2 Corinthians 9:1

In these verses the apostle speaks very respectfully to the Corinthians, and with great skill; and, while he seems to excuse his urging them so earnestly to charity, still presses them thereto, and shows how much his heart was set upon this matter.

I. He tells them it was needless to press them with further arguments to afford relief to their poor brethren (Co2 9:1), being satisfied he had said enough already to prevail with those of whom he had so good an opinion. For, 1. He knew their forwardness to every good work, and how they had begun this good work a year ago, insomuch that, 2. He had boasted of their zeal to the Macedonians, and this had provoked many of them to do as they had done. Wherefore he was persuaded, that, as they had begun well, they would go on well; and so, commending them for what they had done, he lays an obligation on them to proceed and persevere.

II. He seems to apologize for sending Titus and the other brethren to them. He is unwilling they should be offended at him for this, as if he were too earnest, and pressed too hard upon them; and tells the true reasons why he sent them, namely, 1. That, having this timely notice, they might be fully ready (Co2 9:3), and not surprised with hasty demands, when he should come to them. When we would have others to do that which is good we must act towards them prudently and tenderly, and give them time. 2. That he might not be ashamed of his boasting concerning them, if they should be found unready, Co2 9:3, Co2 9:4. He intimates that some from Macedonia might haply come with him: and, if the collection should not then be made, this would make him, not to say them, ashamed, considering the boasting of the apostle concerning them. Thus careful was he to preserve their reputation and his own. Note, Christians should consult the reputation of their profession, and endeavour to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ch. 2Co_9:1. For] i.e. I am not writing to you about the ministry to the saints, for that is unnecessary. I am writing about your reception of the brethren, and your being ready when they come. See 2Co_9:3.

the ministering] Literally, the ministry. See note on ch. 2Co_3:3. Anything which conveyed God’s good gifts from one member of the Church to another, was in the Apostle’s eyes a ministry, a diaconate, for the words rendered minister, ministry, are in Greek διάκονος, διακονία. See also note on 2Co_9:12 and on ch. 2Co_8:4.

it is superfluous for me to write to you] “Observe the tender wisdom of this proceeding. The charity which finds us unprepared is a call as hateful as that of any creditor whom it is hard to pay. St Paul knew this well; therefore he gave timely notice.” Robertson. It was unnecessary to write to them about the collection itself. It was not unnecessary to remind them as a matter of Christian prudence that they must not allow themselves to be taken unawares, lest the amount of their bounty should hardly correspond to what men had a reason to expect Cf. 1Co_16:2. Calvin, however, thinks that the Apostle wavered between confidence and anxiety. He knew their readiness, but he feared the instability of human nature.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co_9:1-5

As touching the ministering to the saints.

Liberal giving

I. Why does God call us to give?

1. He cannot need our gifts. We can give Him nothing that we did not first get from Him.

2. It must be somehow for our sakes. Giving is Gods way of getting for ourselves the highest good. The root of sin is selfishness. God would have us grow bigger, have a larger world to live in, find a higher joy; and the secret of all this change is giving. It is a curious fact that we call a man who gets but does not give a miser, that is, a miserable man. The true worth of money is never learned until we begin to make others happy with it. It is just so of learning. There is joy in getting knowledge; but a higher joy it is to teach those who do not know.

II. Nature teaches us many lessons on giving. The sun exists to give light, heat, and life. The sea is always giving.

III. God measures our giving by our purpose. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart. What did you mean to give, and what was your motive?

IV. liberal giving is perhaps the choicest, ripest fruit of the spirit. The Arab proverb says, The water you pour on the roots of the cocoanut-tree comes back to you from the top, in the sweet milk of the cocoanut. You may hang up a bar of slightly tempered steel, strike it with a mallet, and make it a magnet. Then with that magnet you may, by rubbing other bars with it, make them magnets too; and it is wonderful that instead of making the magnetic power of that first bar less, you increase it. (A. T. Pierson, D. D.)

Liberal giving

I. The tact and wisdom and tenderness of Paul in presenting and pressing the subject abe worthy of unqualified admiration. The apostle does not say how much a child of God should give, simply because he regards giving as a spiritual attainment, and not as an outward function. It is to be governed by spiritual laws and to move by spiritual impulses. He cites the case of the Macedonian Christians, not as a standard of comparison, but as a heart-incentive. The true giver in blessing others will always be a large receiver of blessings. The word which in the Received Text is translated bounty has in the margin its more literal meaning, blessing. The giver is a sower of seed. His gifts are the seed of a future harvest for which he may confidently look. There is here no appeal to selfishness, but the simple statement of a Divine law, and one of widest scope. The man who puts forth little physical strength reaps little vigour of body. The man who feebly uses mental faculty gains little mental power. The man who loves little is little loved and destroys his capacity to love. As giving is a spiritual grace, it can grow and reward its possessor only by use. We are at cross-purposes with our own faculties and with Gods plans respecting us if the power of giving lies unused within us. Our selfishness dwarfs and impoverishes us. Niggardliness is a most miserable investment. Put any Divine gift under the leadership of greed or of sloth, and it is sure to err and come to no good. In the great sum of things giving has a royal place. Do we not comprehend how the giver is a receiver? It is sufficient in answer to appeal to two things: first, to the homely evidence of experience; second, to the promises of God. But this testimony of experience reaches deeper than all rewards in kind. True giving is the act of the soul; it touches character; it is a grand power of moral discipline. It cleanses conscience and purifies the heart to give rightly and generously. It awakens a higher manhood in the soul. It crucifies the low, base lust of selfishness. It strangles closeness and stinginess and all the meaner and craven lusts of our nature to get beyond and above the greed of getting and keeping into the high and Divine realm of giving. Giving enlarges a man. It develops all that is good in him. It stirs him with higher impulses. It makes him a holier and happier man. But it must be giving in Christs sense and after His example. But this certainty of a Divine return to the giver rests also on the direct promise of God. Here is the givers security. What is given is not lost. It is a deposit in the exchequer of Heaven. God loveth the cheerful giver. He is able to bless him, and He will bless him.

II. The final thought of the apostle is the connection of giving and thanksgiving. Every gift is a bounty, a blessing, a thanksgiving. It is a free thank-offering out of the blessings God has given. True giving rises out of the catalogue of hard duties into the rank of happy privileges. The root of all giving is love, and love is full of thankfulness. And then, as the mind and heart of the apostle are filled with a sense of what a great blessing is this spirit of free and generous giving both to the giver and to the receiver, he ends abruptly the discussion with the well-known sentence, Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift! He rises from all human giving to the Divine, the gift of the Saviour. He contrasts our feeble gifts with the unspeakable one. He inspires our giving with that. He links our giving to that. To give is to be like God. (T. H. Robinson, D. D.)

Liberal giving

It is plain that God means that His people shall all be givers. Opportunities to give everywhere surround us. The Christians at Jerusalem were at just this time in great want. In part this may have been due to their experiment of a community of goods, and in part to their repeated and long-continued persecutions. Christian giving should be--

I. Primarily, though by no means exclusively, to needy saints (2Co_5:1).

II. Prompt and energetic, that so it may be adequate and sure (2Co_9:2-5). The good name of a church is no small part of its power. It is this which makes its teachings respected, and its example a stimulus to others. It is in all things a good rule to be deliberate in planning, and then swift in execution. For thus it is that good intentions become worthy deeds.

III. Not sparing but bountiful (2Co_9:6).

IV. Deliberate and cheerful (2Co_9:7).

V. Trustful. This is enforced by the apostle by a twofold consideration (2Co_9:8-10).

VI. Mindful of the great blessings sure to come of it (2Co_9:11-14). (Monday Club Sermons.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 9:1-2. As touching the ministering to the saints — Contributing to their relief, see on Rom 15:26; it is superfluous for me to write — More largely and particularly. For I know — Rather, have known, in former instances, and have now again learned from Titus; the forwardness of your mind — Your readiness to assist in this good work; for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia — To the Christians in that province, with whom he then was; that Achaia — Whereof Corinth was the chief city; was ready — Was prepared; a year ago — Or since the last year, as απο περυσι properly signifies. “So the apostle thought when he boasted of the Corinthians to the Macedonians. For in his former letter, which was written in the end of the preceding year, he had exhorted them to make the collection, and had given it in charge to Titus, who carried that letter, to encourage them in the work. Besides, the Corinthians having expressed the greatest respect for the apostle in the letter which they sent to him, and the messengers, who brought him that letter, having assured him of their disposition to obey him in every thing, he did not doubt of their having complied with his request. And therefore, when he went into Macedonia the following spring, after pentecost, he told the Macedonian churches that Achaia was prepared since the end of the last year, firmly believing that it was so.” — Macknight.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(c) 9:1-15. Exhortations to Generous Giving

There is no need to write to you about the purpose and necessity of the collection, for your zeal in the matter is well known, and has been used by me as a stimulus to the Macedonians. I send our friends to you only to make sure that our boast of you has not been vain. Remember that the blessing you receive will be in proportion to your giving, and that much spiritual benefit will come both to you and to them by this interchange of sympathy.

1. The ministering] St. Paul had already written on the collection in general (1Co_16:1-4), and had sent instructions by Titus on his first visit (2Co_12:18). The saints] the Christians in Jerusalem.

2. The forwardness of your mind] RV 'your readiness.' A year ago] see on 2Co_8:10. Provoked] RV 'stirred up.'

4. We (that we say not, ye)] He bids them realise how much he would be ashamed before the Macedonian delegates if they were unprepared: at the same time he suggests in passing that he is sure their own shame would not be less than his.

