grace of God” in 9:14 recalls his earlier reference to the “surpassing glory” of the new covenant in 3:10 and the “surpassing greatness” of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Christ in 4:6. It also picks up the same terminology in 4:17, where the “eternal weight of glory” literally translates “surpasses beyond surpassing.” Thus, to describe something as “surpassing” is, for Paul, tantamount to describing it as part of the reality of the new covenant.

Against this backdrop, the “ministry” (diakonia) of the collection is pictured as that which “abounds” in its manifestation of the glory of God because the grace it reveals as part of the new covenant is “surpassing.” The implication is clear. Not to contribute means that one is blind to the reality of the surpassing glory of God now being mediated under the new covenant (3:10, 14–18; 4:3–4). Conversely, since the themes of chapter 9 derive from the realities of the new covenant, giving to others, especially cross-cultural and cross-ethnic giving, becomes a manifestation of the glory of God on the face of Christ (4:4, 6).

Since believers, as God’s sons and daughters in Christ, are the temple of God’s Spirit through whom the surpassing glory of God’s grace is now being revealed in the world (cf. 3:18; 4:15; 5:15, 17; 6:14–18), it is not surprising that in the present context Paul develops these new covenant themes in direct relationship to the ministry of the Corinthians. In 9:14, that which is “surpassing” refers to the grace of God that has been given to the Corinthians. The parallel in 9:13 demonstrates, however, that this surpassing grace is at the same time a reference to the Corinthians’ “obedience to [their] confession of the gospel of Christ” (see comments on this in Original Meaning section)—in this case, their generous giving.

Moreover, in 9:12 this “surpassing grace” toward the Corinthians is described in terms of the Corinthians’ own “ministry of service” toward others. Of course, the principle that the surpassing sufficiency of God’s grace is demonstrated in a willingness to meet the needs of others is not Paul’s idea, but an extension of the wisdom teaching of the Scriptures from Proverbs 22:8 (LXX; cf. 2 Cor. 9:7) and Psalm 112:9 (cf. 2 Cor. 9:9).

The new covenant context of these general maxims comes to the fore in that Paul applies both of these texts to the Corinthians in fulfillment of the promise of eschatological salvation from Isaiah 55:10 (see 2 Cor. 9:10). Here too, as in 3:3–18, 5:11–6:2, 6:14–7:1, Paul’s understanding of his own situation and that of his congregation is informed by his conviction that, in Christ, God has inaugurated the new age of the new creation under the new everlasting covenant (cf. Isa. 55:10 with the context of 55:1–5). As part of this new creation, the “seed for the sower and bread for the eater” of 55:10 is identified in 55:11 as God’s Word, which, having been sent out, will not return without accomplishing its designated task.

Often our appeals for money appear anemic because we have lost sight of the gravity of what God is now doing in the world in and through his people. When God’s people give to others within the body of Christ, they mediate his glory as it is now being revealed under the new covenant. In so doing, God’s Word is embodied and proclaimed to the ends of the earth. To give is to be an outpost of the kingdom of God. Hence, the only way to talk about money biblically is to talk about money in relationship to God and his purposes.

God and money. If our analysis is correct, the foundation of Paul’s appeal for money is the history of redemption. Paul’s call to the Corinthians to give is driven by his conviction that under the new covenant God is now revealing himself in and through the lives of his people. As the temple of God (6:16), “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him…. ‘We shall bring our Lord most glory if we get from Him much grace. If I have much faith, so that I can take God at His Word … I shall greatly honor my Lord and King.’ ”³⁰ One grand expression of the satisfaction in God’s grace that brings him great glory is giving freely and generously to others.

For this reason, Paul’s pastoral theology in regard to those Corinthians who have already repented climaxes with the collection. For as his discussion of the collection reveals, the ground and purpose of Paul’s apostolic ministry matches God’s own design throughout history, namely, the manifestation (cf. 3:7–18) and praise (cf. 9:12–15) of God’s glory. In 9:15, Paul thus ends this section not only how he began it in 8:16, but also how he introduced each major section of his letter, with praise to God (cf. 1:3 and 2:14a). In turn, the adequacy of our own attempts to bridge from Paul’s context to our own can be measured by the degree to which our talk of money resounds to the glory of God for who he is, what he has done, what he is doing, and what he will do as the Sovereign Lord of history and Savior of his people.