5. Your bounty, whereof ye had notice before] RV 'your aforepromised bounty.'

Bounty, and not.. covetousness] He desired their gift to be ready before he came, that it might be evident to the delegates that they had given it of their own free-will, and did not need to have it dragged out of them through shame in his presence.

7. As he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, etc.] i.e. do not let a man give what he grudges or because he feels that he must do as the others; let the open hand correspond to the willing spirit.

8-11. Paraphrase. 'And God has power to enrich you with all earthly blessings, that ye may have sufficient for yourselves and the means of helping those who need, (9) and so experience the fulfilment of the promise of God's Word. (10) Now God, who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, will both provide for your wants and abundantly bless your charity and make it fruitful for good; (11) for your willingness to give freely of what you have freely received will cause those to whom we bear your bounty to give thanks to God for your thoughtful love.'

8. All grace] every earthly blessing that will give them opportunity of blessing others.

That ye.. may abound] The purpose of God's gifts to them is that they may share them with others: cp. for the thought 2Co_1:4.

9. As it is written] Psa_112:9. His righteousness remaineth] In return for his generosity, God will give him continually the disposition to be generous; the charitable man has his reward in becoming more charitable—a true spiritual blessing.

12-15. Paraphrase. 'For this charity has a twofold benefit: it supplies the needs of the brethren in Jerusalem, and it makes them give thanks and praise to God. (13) They give glory to God because they see in this bounty the proof of your obedience to Christ, and they praise Him for your generous gift to them and to others, (14) while they express in prayer their fervent longing that all blessings may be yours. (15) God be praised for this great boon, whose blessedness no tongue can tell.'

12. The exercise of the gift of charity had both a material and a religious value.

13. Whiles by the experiment of this ministration] RV 'Seeing that through the proving of you by this ministration.' The reception of the collection would be proof to the Church in Jerusalem of the true Christianity of those who called themselves Christians in Corinth: cp. 1Jn_4:20.

15. His unspeakable gift] The establishment of these happy relations between the Churches, each giving thanks for the others and praying for their growth in all goodness, was a blessing from God beyond the power of words to express.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

d. By need of their promptly sustaining his boasts in their behalf to the Macedonians, 2Co_9:1-5.

1. For—Alludes to our boasting in last verse, and thereby closely connects the language.

Ministering—The contributions to the saints at Jerusalem.

Superfluous—And so he writes here not so much about the ministering itself, as about finishing it promptly, in order to verify his boasts in their behalf if any Macedonians should visit Corinth soon, as, indeed, they might in company with himself when he should come to Corinth.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

2Co_9:1—Connected, in word [περί, in both cases] and in fact, with 1Co_15:1, which belongs to the initiation of this “collection,” this “ministration” for the poor “saints” of the Church at Jerusalem, as this does to the conclusion of the financial effort. Superfluous.—Yet he had been dealing with it, in chap, 8, and here urges motives to liberality (2Co_9:6 sqq.). Was there no need to speak of it? Was this Christian simplicity of truth? Yes (see Homiletic Analysis). Connect 2Co_8:24; 2Co_9:1; 2Co_9:6. “Show ye them.… I have no need to speak to you.… Yet I will remind you that,” etc. Cf. 1Th_4:9; 1Th_5:1.

2Co_9:2. Forwardness of mind.—This clears the “readiness” of from doubt. Not their preparedness of arrangement to make up and send their contribution (2Co_8:19). Provoked.—As the occasion of the journey of Epaphroditus to Rome once stirred up these same Macedonians, always liberal-hearted, and proving it by repeated gifts to himself, and called forth their generosity to him in his prison in Rome, so that the winter-dormant stem of their liberality was touched as with the breath of spring, and “flourished again,” i.e. broke out into blossom and practical fruit (Php_4:10 sqq., A.V.). Your behalf (R.V.).—Of course not implying any desire or request of theirs that he would.

2Co_9:3. The brethren.—Viz. mentioned in 2Co_8:16 sqq. In this behalf.—In this particular detail, on this point, viz. your having all in readiness.

2Co_9:5. Covetousness.—Which would hold back even the devoted, promised, collected money to the last moment; not releasing, or paying over, one moment earlier than was necessary.

2Co_9:6. Bountifully.—See margin, and notice how this verse takes up the word for “bounty “in 2Co_9:5. Really, literally, “blessing” (2Co_9:5) “with blessings” (2Co_9:8). Thence, makes “blessing,” full of associations of God’s gifts in measure and manner of bestowment, lead on to the style and spirit of giving in 2Co_9:7.

2Co_9:7. Grudgingly.—Out of (a heart filled with) sorrow at having to part with the gift. Pro_22:8 is quoted from LXX., not the Hebrew.

2Co_9:8. All.—Good instance of Paul’s (instinctive, not formal) rhetoric. Always tends to amplificative, cumulative phraseology. Piles up prepositions only slightly differentiated, or phrases nearly synonymous (e.g. Rom_10:12), or vaguely large (as here, “all”). “All might” (Col_1:11), “all prayer” (Eph_6:18), “all knowledge” (1Co_13:2), “all acceptation” (1Ti_1:15), etc.; q.d. “Whatever the meaning in which you need to conceive of it, whatever the form in which it needs to shape itself in manifestation—I mean all that!” Grace.—Here in a special, narrowed sense; nearly equivalent to “the means wherewith you may be able to give.” Connection: “Do not hesitate to give; do what is right; God will see to it that your own need is supplied.” Cf. the same principle illustrated in Mal_3:10, and—less closely parallel—in Php_4:19 : “You have supplied all my need; my God will supply all your need.” [Compare also the four-faced cherubim of the Chariot, Eze_1:15-17; and the really connected “foursquare” of the Heavenly City, Eze_21:16. Everything of God is foursquare in its completeness; His City approachable, and giving entrance on all sides, from all quarters, to redeemed man. Similarly, “all grace” in its widest meaning stands in the midst of man’s needs, foursquare, exactly meeting our need and our request, from whatever side we approach it.]

2Co_9:9.—Psa_112:9, quoted from LXX. (111). Abideth.—Q.d. “is never to be exhausted” (Stanley). Too narrow.

2Co_9:10. Supplieth.—The usage lying at the root of this word in Greek may furnish the preacher with vivid illustration of (say) Php_1:19. A wealthy Greek citizen had to assume, as a public duty, the whole expense of the training and maintenance of the Chorus for a new play. “God will provide all the needed expense.” Seed … food.—Clear reminiscence of Isa_55:10. (See homiletic development.) Righteousness.—In the narrow sense of the Psalm quoted, primarily.

2Co_9:11.—Difficult to choose between “bountifulness” and “simplicity,” as in Rom_12:8; 2Co_8:2, and 2Co_9:13. The direct, and simply open, mind runs close with the simply opened hand; no after-thought, or reserve, or regret in either. Everything … all.—A cumulative phrase again.

2Co_9:12. Administration.—Same word, in slightly varied aspect, as “ministering” in 2Co_9:1. Service.—The word (classically) used of a public burden assumed and discharged as in 2Co_9:10. But must not be pressed here. Aboundeth.—Note how this word recurs, 2Co_9:1 (Greek), 2Co_9:8.

2Co_9:13.—Sense made clear in “Professed” means “openly avowed and confessed”; not, of course, “pretended subjection.” Distribution.—“Your contribution,” Literally, your “fellowship,” or “communion.” Word is polar; at the action end it is “communicating,” at the feeling end it is “community” of heart. Includes both, for the Corinthian contribution was an emphatic expression of the new community between Jew and Gentile.

2Co_9:15.—At first sight unsuggested, irrelevant. So much so, that Speaker’s Commentary, in loc., pronounces the application to Christ “too wide a deviation from the immediate context” to be admissible. (But see Homily under 1Co_16:22.)

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—Whole Chapter

We have:—

A. Christian courtesy exemplified (2Co_9:1-5).

B. Christian giving described (2Co_9:6-14).

C. God’s giving and gift the model and motive (2Co_9:15).

A.

I. Consistent with thorough, transparent simplicity of truth.—

1. The Christian is to be courteous (1Pe_3:8, not to be quoted). Yet is to “speak the truth” (and “do the truth” also), though “in love” (Eph_4:15). Often a real, practical difficulty to discover the exact line, between the nicely balanced conditions and the closely pressing, subtle perils, of unfaithful kindness, on the one side, and of harsh and repellent fidelity on the other. Truth at all costs, and with all risks, of course; but, wherever possible, loving, or at least courteously spoken, truth; and this both for the sake of the person concerned, and for the success of rebuke administered, or the improvement desired. A friend may in kindness wound; an enemy may in malice kiss (Pro_27:6). If the friend can do his work with a kiss, so much the better.

2. Paul himself shows how possible it is to pay a well-turned, serviceable compliment with the most perfect truth. Act_24:10 (to Felix), Act_26:2-3 (to Agrippa), were quite true and appropriate things to say; Act_24:2-3 (Tertullus to Felix) was notoriously untrue. [Very courteously—accepting the correction (though not too courteously made), and acknowledging a measure of fault in himself—did he recover himself, after his outburst of not unjustifiable indignation before the High Priest (Act_23:5). On Paul’s courtesy, see Howson, Hulsean Lectures, Character of St. Paul, ii.] Jowett, Stanley, and others call Paul “a gentleman,” who, in 1Co_13:4-7, draws “The Portrait of a Gentleman.”

3. Here Paul, dealing with these suspicious, proud, touchy Corinthians, some of them not too well affected towards himself, displays Tact and Truth.

(1) “I, not to say you” (2Co_9:4), delicately shifts the heavier pressure of possible “shame” to the shoulders which ought not to have it to bear.

(2) Quite true that both would certainly have to share the burden, if by their unreadiness they make its incidence necessary at all; his Christian love offers, as it were, to assume the heavier share, whilst, suggestively leaving the way open to their own love, to save “shame” both to him and them.

(3) Also it was quite true that, as matter of absolute necessity, it was “superfluous” for him to say even as much as he had said in chap. 8 The Corinthian contribution to the Relief Fund was evidently substantially ready, and had been “ready a year ago.” At most, what was wanted was the closing up of the accounts. What he adds here is to quicken the finishing up of the business; there never had been any need to suggest to, or press upon, their “forward mind” the making of a collection. His courtesy is perfectly truthful. So also 2Co_9:6, “I want you to have what you really deserve, the credit of seeming, not covetous but, liberal.”

II. Gives full recognition of excellence.—And this both to themselves and to other Churches. [Rising to a higher example: The Head of the Churches (Rev_2:3, passim), even in the case of the most unfaithful Church, gladly acknowledges every point which can be praised, even though He must (like Paul here) complain of half-finished work (2Co_3:2, R.V.). See how He (to Ephesus, 2Co_2:6, after 2Co_9:4-5) returns to praise a point of excellence, so to speak forgotten in 2Co_9:2-3.] No need for a Christian to stint or grudge deserved praise. To many temperaments a very needful factor in their improvement. May, as here, be consecrated to the subserving of the interests of the work of God.

III. Is prudent and business-like.—

1. He has used Corinthian “forwardness” as his lever, to move the not illiberal or tardy, Macedonian Churches. He now lays his plans, and takes his measures, to ensure that there shall be no miscarriage, after so much has actually been done towards the desired result. His repeated and confident laudation of them must not have a not very creditable conclusion and comment, in an only almost ready collection. “Beforehand, beforehand, beforehand” is, and has been, his watchword (2Co_9:5-6, Stanley); a true “business principle.” [Nelson said he beat the French fleets by always being a quarter of an hour before time.] No need for a Christian man to be worse than a man of the world, “wise in (and for the purposes of) his generation,” in such points of practical sagacity. Friction would be saved within the Church, and often scandal from without, if business prudence and good sense were always consecrated to the management of its finances. Business as well as Courtesy may be sanctified to the highest ends.

2. Is there any suggestion of prudence in “handling” even his friend Titus, in the fact that, in regard to this business, he always speaks of “exhorting” Titus, rather than enjoining or directing? (2Co_8:6; 2Co_8:17; 2Co_12:18; 1Co_16:12; but so also Timothy, 1Ti_1:3).

3. The need of such courtesy of character, and good sense and business aptitude, in the management of men and affairs in the Church, is a strong appeal and claim for their consecration to Christ by those who are endowed with them. [Cf. Num_10:31 : “Thou (Hobab) mayest be to us instead of eyes;” i.e. his experience and training in desert life were wanted, though the host had Jehovah and the Pillar in their midst.]

B. Christian giving is described.—

1. It is literally “blessing” (= “bounty”), in this section of the New Testament, and here only. [So LXX., Gen_33:11; cf. the beautiful Hebrew of Pro_11:25, “a soul of blessing.”] As in the similar use of “grace” for this Corinthian gift, the Divine word is borrowed for the expression of human love between brethren and brethren, Church and Church. [So in the Psalm quoted (2Co_9:9), “his righteousness (with special application to this almsgiving) endureth for ever,” is the repetition as to man of the same phrase in the preceding Psalm (Psa_111:3) used of God, “His righteousness endureth for ever.” (May we venture to give this a similar speciality of application, and say, “His almsgiving to a needy world endureth unwearied and inexhaustible”?) No doubt “righteousness” means more than this, in both instances.] The Christian giver is God’s almoner and representative, if his gift is the outcome of a love in his heart for man caught from God’s philanthropy (Tit_3:4). His gift mirrors God’s gift on a smaller scale; his giving should, in his purpose and manner, be like God’s “blessing.”

2.

(1) It is “sowing”; a disposing of one’s wealth which brings back again itself with interest, itself multiplied manifold. The old epitaph has truth in it:—

“Here lies a man, men thought him mad;

The more he gave the more he had.”

The giver is not the poorer by so much, when he has parted with his gift; he is the richer by so much, in that he has that and all it is to bring by God’s blessing.

(2) Does the farmer return from his field saying “grudgingly,” and with a sorrowful heart (2Co_9:7), “There! All that good seed thrown away and lost”? Yet some Christian givers “go forth weeping bearing this precious seed,” forgetting that they may complete (in this borrowed sense) the sentence of the Psalm.

(3) The wise sower does not even sow “of necessity,” only going out to his fields in the Spring because, if he do not, he will starve in Winter; and, still less, because of what his neighbour farmers are doing, and what they will think and say of him, if he too do not scatter some seed!

(4) The giver who understands that he is a sower goes forth to his giving “cheerful”; a holy hilarity may rightly pervade every heart, when a Church is assembled to make some great financial effort for the cause of God.

(5) Like sowing, too, in this: Sowing and Harvest are connected in two ways. In Gal_6:8 Paul reminds the Galatians [who, as Caesar testifies of the Western Gauls, their kindred, were inclined to be money-loving] that, in kind, what a man sows he reaps. Here he says that, in measure, as a man sows so he reaps; whether “sparingly,” or, as God Himself sows when He gives, “with blessings” (R.V. margin), i.e. with a heart in his sowing, his giving, which would gladly make all he gives, in intention and effect a blessing. Stint your field of seed, you stint your barn of sheaves. You may choose the measure of your reaping.

3. Such almsgiving is a “service” (2Co_9:12), a “liturgy” in the classical sense, a burden which is obligatory upon those citizens of the kingdom of God whom God has made able, and has officially and formally appointed by making them able, to sustain it for the good of others, their less able fellow-citizens. And yet,

4. It is a “ministration,” a “diaconate.” The wealthy man, or Church, must not remember too vividly his superiority in ability, even whilst he serves and discharges his liturgy (= “administers this service,” 2Co_9:12), lest he become the Lord Bountiful to his poorer fellow-citizens in the kingdom of God, instead of the almoner of the true Bountiful Lord. He is the servant on Christ’s behalf, of his brethren, fulfilling the office which was first, and most gloriously, held by his Master (Mat_20:28, same root word). Again,

5. Here are the motives which should encourage and regulate giving.

(1) “As he purposeth in his heart” (2Co_9:7), admirably expository of the meaning “simplicity” (2Co_9:11); no by-motives, no consideration of any reflex effect, such as winning the commendation of his fellows; his giving should be the simple, direct, unaffected, unmodified expression of himself (for “as the man thinketh in his heart so is he,” Pro_23:7).

(2) If the stress be laid upon “purposeth,” there come into view some further considerations. There is giving which is almost without purpose; it is done upon the spur of the moment, the mere offspring of the passing impulse, aroused, and dying, with the momentary, accidental occasion which appealed to it. There is no thought of the gift before the moment of its bestowal, hardly any a moment after. There is no principle of benevolence appealed to or trained; and such giving easily becomes the refined selfishness which cannot bear to see or hear of what is painful, and merely buys off the unwelcome, momentary contact with it. There is none of the loving, careful thought about the gift or the assistance, which often gives to even a small kindness its chief value to the recipient, and is always one of its most valuable features to the giver, in its effect upon his own heart and character. Such giving is not rooted in character at all; it is the merest, hasty, perishable, fungoid growth upon the surface of impulse. It does not belong to a plan and habit of benevolence, carefully and considerately formed as in the sight of God, and as an expression of gratitude to Him and a recognition of our stewardship. [Such purposeless giving does some good, and has sometimes a beauty. But it is only the fitful, wild, chance music called forth from the strings of an Æolian harp by the variable force of the breath of impulse or occasional appeal. A settled, steady, purposeful, provided-for benevolence, which chooses its objects, and “considereth (say) the poor,” is the more beautiful, ordered, coherent melody and harmony of a trained player upon a well-tuned heart.] “Purposeth” speaks, then, of the judgment, as well as of the will, brought into consecrated service.

(3) The “covetous” man (2Co_9:6) does as he purposeth in his heart, indeed. Covetousness may betray itself, as Paul suggests, not only by entirely refusing to part with anything, but by slowness to give, or to redeem one’s promise to give; by not making up the last amounts of the total, until the latest moment when shame or necessity makes it possible to keep the gift in one’s own power. The antidote to this incipient covetousness is the heart of “blessing” (2Co_9:6).