Contemporary Significance

THE CONTEMPORARY SIGNIFICANCE of these major themes is straightforward. Fueled by a biblical understanding of God and of our own role within redemptive history, giving to other believers should be characterized by an integrity that is beyond reproach, a willing generosity that reflects the grace of God, a proclamation of the gospel, and joy.

Integrity. Paul could have managed the collection himself. His decision to send the delegation instead reminds us, therefore, that the church must meet the standards for honesty and accountability that are found not only in the Scriptures, but also in the society around us. Note Paul’s stress on this point in 8:21, where “also in the eyes of men” receives the emphasis! Betz has rightly argued that Paul’s terminology itself confirms this emphasis on acting in accordance with society’s norms, since “Paul’s letters share the administrative practices and legal terminology of the day.”³¹ This was because “the integrity and credibility of the churches as administrative agencies depended to a great degree in these early years on the extent to which they were able to conform to current practices in the conduct of official business.”³²

The same is true today, in a time when many people are rightly skeptical concerning the motives of “organized religion.” Barnett summarizes this point well:

Edifyingly, Paul’s exercise of the “ministry of service … for the saints” was conducted with careful forward planning (8:10; 1 Cor. 16:1–4), with prudent attention to detail (8:16–24), with sensitivity to matters of probity (8:20), with perseverance in the face of difficulty and disappointment (8:6–12), and, not least, in unswerving devotion [to] the doctrine [of] the grace of God (8:1–9:15 passim).³³

Generosity. The New Testament does not teach a doctrine of tithing (i.e., the mandatory giving of 10 percent of one’s income). Nor does Paul define what constitutes giving generously. He does not even provide a target number or general guidelines. The only rule is to give freely and generously as an expression of our continuing trust in God’s grace (9:5–8). Paul simply assumes that believers will give all they can to meet as many needs as they can in order to glorify God as much as they can. The point of 9:6 is that one should give as freely as possible, knowing that the “return” will be of like kind. There is a principle of divine retribution here, since the manner of one’s giving reflects the character of one’s heart. God gives back blessings to those who give as a matter of blessing, but withholds his blessings from those who withhold from others. We must be careful here, however. The “payback” is not material, but the prayers of God’s people and the enjoyment of God’s glory (cf. 9:12–15).

At the same time, while giving must be done freely, it is not optional. The ministry of the gospel requires that this point be made strongly and consistently, especially in a culture drowning in materialism. Unfortunately, many pastors are afraid to mention giving too often, lest the congregation think that the “church just wants our money.” Such fears are misplaced theologically and often reflect our cowardice in the face of the reigning idols of our day. To speak about our need to give is to emphasize that we are God’s people through whom God glorifies himself. The Corinthians’ participation in the collection was not “for the church,” but evidence that they were the church. Indeed, to give to others is a manifestation of the righteousness of God, apart from which there is no salvation (9:9–11). The fact that believers often ask how much they should give reveals that they have not yet grasped Paul’s perspective. Besides, our problem is usually not that we are in danger of harming ourselves by giving too much!

If grace-driven generosity is a thermometer of our spiritual health, Tim Stafford has provided a troubling analysis of our current temperature. As he points out, Americans as a whole give more to charitable organizations, and at a higher percentage of their income, than any other industrial society (except, perhaps, Israel). Moreover, of all Americans, Christians give and volunteer the most:

More than income, age, race, or education, faith predicts giving and volunteering…. American Christians are the core reason why Americans can be described as “generous.”Christians—not just nominal Christians, but believing, practicing Christians—are the backbone of virtually all charitable causes in America.³⁴

While only 38 percent of Americans attend religious services weekly, they give two-thirds of all charitable contributions, while two-thirds of the donations to nonreligious organizations also come from church members. And of all American Christians, conservative or evangelical Christians are the most generous.