(4) To encourage giving, the fulness of resource and supply we have in God is suggested. (See Separate Homily.) Little faith, much fear, in regard to their own future and its supply, rather than little love or benevolence, may narrow the liberality of a man or a Church. “Can’t afford to part with so much.” Paul’s words (2Co_9:8) extend far beyond the immediate occasion; they are a great principle opening out, leading us out, in many directions; in the direction of every conceivable need; but in this place they mean: “Do what is right, what His work or the needs of the poorer brethren call for. Trust Him that, however much you spend, you shall not be spent out. He is able to supply you with all needed ‘grace,’ that you may supply them your gift and ‘grace.’ No matter what demand may be made upon you, you may cast back your demand upon Him; He will respond, and see to it that, for this requirement, as for ‘all’ others, you shall ‘always’ have ‘all sufficiency.’ Nay, it shall be no mere question of sufficiency, whether of His giving or your ability. He will give, and ‘abound,’ that you also may ‘abound’ for and in view of ‘every good work’ which may present its claim upon you. He will not simply make you a full reservoir, from which others may be supplied. He will fill you to the overflow, and will make you a living well, which is itself always full, and is also ever flowing over, to supply needy ones around. Your ‘righteousness’ [cf. the variant reading in Mat_6:1] shall be an inexhaustible fountain for others. Let His ability and full supply embolden you to large doing and to large ventures in benevolence. I called it ‘sowing,’ and, even so, all you ‘sow’ shall not only keep you in necessary ‘food’; it shall provide more ‘seed’ for more sowing of the same sort (2Co_9:10).” [Observe “may abound unto every good work”; “enriched unto all bountifulness.” It is an end in itself, worthy that God should provide you against it, that you should be able to exercise benevolence. Giving is no ad libitum, dispensable accompaniment of a Christian life. The Christian should work (Eph_4:28), plan, gain, that he may have something to give. Also observe—a large general principle also—that God’s gifts, of all kinds, are not given only for our own sake; our temporal good, our gifts of character, of religious knowledge and experience, are all to be the means of bounty to others; they were given for that.] Lastly,

6. We have the happy issue and effect of such Christian benevolence. The need of the poor saints is supplied—that is much; but it is more that God’s altar is loaded with the offering of their thanks. God Himself is “glorified” by this abundant praise, for it is His grace in you which prompts the charity; you are manifestly a triumph of the power of the Gospel, and not least does it glorify Him that, Jewish Christians though they are, their heart goes out in grateful, admiring, yearning affection to you Gentile Christians. Your gift draws closer the bounds of living, loving unity in the Church of your common Lord.

C. God’s giving and gift the model and motive (2Co_9:15).—

1. God’s Christ is also, like theirs, a “grace” and a “blessing.” How it has “enriched us”; and how He Himself was first “enriched unto all bountifulness”! Rich beyond our expression or conception, but not for Himself only; to Himself it was an end in itself that He might “sow” in our needy world “bountifully” “with blessings.” He, too, had “all self-sufficiency” [see the Greek word, 2Co_9:8] “in all things” which His nature and happiness required. In Himself there was (to speak in children’s stammerings) another Self, the “Son of His love” (Col_1:13), Who could receive and give love, as love must in its very nature desire. Yet He created, and so provided Himself with new objects upon which His heart might pour out its “bounty.” He must be giving; must be going out of Himself to make others happy. Further,

2.

(1) His gift is the expression of His “character.” It “sits well” upon him, this habit of giving. He is clothed with bounty in all His manifestation of Himself, and the robing fits perfectly; it is the expression of Himself. He has put Himself into His unspeakable Gift, and into the manner of His giving. As the Corinthians should do. [Note also that the consummate expression of God’s character, His greatest mercy, is a Gift. His children speak as if He loved to take away, rather than to let them keep, anything dear to them. They are afraid to make full surrender of their Isaacs, lest they should really have to “slay their sons”; though God does not want the Isaac, unless it has become an idol; He wants them, their will, their whole heart, and whole self. They half-look out for some trial or bereavement, after a great blessing. Yet the one great Precedent He has set for all His dealing with us, the one conclusive Index to His real mind and heart toward us, is a Gift—an unspeakable gift. He had rather give, or let us keep, than take from us, if it be safe for our welfare. He had rather say “Yes” than “No” to our prayers. He does not value or enjoin upon us sacrifice, self-denial, for their own sakes; they are only means to an end. He will accomplish His training of His children with the minimum of pain and surrender and loss. His love is donative rather than privative. God is by His very nature a Giving God.] [Note also,

1. A Gift, not a Loan. We shall need, and may keep, the Christ He gives us, to all eternity. Neither in caprice, nor in change of plan, will He ever revoke, or take back, His bounty. We may cast it away; He has no purpose to take it away.

2. A Gift, for which nothing has to be paid by us. Nothing, of course, could buy it; but we may have Christ, and all that goes along with and is contained in Him (2Co_1:20, R.V.), for the asking and the taking.]

(2) He gives “as He purposeth.” His “purpose” (Romans 8, passim, etc.) is of course an anthropomorphism. To Him Who sees at once perfectly, in all its completeness, first and last, His whole design, any such word as implies consideration, possible modification of first thoughts, laborious comparison of ends with means, patient, persistent maturing of a plan, is quite inapplicable. Yet we see Him act as men do when they “purpose,” and in this Gift of His we see an end carefully considered, proposed to Himself, secured by admirably chosen means, “in the fulness of time,” after being prepared for through many centuries, each of which, in its whole character and conditions, contributed something to the perfection of the execution of God’s purposed bounty to fallen man. His was no impulsive Giving, the act of a moment without consideration or after-care.

(3) “In His heart.” Human language again. But there is human giving which is admirable and very effective in its well-judged, well-timed assistance, but which is hard, stern, and apt to become mechanical. On the other hand, there is giving which has all these elements, contributed by a perfect judgment, but which has them all made warm and tender with a pervasive love. The heart infuses itself into the judgment. God’s mercy is tender mercy.

(4) His bounty also “aboundeth, by many thanks givings, unto God.” Indeed, when human bounty calls them forth, it is awakening part of that great chorus of praise, whose increasing volume will fill heaven to eternity.

3. His Gift is the motive of all acceptable, all real, Christian feeling. Other motives may be consistent, and may co-exist with his; some motives are entirely incompatible with this, and will either expel or be expelled by this; e.g. ostentation, mere love of praise, the deliberate laying oneself out to win a reputation for bountifulness [as did Ananias and Sapphira, desiring to have the praise which everybody was giving to Barnabas, but to have it at the cheapest possible rate]; the more sordid aim to make a profit out of such a reputation. But even the sympathy, pity, love, etc., which are consistent with it, lose their last touch of perfectness and of acceptableness with God, if they are not accompanied by, and indeed are not born of, the grateful love which springs from a sense of our indebtedness for the Unspeakable Gift. To awaken real, active, Christian benevolence let men betake themselves to Calvary, and stand beneath the cross; considering what, in all directions, it means that He should hang there. (See this followed out in Separate Homily.)

SEPARATE HOMILIES

2Co_9:8, first clause. A general truth, which may be pressed, beyond the particular, immediate application of it by Paul. Widen also “Grace.”

“God is able … all grace abound.”—This rebukes,

I. Narrow Giving.—

1. “God loveth a cheerful giver;” He has amongst His children many fearful ones. They restrict their gifts to religious and charitable purposes, not because they are niggard, but because timid. [Old, sadly true witticism applies to many: “Some men give, according to their means; some according to their meanness.” Not so here, but] they are apprehensive about the possibilities of the future. It is not one umbrella, but a stock of them, which can alone give them any approach to rest and security against the “rainy days” which, to them, loom many and dark in the future. Addison has acutely noted in the Spectator how the fear of seeming poor makes some men prodigal beyond their means, whilst the fear of being poor makes some save beyond their need. It makes some Christians narrow in their givings. They do not feel comfortable without a fair, growing reserve behind them. If they are “close-handed,” it is not primarily from want of love, but from want of faith.

2. Text bids them remember that they have behind them a Reserve,—God; and then let them launch out into all suitable, all needful, liberality to poverty or the cause of religion. Let Him, His fulness of supply, His ability to provide in any possible emergency, become real to them, and their fearful heart will readily yield to its truer, its native instinct, and open their hand more widely. [The possibility of being stripped of all, except God, is however often met with the same instinct of heart, as prompted the lady-passenger’s reply to the captain of a steamer in great peril at sea; said he, “We must now trust in God, Madam.” Said she, “Captain, has it come to that?”]

It rebukes,

II. Narrow Living, in a spiritual sense.

1. All Churches are weakened, their work is often crippled, by the meagre, narrow, ineffective life of their members. Very much of the effort of the pastorate has to be expended in keeping them not below what is the minimum of requirement and experience, if there is to be a definitely, distinctively, Christian life at all.

2. Such members lament their own failures, and “shortcomings” (calling by this too-indulgent name some plain faults and sins). Yet they have no idea of being, or doing, better. They have no hope of any “higher life,” whether in the half-technical sense or in any other. At most that “is a beautiful ideal, but quite unattainable by ordinary people, under the ordinary conditions of life.” They admire a higher, larger, fuller, more satisfying, victorious life in a far-off way, but without making effort or extending hope towards it. With the best type of them it is not spiritual indolence, though it may degenerate into it. The confession of failure may by often repetition lose its original contrition or compunction, and even become to them a virtuous humility. “They do not pretend to the great things, the great doings, of some people! God forbid such spiritual blindness or pride!”

3. But there is no virtue in being poor in attainments when God would have them rich, and has made provision for their enrichment. Or in being hampered by evil habits, enshackled and embarrassed and made ineffective, when God can give, and desires to give, liberty and victory (1Jn_5:4; 1Jn_5:18, etc.). There is no modesty, or humility, if the son of a wealthy father lives in narrow circumstances, half-starving, in rags, when he may draw upon his father’s wealth. “What cannot your Father do? Is such a life His probable ideal and purpose for His children? Will it even enable them to answer His design in having a Church? Is it any glory to Him that such should be the best lives the world sees in His family?” [This may be enlarged upon.]

4. Call things by their right names. Some things grace does not pretend to remedy—these are infirmities; some things it is meant to remedy—these are sins, if allowed. “Shortcomings” may mean that Christians are human, or that they are low down in grace; these latter grace is meant perfectly to remedy. “God is able.” There is no humility in repeatedly yielding to, even though confessing and bewailing, temptations or habits, which God has made provision for overcoming. Connect with Christ’s words: “That they might have [life] more abundantly.” (Same root word as here.) Words-worth wrote to Lady Beaumont, in May 1807, of the purpose of his poetry: “To add sunshine to daylight, by making the happy happier.” In higher fashion, that is God’s desire for us Therefore:

It rebukes, III. Narrow prayer and faith.—

1. Ask and expect large supplies of mercy, peace, strength, providential guidance,—everything.

(1) “According to His riches in glory” (Php_4:19). As the boys at a public school are provided with clothes, pocket-money, etc., more or less liberally as their fathers can afford to do it; each providing for his son “according to his riches,” greater or less. So God “according to His riches.”

(2) “According to your faith,” “according to Thy word”; couple these. See man and God looking into each other’s heart. Man sees the willingness; God sees the want. Utter need here; all supply there. “Help me; fill me!” “Let Me help; let Me fill.” Is all that infinite, ready, pledged fulness, to be constrained, constricted, hindered, measured by, the gauge of man’s faith? An ocean can only pour into the vessel plunged into it what the vessel can hold, or the neck will admit. God promises; God is able to give, abundantly to give; how large is, not the need, but the basket of faith? He is honoured by expecting more from Him. Elizabeth said laughingly to importunate Raleigh, “When will you have done asking?” “When your Majesty has done giving!” God loves that kind of “shamelessness” (Greek of Luk_11:8). Meer Jaffier, Nabob of Bengal, took Clive into his treasury at Moorshedabad, set open before him door after door of treasure-chambers full of gold, silver, gems, and bade him ask for his own present. Clive, when charged in after-years with wrongful enrichment at the expense of native princes, replied, as to this particular instance, “By—, I am astonished at my own moderation. I asked twenty lacs of rupees, when a word would have made it forty.” Paul’s words lead us into God’s treasury of “all grace,” and invite us to ask and receive, that our need may be filled. God is not honoured by any “moderation” in our prayers or faith. There are limits to the literal, crudely conceived “answer” to prayer. God is not merely the obedient worker-out of every erroneous, selfish, or whimsical wish of His people [like the familiar of some mediæval Faust]. But, in the larger view of the purpose and scope of His promise, and provision of “all Grace,” within the wide, all-including, lines of the life of grace, there is nothing needful we may not ask, and should not ask.

May add, IV. “Not as the world giveth give I;” true of the Father as of the Son. World gives such gifts as it has, up to a certain point; sufficient for some surface needs of our nature, and going a certain way; but not “all grace,” nor going all the way, “to the uttermost.” [In the summer days we may do with an empty grate, or gilded shavings; but when the winter time for age and heart come upon men, the world cannot give the real fire which alone can serve the soul’s necessity.]

2Co_9:15. The Unspeakable Gift.—

1. “Unspeakable” a wonderful word. The root is also in “exegesis.” The two-fold prefix to this root is graphic in the idea it suggests. “A gift of whose whole meaning there can be no adequate exegesis,” we might say; or, more exactly, whose whole contents no guide can explore and open up, and exhibit to his fellow-explorers. They may strike paths across the whole extent of thought covered by it; may strike them out in many, intersecting directions. They will discover much; on either side of any path so marked out and followed, will be a wealth of beautiful and helpful truth. But they are never at an end of all discovery. They never will be. Even the study and scrutiny of heaven, with its wider knowledge and appreciation of, not only the facts and the mercy in any individual redeemed life, but of the bearings of the Gift upon the history of our whole Race, and, perhaps, of unknown and unnamed races in other worlds, and that study pursued with new helps, and new powers, and with Himself perpetually before their eyes, will only bring mind and heart back again and again to the same conclusion,—“Unspeakable.”

2.

(1) Stand at the Cross and think backward along the line of His one continuous existence, in glory which He had with His Father before the world was, in the bosom of the Father, before all things began to be through Himself; think forward, as again He leaves the world and goes to the Father, and He assumes the throne of the majesty on high; forward again through, and past, the mysterious moment when He delivers up the kingdom to God, even the Father, only to receive and exercise the more glorious authority of a yet greater, an eternal, kingdom. At the Cross remember that the three-and-thirty years on earth are an episode, a subsection of the whole unbroken life of The Son, stretching backward and forward with the absolute eternity of God. Remember that He is at that point touching His lowest of voluntary kenosis; that that humiliation is the mid-point of the history of the Son of God, obedient, even to this degree, that He should die on a cross, a malefactor, and forsaken even of God. Remember Who He is; why He is there, thus; what it means of self-surrender on His part, and of devoting love (Rom_8:32) on the Father’s part;—“Unspeakable!”

(2) Consider—as He had done—the case of fallen, lost manhood, in its sin; and that sin the source of an outflowing stream of consequent misery, shame, fear, suffering, here; consider how it must have flowed on through eternal ages, broadening, deepening, darkening, and must still flow on, except so far as modified by His grace and its blessed effects. Consider what, in even one redeemed life, here and hereafter; and what in the totality of all redeemed humanity; are the happy effects of that Gift, another stream, broadening, deepening, more and more gloriously bright, through eternal ages. “Unspeakable!” Endeavour to conceive the revolutionising change which would come over, and pervade, everything in human life and in the world’s condition, if now the grace of this Gift, and its whole effect upon Life, History, Providence, Morals, were withdrawn. What a cataclysmic deterioration and ruin of all! The gift which gives so much, and holds back so much,—“Unspeakable!”

(3) Eph_3:10 widens the view almost beyond our grasping. What if the thirty-three years of His earthly life, and if, especially, the Friday afternoon of Calvary, be the central point, around which turns and pivots the history of “the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,” and indeed of the whole creaturely Universe? “Unthinkable,” not to say “Unspeakable!”

3. Yet where is the wonder, when remembered that it is “God’s unspeakable gift”? If He has expressed Himself in it, how can the contents of the gift be put into human thought and language? And, with a more homely turn to the thought, “Such a gift is just like Him,” as said an old believer, of some smaller and yet heart-astonishing mercy. The principle of his words is true of this crowning, consummate gift. Only it is not “like all else He does”; “All else He does is like this.” What shall we not expect after this! (Rom_8:32 again). “All grace, abounding,” indeed! What shall we not do, and give, having such an Example, and debtors for such a mercy!

2Co_9:15. (Alternative suggestion for a Homily.)—We may take the last subsidiary thought suggested by this verse, and follow on this line: “This first, greatest, unspeakable, Gift is a measure of all God’s after-gifts to us. What, how much, may we not expect?”

I. God has thus set a precedent.—The principle lies in Psa_68:10, when the whole verse is quoted. Thus: The deliverance from Egypt was the birthday, and in a sense the greatest day of the nation’s life. It receded farther and farther into the past, but never sank out of sight below the horizon of the national view. The remotest distance of long antiquity never became a dim distance in the case of this event. It stood out, vast, clearly definite. That beginning of all God’s dealings with the covenant nation, as such, fixed the style and the scale of all His dealings with them. The prophets, e.g., who cheered the hopes of the Babylonian exiles, appealed to this. It was a Godlike beginning of their history; every after-step might be expected to be Godlike too. So Calvary and the Lamb of God are in thought, though not in time, the starting-point of God’s redemption for, not one nation, but the race. That was the World’s Passover and Exodus. It had been seen, dimly, from the gate of Eden. It grew clearer as the race, in its four thousand years’ pilgrimage, approached it. We have passed it to-day. Time is leaving it behind. But it, too, does not grow dim in the distance. And we may measure every hope of redemption, every petition for mercy, every request for even temporal deliverance, by that Precedent, The Unspeakable Gift. He began with that! He will not fall below that level!

II. God then began what He designed and desires to finish.—Jesus never more Godlike than when He bowed His head and cried, “It is finished!” Finished work is the characteristic of God’s work. Just as the deliverance from Egypt (Psalm quoted above) was not intended to stand alone, but was the beginning of a great redeeming work whose crowning particular was to be a Settlement in Canaan; so that unspeakable gift and the finished work of Calvary, with its imitative sequel in the new birth in our own heart, was not intended to stand alone. A perfected moral renewal, a life in perfectly renewed surroundings, and fitted for a perfected, eternal service—Holiness in Heaven—was the intended, the implied, sequel of the Gift. “Into Canaan” was the corollary of “out of Egypt.” “Into Holiness, up to Heaven,” is the corollary of the Gift on Calvary. We are only asking, then, for what is in effect provided and assured, when we ask for “all grace abounding,” “all sufficiency,” etc.,—all needful to bring us into all the Holy Consequences, our whole Heritage of blessing. God laid such a glorious Foundation; will He not finish the building?

III. [Is it too human to say it?] God sunk so much—invested so much—in the gift of His Son to our race, that He will not lose all, for lack of following it up. We may “receive the grace of God in vain,” certainly (2Co_6:1). But we may, at all events, count upon Him. It cost that much to bring a believer up to his present point. God will not willingly let go all that the God of the Unspeakable Gift!