This sounds like good news, but we should not take too much comfort in such comparisons. The bad news is that, though certainly “rich” by the living standards of even our own grandparents,³⁵ Christians today contribute only between 1.1 percent and 3.4 percent of their annual income to religious and nonreligious organizations combined (for the past forty years Americans as a whole gave away between 1.5 percent and 2.0 percent of their income). Such statistics show just how much materialism has gripped both us and the culture in which we live (31 percent of American households say they give away no money at all).

This is even more sobering since this pattern of giving includes not only our participation in the United Way and March of Dimes, but also our involvement with the people and mission of the church. From 1985 to 1993, the average per-member contribution to evangelical churches actually shrank when measured in constant dollars, from $651 per year to $621, while the percentage of income given in evangelical churches dropped from 6.19 percent in 1968 to 4.27 percent in 1993.

In short, Christians spend the vast majority of their money on themselves. This is most true of the middle class, since those who earn under $20,000 or over $100,000 a year give away the highest percentage of their income. In view of these trends and in recognizing the undeniable fact that the “good American” is the “Christian Good American,” Stafford raises the question of whether we are more American than Christian. As he recounts, studies of American Christians reveal that

they believe in hard work and decency more than they believe in distinctly Christian behavior. They support evangelism only when it is done by someone they are absolutely sure won’t embarrass them. They give generously, but not sacrificially. As they have gotten wealthier they have been able to live better, but they give about the same, proportionately. Their affluence is indistinguishable from their neighbor’s…. They think charity begins at home—they are less and less eager to send money overseas for a missionary cause that seems distant and never-ending. Above all, Good Americans don’t talk about money. Their money is their own, to do with what they like. It is a private matter, and they don’t want it talked about too much in church.³⁶

So when it comes to giving away our money, we have on the one hand the American code of silence and privatization. On the other hand, we have the apostle Paul’s public and sizable discussion of the collection, forged out of the spiritual urgency that surrounded the Corinthians’ willingness to participate generously in giving cross-culturally for the support of the church.

Proclamation. The issue of giving away money evokes two diametrically opposed responses among conservative Christians: an awkward timidity among mainstream evangelicals and an “in-your-face” boldness among the health and wealth movement. In the first case, mainstream evangelicals are offended by “too much” talk about money, fearing that it may contaminate true spirituality. The real reason for seeking this silence, however, is subtle but clear: Too much emphasis on the spiritual necessity of giving as a matter of our salvation directly confronts our materialism and the individualistic privatization of our lives. The call to give is a call to flee the idolatrous worship of the Dollar and the Self by trusting in God’s grace alone for our happiness and security. To talk about money is to talk about God.

To make matters worse, the propensity to downplay discussing money is strengthened by our embarrassment over the way in which giving is constantly discussed among those who advocate a health and wealth gospel. Having divorced spirituality from money on the one extreme, we recoil from the way in which they have identified money with spirituality on the other. When we say, “The preacher should talk about God,” we mean that the preacher should not talk about money (since, for us, giving is a private affair that has nothing to do with being blessed spiritually). When they say, “The preacher should talk about God,” they mean that the preacher should talk about money (since, for them, giving money is the way to getting money, which is the spiritual blessing). Simply put, the health and wealth gospel looks down on the lack of emphasis on money among the evangelical mainstream as a lack of faith in God’s promise to prosper his people financially.

We rightly find such theology repulsive. We reject the perversion of giving into a pathway to getting more money for ourselves, thereby blatantly caving in to the idolatrous materialism of our culture. Nevertheless, we must be careful that in judging others, we are willing to judge ourselves. The difference between the silence of most evangelicals and the noise of the health and wealth gospel is often only a matter of emphasis. Both extremes purport to give as a matter of faith. But while evangelicals give out of gratitude for what God has already given them, the health and wealth movement gives out of gratitude for what God will give them. The former give by looking back at what they already have, the latter give by looking forward to what they hope to receive. Evangelicals typically emphasize the past; the health and wealth gospel looks to the future.