2Co_9:15. A subordinate thought may be developed into a Christmas sermon—God’s Unspeakable Gift. The benevolence of Church to Church recalled to Paul’s mind the benevolence of God to a needy, lost world; the root and source of all human benevolence, and especially of all Christian bounty. (Develop as in previous homiletics.) The bounty of the Christmas season necessarily recalls it to us. Christmas is pre-eminently the children’s festival. The overflow of affection to the children at this season is closely connected with the fact that when God blessed the world with His Unspeakable Gift, that Gift was a Child, and not at once a full-grown man. Why? The reason is in its fulness unspeakable, no doubt; past human exegesis. Yet we may see some reasons:—

I. He was thus “grafted into,” “welded to,” the race upon which we spring.—He thus sprang from it also. Cf. the angels. They are so many independent creations of God’s will; men spring generation out of generation. Angels are, probably, from the first all contemporaries in age. We are successive. They are many; we are One. A full-grown Christ sent into the world, would have been one more individual added to the millions of the race; a man with men. But He is born of the race, Man with men. Perhaps He could not really have been our Redeemer had He not thus been of us.

II. His life thus better parallels our spiritual life.—He shares temptation with us; we share the cross with Him. In a Christian life as well as in Christ’s life there are a Crucifixion, a Resurrection, an Ascension into the heavenly places (Eph_2:6, etc.). Our life is hid in God, along with Christ. And to make the parallel—the more than a mere parallel—complete from the first, there is a Birth for Him, as there is a new birth for us. It is only in John’s Gospel that we find the words, “Ye must be born again.” But in the Synoptics Christ put the truth into visible form. “Took a little child and set him in the midst, and said, ‘Except … as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom.” The man enters into the kingdom as a child; he must be born again. The lesson is thus symbolised to the very eye, when we see the King entering the kingdom by the gate of birth. God’s Gift was born into the world.

III. He has thus ennobled humility.—His religion has had to ennoble the word itself. The world scorned the thing and depreciated the word. Christianity brought Humility forth from obscurity, robed her in honourable garments, and made her a queen amongst the virtues, the flower and perfecting of holiness. Socially, Jesus chose to begin at the lowest round of the ladder. The child of a country carpenter’s wife is the Redeemer of the race. Pride cannot live where that fact tells. Pride is subtle; may be strongest in the very class from which Christ sprung. “No pride like poor folks’ pride.” But whether high-class or poor-class pride, it must die in the presence of the fact that God’s Unspeakable Gift made His appearance amongst us, a peasant’s swaddled infant lying helpless in a mere make-shift cradle, a manger in an Eastern khan.

IV. He has thus learned, by living it, a perfect sympathy with our human life, and that from the beginning of it.—Has “skipped” no stage of it, up to manhood’s prime. When man has passed his prime, the forces which make for disintegration and death begin to turn the scale against those which make for recuperation, nutrition, growth, life. The man begins to die from the earliest moment when the balance turns against life. Jesus never passed the point of prime, but in the prime of manhood met Death in its prime of strength and conquered it. From birth to manhood life is victorious; it is the best of our life. And all that best He knew, knew from its beginning. There is no stage of our life—its infancy, its childhood, youth, early years of gathering strength, first years of toil, manhood of breadwinning and responsibility and struggle—which He has not learned to understand, as having lived through it. When we pray for help, He has the sympathy of experience with all stages, even the earliest.

V. Above all, the Gift thus became the children’s Christ.—If Christian children have so happy a Christmas Day, they owe it to Christ. At the very best, no father or mother in heathen lands, of old time or now, quite think of children and deal with them as true Christian parents do. No classical poet ever drew poetry from childhood. Infanticide cannot live in lands where a Christ is known, Who was God’s Unspeakable Gift, and yet was a baby. A baby is a holy thing for His sake. Childhood is a happy time and holy, because of His childhood. Every boy may feel that Christ understands him. And every girl too; for just as no woman ever feels that, because He is a man, Christ does not understand her, so no girl need fear that, because He was a boy, Jesus does not understand her. In His perfect manhood there was perfect childhood, boyhood and girlhood all in Him. Say to the child: “Jesus was once exactly of your age, to a minute; He was exactly your height once, to a hair’s breadth. If you had gone, A.D. 5 or 6, into Nazareth to seek God’s Unspeakable Gift, you would have found a lad of eight or nine at school, wearing a little close-fitting cap, and a loose garment tied round with a sash, sitting on the ground, spelling His letters from a passage copied out of the Hebrew Bible, or writing upon a piece of board with chalk. He understands about going to school, and holidays, and play. He understands children’s troubles, and what children’s sins are, though He never did any. Gentle and obedient, patient and diligent and truthful, we may depend He was; the model of all that is right for boys and girls, as well as for men and women.” God gave His Unspeakable Gift to children.

V. The wonder of it! The central figure of History is Jesus of Nazareth, God’s Christ. When the time was come to bring His Only Begotten into the world, God “took a little Child and set Him in the midst.”

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

XIV.—ADMONITION TO GIVE SPEEDILY, ABUNDANTLY AND CHEERFULLY; THE DIVINE BLESSING UPON THEM AND RESULT OF THE THANKSGIVINGS WHICH WOULD FOLLOW. THANKSGIVING

2Co_9:1-15

1For [indeed, μὲν] as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for meto write to you: 2For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago [from last year, ἀπὸ πέρυσι]; and your zeal [the zeal which proceedeth from you, δ ἐξ ὑμῶν ζῆλος]1 hath provoked very many [the majority, τοὺς πλείονας]. 3Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready: 4Lest haply if they of Macedonia [any Macedonians, Μαχεδόνες] come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say 2 not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting 5[with respect to this confidence].3 Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto 4 you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, [which I have before announced, προεπηγγελμένην]4 that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as 5 of covetousness. 6But this I say [as to this], He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully [with blessings, ἐπ’ εὐλογίαις] shall reap also bountifully [with blessings]. 7Every man according as he purposeth [hath purposed, προῇρηται]6 in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful 8giver. And [But, δὲ] God is able 7 to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having [having always] all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: 9(As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness 10 remaineth forever. Now [But, δὲ] he that ministereth seed8 to the sower both minister bread for your food [supplieth seed to the sower and bread to the eating, will supply], and multiply your seed sown, and increase9 the fruits of your righteousness:) 11Being enriched in everything to all bountifulness [simplicity, ἁπλότητα], which 12causeth through us thanksgiving to God.10 For [Because, ὅτι] the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many 13 thanksgivings unto God; While by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection [since they glorify God on account of the proof which this ministration gives of the subjection which flows from your confession] unto the gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution [the simplicity of your communion, ἁπλότητι τῆς χοινωνίας] unto them and unto all men; 14and by their prayer for you, which long after you for [with prayer also for you, as they long after you on account 15of] the exceeding grace of God in you.11 Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

2Co_9:1-5. For indeed concerning the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you.—The use of γάρ, connecting what is here said with the preceding chapter, and περὶ μέν (instead of περὶ δέ), shows that this chapter could not have been a distinct Epistle, and that the Apostle was not here beginning as it were a new subject (in consequence of a long interruption). It is possible indeed that he had been reviewing what he had written, and now saw that something was needed to complete his thought. However this may have been, he now introduces with most refined delicacy a number of additional particulars, with the remark that he really had no need of writing to them with respect to the collection, for he was well aware of their readiness of themselves. The connection seems to be: “I have no occasion to write to you with reference to a ministration to the necessities of your brethren, but the point to which I would draw your attention is, a kind reception of the messengers from me.” If μέν should be taken as a solitarium [i.e., without a δέ following it], its design must have been to give special prominence to the idea of the ministration (διακονία), in contrast with his commendation of the persons who were to have charge of it. But we see no reason why the δέ in 2Co_9:3 should not be construed in correspondence with this μέν. This ministration, as in 2Co_8:4 (Meyer), signifies, a service of love, including the idea of something which was, a just debt, (a debitum ministerium), Rom_13:8; Heb_6:10; 1Pe_4:10, in conformity to Christ’s example, Mat_20:28, comp. Gal_5:13. Περισσόν means superfluous, for the object I have in view. [What does the Apostle mean was superfluous ? It was either: 1. The writing on the whole subject, notwithstanding the fact that he had written on it and was about to write more; 2. The writing, in contrast with his sending the brethren (2Co_9:5); 3. The writing on the collection itself in contrast with his having written to commend the brethren, and his being about to write of the manner and spirit of the collection]. De Wette enfeebles the expression by making it mean: “I regard it as superfluous.” Τὸ γράφειν is here the subject of the sentence.—For I know your forwardness of which I am boasting concerning you to the Macedonians, that Achaia was ready from last year (2Co_9:2 a). The mention of this readiness (προθυμία) was not a mere fiction of the Apostle for present effect. The commencement of the collection the preceding year (comp. 2Co_8:10 f.) had shown that it was an actual fact, and that the Corinthians only needed encouragement to complete the work as soon as possible. The use of the present tense (καυχῶμαι) shows that the Apostle was still in Macedonia. Ἥν is an accusative with καυχῶμαι as in 2Co_11:30; Pro_27:1. The subject matter of his boasting was that Achaia had been ready the preceding year. The word Ἀχαΐα intimates the extent of his boast and the general prevalence of the Gospel throughout the province which was so called. It shows how confident he was that the whole province was virtually the Lord’s (comp. Osiander). The Apostle implies that they were already prepared to commit their contributions to his hands. On ἀπὸ πέρυσι, comp. 2Co_8:10. He adds—and your zeal hath provoked the majority of them. (2Co_9:2 b.)—The phrase ὁ ἐξ ὑμῶν ζῆλος properly signifies the zeal which proceeded from you, and is a kind of attraction [Winer’s Idioms, § 63]; as if he had said, the zeal which commenced with you, hath provoked, etc., comp. Mat_24:17 et al. The majority (τοὺς πλείονας) indicates that only a small part of the Macedonians remained unaffected by it. In relation to this matter, comp. 2Co_8:3.—But I have sent the brethren, that what we have boasted concerning you might not be made vain in this respect; that as I said, ye may be ready (2Co_9:3). The Apostle intended here to say, that while he had no need to write any thing with reference to the collection itself, inasmuch as he well knew that the Corinthians were entirely willing to contribute, he had nevertheless sent the brethren (chap. 16ff.) that they might have every thing in actual readiness, and that he might not be ashamed of what he had been confidently boasting of them among the Macedonians. Neander: Paul had doubtless said in Macedonia that the Corinthians were prepared to contribute the year before; this had inflamed the zeal of the Macedonians, and he now felt that it was needful to exhort the Corinthians not to disappoint his hopes concerning them. The words τὸ καύχημα—ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν are in themselves general, and include everything of which he had boasted of them, but it is afterwards confined to the matter in hand by ἐν τῷ μέρει τούτῳ (in this respect). This limitation of the possibility of failure to that single point shows how confident he was that his general boast respecting them could not be broken down. Estius very properly calls this “acris cum tacita laude exhortatio.” That ye may be ready contains the positive, and lest our boasting should be in vain, the negative part of this sentence.—Lest perchance, if any Macedonians should come with me and should find you unprepared. (2Co_9:4 a)—Ἲνα is here used as in Rom_7:13, and twice in Gal_3:14. The anxiety he had just intimated he here expresses more definitely, but in a very delicate manner, by the adverb μήπως, which is in this place equivalent to ne forte in 2Co_9:4. He means, if any Macedonians should come as his companions (2Co_1:16). [The persons here spoken of are evidently not those whom he had described in 2Co_7:16-16 and 2Co_9:3, and hence some have concluded that these last could not have been Macedonians. It was yet uncertain whether any would accompany him. But as Corinth was then a great commercial as well as religious centre, some might reasonably be expected to go]. On ἡμεῖς comp. 2Co_9:3. We, not to say you, should be put to shame in the matter of this confidence. (ver.4 b).—We are not to regard this little parenthesis (we say not ye, ἵνα μη λέγωμεν ὑμεῖς), as a mere pleasantry, but on the other hand as a delicate attempt to stimulate their feelings of self-respect; since the shame would indeed be theirs if the Apostle’s expression of confidence in them should not be borne out in fact. W. F. Besser:—“In this little sentence we may discover the extreme delicacy of Paul’s feelings, and the affectionate civility which characterized his intercourse, but which are especially prominent in this most personal of all his Epistles.” The ὑπόστασις is simply the confidence which had been expressed in the boasting. Comp. 2Co_11:17; Heb_11:1, and frequently in the Sept., but the word has not here precisely the sense of, business, thing. The Corinthians would be put to shame should they not come up to what the Apostle confidently expected of them. [He had stimulated the Macedonians by saying that the Corinthians had begun the collection, and then when he found that the Corinthians had not finished their contribution according to his expectation and his boast of them, he very properly stimulated the Corinthians by telling them that the Macedonians had completed their collection. He had boasted that the Corinthians were “prepared” the last year for the collection, and yet now he found it necessary to send deputies to have them “prepared” for delivering it up]. In all this there is surely no ground for suggesting that Paul was acting a cunning part, or was conforming to the shrewd policy of the world (Rückert); or that he here exhibits something of human infirmity (de Wette) Comp. Meyer, Osiander. And yet we may properly concede and maintain that he here shows most consummate art.—I therefore thought it necessary to exhort the brethren that they would go before to you, and make up beforehand the bounty I have already promised (2Co_9:5 a).—The Apostle here brings out with more particularity the business of the deputies he was sending. Οῦν, in accordance with what he had just said, signifies, in order to prevent our being ashamed. The πρὸ in προέλθωσιν signifies, before the arrival of myself and the Macedonians. Προεπηγγελμένην signifies, before promised by me (comp. 2Co_9:2 ff.) not announced to you [as in the Eng. vers.] or promised by you. [Dr. Hodge thinks it means what the Corinthians had promised. We are nowhere told of such a promise, though the confident expectations of the Apostle had some reasonable foundation. As we suppose this to have been his information respecting them, and as we are informed of the Apostle’s promise to the Macedonians respecting them, we prefer to refer προεπηγ. to what he had said in 2Co_9:2. The thrice repeated προ (in composition) shows the Apostle’s extreme forethought]. Ταὐτην ἐτοίμην εὶναι designates the result aimed at in the προκαταπτίσωσι τὴν εὐλογίαν—that the same may be ready in the manner of a blessing, and not as a covetousness. (2Co_9:5 b.)—With this designation of their gift or their benificence as a εὐλογία in the sense of an act of love produced by Divine grace, after the example of God and directed to the welfare of men, in which one gives cheerfully and with full hand, according to ability, he now connects an admonitory hint, that it should be so given as to appear a blessing, and not an act of covetousness. As εὐλογία includes essentially the idea of an abundance, so does πλεουεξία that of scantiness; but of what these consist is not necessarily implied in the words themselves. Neander takes εὐλογία as if it corresponded with the Hebrew בְּרָכָה (blessing) and signified, a communication of some good, and then a token of affection; and πλεονεξία as meaning covetousness, extortion, something extorted. W. F. Besser:—“This contribution to the common benefit of the Church may be called a blessing in two respects: first, as a gift from God, inasmuch as it was the result of His grace in the hearts of His people (2Co_8:1), and secondly, as an offering to God, but deposited in the hands of His poor.” [In the English version εὐλογία is translated “bounty,” but this fails of bringing out the idea of good will on the part of the giver. The Greek word signifies etymologically, a blessing by word, and to this was added, by Hellenistic usage, the idea of a blessing by action, by a present (Gen_33:11; Jdg_1:15; comp. Pro_11:25). Οὔτως is not redundant, but draws attention to the following εὐλογίαν, as if it were to be taken in its peculiar signification; with ὡς it signifies, so as, in the manner of]. The whole phrase, οό̓τως ὠς, etc., relates to the special character of the gift: i.e., it should be an act of real benevolence, liberally dispensing what it has, and not of covetousness, withholding as much as possible, from a regard to self alone. [The context shows that the givers and not those collecting the gifts are here alluded to (inasmuch as these collectors might be actuated by a covetous spirit and extort from the people). If we take the expression in its utmost strictness, it signifies the laying down of a small amount, because the giver wishes to reserve more than he needs for himself. [Theophyl:—“As if he were over-reached by some one, or cheated out of it.” Dr. Clarke thinks there is an allusion to the two kinds of chests which were set for alms in the Temple: the one for what the law required as necessary for every one, the other for the free-will offerings. To the one all men gave, because they were obliged to do so, but to the other those only gave who had pity on the poor]. But the Apostle explains his meaning more fully in vv.6, 7, where he traces the course of each giver to its proper result, and reminds his readers that even the costliest gift has no value in the sight of God, if it is not given with a benevolent and cheerful spirit.

2Co_9:6-7. But as to this, He that sows sparingly shall reap sparingly, and he that sows with blessings shall reap with blessings.—The τοῦτο has sometimes been referred to ὁ σπείρων, as if it designated this kind of seed [he who sows this sparingly, Meyer]; but this would require an inappropriate emphasis upon τοῦτο. Others, therefore, [as our English version does] supply λέγω, or φημί; but every where else the Apostle in similar cases gives us the verb itself (1Co_7:29; 1Co_15:50; Gal_3:17). Others supply ἐστιν in the sense of this is as if, (σὕτως έ̓χει). But to avoid a feeble construction, it seems better to take it (with Meyer) as an accus. absol. “as to this, viz., that it ought to be ὠς εὐλογία and not ὠς πλεονεξία, he which,” etc. He connects φειδομένως in sense with καὶ μὴ ὡς πλεονεξίαν, and places it at the beginning of the sentence. On σπείρειν—θερίζειν, comp. 1Co_9:11; Gal_6:7 ff.; Pro_19:17. [In almost all recent copies of the English authorized version, the word also has twice crept into this verse as a gloss]. He who does good sparingly shall have a corresponding recompense, a participation but sparingly in the blessings of salvation, i.e., an inferior (it is not said, no) reward of grace. In contrast with this stands ἐπ̓ εὐλογίαις σπείρειν and θερίζειν, where the second ἐπ̓ εὐλογίαις, for the sake of emphasis, follows immediately after the first. Ἐπ̓ εὐλογίαις has the sense of, abundantly [though this misses the idea of its being a gift of love, Alford], either: with blessings (the relation being in the thing itself), the blessings which he gives and receives; or: for blessings, with a view to blessings, and the blessings which he shall receive, [Alford: “this will not suit the second ἐπ̓ ευλογ”] Neander (on the ground that εὐλογία involves the collateral idea of a voluntary gift of affection), paraphrases it, “he who sows in such a way, that it is seen to be a gift of love.” [Stanley: Ἐπ’, on the condition, these are the terms on which we give, as in Luk_6:38, comp. 1Co_9:10]. The plural gives increased force to the idea of abundance. A similar contrast may be noticed in Prov. 9:24. [Beza notices a triple Hebraism in the phrase ἐπ̓ εὐλογίαις: 1, in the use of ἐπὶ with a noun when the whole has an adverbial signification, as “in justitia,” for justly; 2, in calling the act of charity εὐλογία, with reference to the Heb, נְדָבָה free-will offerings; 3, in using the plural for emphasis. We may also notice the variety of euphemisms by which the contribution is designated in this whole section according to the side from which it is viewed. With reference to its source, it is χάρις; in its relation to the church’s life, it is κοινωνία; in its relation to public servants, it is διακονία; in its beneficial purposes, it is εὐλογία; and as a public act of piety it is a λειτουργία]. The Romish doctrine of merit is one entirely foreign to our text, and totally inconsistent with Paul’s spirit.—Let each one give as he hath before purposed in his heart, not grudgingly, nor of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. (2Co_9:7.)—The verb δότω must be supplied from ὁ σπείρων and δότην as the predicate of έ̓καστος. Καθὼς προαιρεῖται, as his heart freely prompts him. The definite purpose with respect to the amount each one would give, the Apostle supposes to be already formed when he comes to give, though in 2Co_9:6 he had spoken of it as in the future (Meyer). In contrast with this cheerful, free self-determination, he places another which springs ἐκ λύπη, ἐξ ἀνάγκης.indicates the source from which the gift proceeds: a morose, gloomy frame of mind, properly a sadness at parting with what it gives; or, from compulsion, as when a man gives from necessity, because he cannot avoid it (comp. Philem, 2Co_9:14). W. F. Besser: It is one of the secondary results of the factions which prevailed at Corinth, that Paul was thus induced to warn us against all undue compulsion in charitable collections, and to admonish us in such matters to give with sincere pleasure; for nothing more completely poisons an act of charity than a manifest spirit of rivalry or a mere love of distinction.” To encourage them in this cheerful contribution, he reminds them of a Scriptural expression which, however, is not fully quoted. By way of emphasis, and for a more striking contrast with λύπη and ἀνάγκη, the ἱλαρόν of the concluding sentence is placed at the commencement (comp. ἐν ἱλαρότητι in Rom_12:8). The passage here thus freely quoted, is an addition to the original by the Septuagint in Pro_22:8 : Ἄνδρα ἱλαρὸν καὶ δότην εὐλογεῖ (var. ἀγαπᾷ) ὁ θεός. Comp. ἀγαπᾷ with εὐπρόσδεκτος in 2Co_8:12.