In neither case, however, is Paul heard. For Paul, faith is trusting in God to meet our needs in the present that we might give to the needs of others.³⁷ As such, faith encompasses the past and future as we live them out day by day before God. We give to others, therefore, as an expression of our trust in God to meet our needs today. We should not give simply out of our surplus from the past, nor should we give in the hope of getting more in the future. Rather, not worrying about tomorrow and trusting God to sustain us through the trouble of today (Matt. 6:34), we are free to share our daily bread with others. Indeed, Paul calls us to give freely and generously, supremely because of our riches in God himself, past, present, and future, quite apart from our current economic status (remember the Macedonians), and without any thought of future financial recompense (Paul never promises a financial reward for giving).

Ironically, then, both the prevailing silence concerning giving that characterizes mainstream evangelicals and the equally constant discussion of giving among those who advocate a health and wealth gospel are generated by the same underlying source. Both see giving as a response to the amount of money God has granted or will grant his people. Moreover, since both groups have spiritualized the act of giving, gratitude, not the giving itself, becomes the “true” act of faith. This allows both groups to remain comfortable with their own spirituality (after all, we are grateful for our material blessings!), all the while keeping or seeking wealth itself. In the end, both are driven by the idolatrous belief that money, not knowing God and participating in the spread of his kingdom, is the real, tangible expression of his blessing and therefore the essential ingredient in making us happy.

Joy. In stark contrast to this worship of money stands Paul’s conviction that the basis and purpose for giving is to maintain joy in God himself (9:7). Reluctantly giving to others reflects an insecurity that fundamentally denies the very thing Paul affirms in 9:8–11. Likewise, giving to others in order to get more money in return is a crass and idolatrous rejection of God’s all-sufficiency in Christ. It denies the very thing Paul affirms in 9:12–15.

Since joy and security in God should be our motives for giving, it is striking that Paul does not point to our gratitude per se as the basis for giving. Rather, it is God’s grace in our lives that forms the foundation of faith-filled giving. We give because of what God has done to secure our joy in him, not because of how we feel about being secure in God’s grace. We give because we are happy in God, not because we are thankful to be happy in God. A study of 2 Corinthians 8–9 consequently confirms John Piper’s helpful observations that

the Bible rarely, if ever, motivates Christian living with gratitude. Yet this is almost universally presented in the church as the “driving force in authentic Christian living.” … Gratitude is a beautiful and utterly indispensable Christian affection. No one is saved, who doesn’t have it. But you will search the Bible in vain for explicit connections between gratitude and obedience…. Gratitude was never designed as the primary motivation for radical Christian obedience…. Could it be that gratitude for bygone grace has been pressed to serve as the power for holiness, which only faith in future grace was designed to perform?³⁸

If our grateful response to what we have already received from God were the primary foundation for giving to others, our willingness to give would become a reflection of our own moral character as people who are grateful, not of the God who gives.

Thus, if gratitude were the motive, the focus of attention would fall on trying to become more grateful in order to be able to give more, thereby throwing ourselves back on ourselves, since God has already done enough to make us grateful for all eternity. Furthermore, if gratitude, not faith, is the motive, then giving becomes a futile attempt to “pay God back” as a debtor to grace—which is impossible, since it cuts at the heart of what God’s grace means in the first place. The grace of God, from creation to the mercy of the cross, is something we have received and continue to receive “without price or payment.”³⁹ Though we certainly must be and can only be grateful for God’s grace, it is our trust in God’s grace that grounds our giving.

In the debtor’s ethic the Christian life is pictured as an effort to pay back the debt we owe to God. Usually the concession is made that we can never fully pay it off. But “gratitude” demands that we work at it. Good deeds [like giving to others] and religious acts are the installment payments we make on the unending debt we owe to God.⁴⁰

Thus, rather than deriving our giving from our gratitude, Paul points to our continuing trust in God’s continuing grace as the fountain of generosity. His focus is not on trying to be more grateful but on learning to trust God more. And as Piper recognizes,

this is not nit-picking or incidental; it is amazing…. Gratitude is a beautiful thing. There is no Christianity without it. It is at the heart of worship…. But when it comes to spelling out the spiritual dynamics of how practical Christian obedience happens [like giving money], the Bible does not say that it comes from the backward gaze of gratitude, but that it comes from the forward gaze of faith.⁴¹

Surely gratitude is evidence that God has transformed the human heart. Indeed, the heart of sin is a failure to glorify God by giving thanks for all that he has done for us (Rom. 1:21). But gratitude, like giving, is itself a response to God’s grace, and not the source of faith-filled obedience. Gratitude is itself a virtue produced by grace, not the source of other Christian virtues. God and God alone is the source of all Christian emotion and activity.

Viewed in this way, our willingness to give becomes a reflection not of our feelings toward God, but of what God is doing for us now and promises to do for us in the days to come. Giving, in order to honor God, must be an act of dependence on God. As believers, our confidence in God for the future makes it possible for us to give to others in the present (cf. again 9:8). We will never give away more money than our comfortable 2 percent unless we are convinced that God will take care of us tomorrow, just as he has taken care of us in the past and is now taking care of us in the present. This is why Paul supports his call to give by pointing to the joy that accompanies it (9:7) and to the righteousness from faith that is expressed through it (9:9–10).

This is also why the admonition to give in 9:5 is supported in 9:6–15 not by a reference to what giving will say about us (i.e., that we are filled with gratitude), but by a reference to what giving will say about God (i.e., that his grace is and will be sufficient, no matter what; cf. 12:9). The ground of our giving is God’s continuing, abundant grace and the purpose of our giving is the praise of God’s glory as manifest in the “indescribable gift” that is God himself in Christ. Our ability to give is a declaration about God.

Thus, 9:6–15 make it clear why the Corinthians’ gifts must be given as an expression of blessing and joy rather than being pried out of their greed by the threat of God’s impending judgment. Only generous, joyful giving is an expression of the faith and contentment that brings God’s approval (9:6–7). As Paul makes clear in 9:7, there is no divine approval for a giving to others that does not flow from a happy reliance on and satisfaction in God. For since God’s power and commitment to do what he has promised provides the continuing means to be righteous through giving (9:8–11a), only such grace-driven generosity, evidenced in our willingness to meet the needs of others, redounds to God’s glory (9:11b–15).

In conclusion, we therefore turn once again to John Piper, who has captured well the contemporary significance of 9:7 (“God loves a cheerful giver”) for establishing a God-honoring motivation in giving, the only motivation that will fulfill the “ministry” and “grace” of giving:

I take this to mean God is not pleased when people act benevolently but don’t do it gladly. When people don’t find pleasure (Paul’s word is “cheer”!) in their acts of service, God doesn’t find pleasure in them. He loves cheerful givers, cheerful servants. What sort of cheer? Surely the safest way to answer that question is to remember what sort of cheer moved the Macedonians to be generous. It was the overflow of joy in the grace of God. Therefore, the giver God loves is the one whose joy in him overflows “cheerfully” in generosity to others….If love is the overflow of joy in God that gladly meets the needs of other people, and if God loves such joyful givers, then this joy in giving is a Christian duty, and the effort not to pursue it is sin.… Love is the overflow of joy in God which gladly meets the needs of others. It is the impulse of a fountain to overflow. It originates in the grace of God which overflows freely because it delights to fill the empty. Love shares the nature of that grace, because it too delights to overflow freely to meet the needs of others….The contentment of a Christian Hedonist is not a Buddha-like serenity, unmoved by the hurts of others. It is a profoundly dissatisfied contentment. It is constantly hungry for more of the feast of God’s grace. And even the measure of contentment that God grants contains an insatiable impulse to expand itself to others (2 Corinthians 8:4; 1 John 1:4). Christian joy reveals itself as dissatisfied contentment whenever it perceives human need. It starts to expand in love to fill that need and bring about the joy of faith in the heart of the other person.⁴²