2Co_9:8-11.—And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye having always all sufficiency in everything, may have an abundance for every good work. (2Co_9:8).—Having admonished them to be bountiful and cheerful in their contribution he here assures them, that God could and would amply bless them in it, and that they had abundant reason to be of good cheer and confide in Him. It was 2Co_9:8 which induced Francke to build the Orphan’s House at Halle.12 Δυνατός is emphatic at the commencement of 2Co_9:8 : He can, and of course he will do it. Δέ introduces another element in the matter viz: the power of Him who takes pleasure in a joyful giver, to provide for him abundantly. It is a question whether χάρις includes merely bodily or only spiritual benefits, or whether it may not embrace both. Πᾶσαν is in favor of the latter view, and the detailed statements which are given seem to demand some reference to bodily things. Besser: “God can bestow upon us abundantly, not only the grace which makes us rejoice in the Lord and so prepares us to give with joyful hearts (2Co_8:2), but the grace which bestows on us that abundance of earthly blessings and that prosperity which enables us to give so liberally.” ΙΙερισσεῦσαι as in 2Co_4:15 must be taken in a transitive sense. The accumulation of such words as ἐν παντὶ, πάντοτε and πᾶσαν in this sentence is very emphatic, and is similar to another in Php_1:3 ff. Αὐτάρκεια must here be construed in an objective sense as meaning a sufficiency. ΙΙᾶσα αὐτάπκεια signifies a condition which warrants us in being perfectly contented, a sufficient subsistence even for corporeal comfort. Meyer makes it have reference to a subjective habit of the mind, i.e., the ethical condition which prepared them to abound unto every good work; such a satisfaction with their condition as would make them always contented, comp. 1Ti_6:6, Php_4:11. The more particular definitions, however, which he proceeds to give (ἐν παντὶ—πᾶσιν, as well as έ̓χουτες) seem more agreeable to the objective explanation; and the “abounding to every good work,” (which cannot mean, in an ethical sense, merely a growth in benevolence, but beneficence in an abundant degree), is that to which the full sufficiency could and should lead; indeed it was precisely that state in which notwithstanding its deep poverty a περισσεύειν was said to take place (2Co_8:2). The correct way seems to be, to take all these expressions, grace, sufficiency and good work, in a general sense, so as to include even the corporeal or earthly condition. Every good work would therefore mean any act which tends to accomplish the divine purposes, and to promote the kingdom of God; and which dispenses benefits of a corporeal nature to brethren in distress. This ought to be the outflowing of that complete sufficiency, which is secured by divine grace in every department of life, even in respect to corporeal affairs.—In 2Co_9:9 he illustrates what he had thus said by another Scriptural passage from Psa_112:9.—As it is written, He scattered abroad, he gave to the poor, his righteousness abides forever.—The person respecting whom this had been said was the pious man. Σκορπίζειν, which occurs also in Joh_10:12; Joh_16:32, signifies to scatter, here to scatter abroad (as in sowing), and it has the sense of abundantly distributing on every side. Bengel: “Without anxious thought in what direction every grain may fall.” ΙΙένης signifies one who works for his daily bread (πέυομαι) [one not so poor as πτωχός, who lives on alms, but one who has nothing superfluous, Webster p. 227] therefore one who is poor and needy. It occurs no where else in the New Testament. Δικαιοσύνη is not the merit which is gained as the result or the reward of well doing, but the righteousness or good conduct itself. It signifies here especially that which is seen when one does good (not immediately, beneficence, at least not in the sense of that which is the cause of justification, since it is rather the result of justification; comp. Gal_5:6; Gal_5:22, Col_3:12 ff.). Beneficence is called δικαιοσύνη (comp. 2Co_9:10 and Mat_6:1), “because it is an act of justice, not to retain for our own exclusive use, what God has given to all in common” (Ambros.). Ewald: “To the extent in which our free alms is the fruit of a higher feeling of love and righteousness, it is no doubt called צְדָקָח in Pro_10:2; Pro_11:4.” To remain forever implies not merely a permanent reputation among men, but the everlasting continuance of righteousness, blessing us with its loving spirit not only in the present life, but glorifying us and blessing us with the same spirit as a gracious reward through eternal ages (comp. 1Jn_2:17). [On εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, consult Trench, Synn. 2d Ser. pp. 35–41.]—What Paul had described in 2Co_9:8 as only a possible thing on God’s part, he speaks of in 2Co_9:10 as though it were surely to be expected.—But he who supplies seed for the sower, and bread for the eating, will supply and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;—In these words of Isaiah (in which only ἐπιχορηγεῖν, to furnish, to grant, is substituted for the διδόναι of the Sept.) he describes God as the source from which these things were to be expected. He leads us to expect in the economy of grace and in the government of the church something analogous to what God is continually doing in the economy of nature. [Wordsworth: χορηγέω was properly said of a wealthy person supplying the requisite funds for the equipment and training of a tragic χορὸς. Hence with the accus. and the dat., it came to mean to supply anything for a purpose. Ἐπὶ sometimes implies a supply of one thing after another. Comp. 2Pe_1:5. Dr. Clarke thinks the verb here has some allusion to its early meaning: to lead a chorus, and that God is represented as leading up the grand chorus of causes and effects, and providing for the whole host of benevolent workers in His kingdom.] The participal sentence extends not merely to τῷ σπείροντι but to βρῶσιν, for not only does the symmetry of our sentence demand this, but the passage in Isaiah requires it. [Our English translators have generally followed the received Greek text, which reads χορηγήσαι, πληθὐναι and αὐξήσαι in the optative instead of the futures χορηγήσει, πληθυνεῖ and αὐξήσει. They have also followed the Vulgate and joined καὶ ἄρτον εἰς βρῶσιν with the subsequent verb. In this way the whole becomes a prayer of the Apostle for his Corinthian brethren: “May he who ministers seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown.” This seems unsupported not only by external but by internal evidence; for Paul was aiming to supply reasons and motives to liberality, on the ground that no one would lose or be straitened on account of large contributions. Not a prayer, but a promise was needful for this.] Corresponding with the supply of the seed to the sower is the assurance that the same Being would bestow upon them and multiply for them that which would be necessary to their sowing, i.e. to their work of beneficence. This has reference not merely to their future doings as a consequence of; or as a Divine blessing upon; their present liberality (Rückert); but, as the context and aim of the writer evidently require, to the benefaction then in progress (comp. δἰ ἡμῶν in 2Co_9:11). It is not till we come to the second member of the sentence, that we find the blessing upon the future action exclusively referred to: and will increase the fruits of your righteousness. This corresponds to the bread for eating, and the whole signifies: As God makes the scattered seed grow until it brings forth fruit and so gives bread for the eating (βπῶσις signifies the act of eating), so will He bless your sowing, your work of beneficence, and cause the fruits of your good conduct to increase. The fruits of righteousness correspond to the bread before spoken of, in the enjoyment of which the reward of diligence in sowing is acquired. The expression (in the sense of καρπὸς δικ.) occurs also in Hos_10:12. But are we here to regard it as applicable to spiritual or worldly blessings? In the latter sense it would correspond with the interpretation we have given above to 2Co_9:8. With great propriety the ancient church selected vv.6–10 for being read on the day appointed for the commemoration of St. Laurentius (Aug. 10).13—Being enriched in everything unto all simplicity which works out through us thanksgiving to God.—In this verse the Apostle gives some additional particulars which may assist in determining his meaning. We have an anacoluthon, in which the participle stands as a nominative, like εἰδότες in 2Co_1:7, as if ὐμεῖς had been expressed in 2Co_9:10. A similar construction may be seen in Col_3:16.—There is no need of supplying ἐστέ [so that the sentence shall read: ye shall be enriched, etc.] for the connection with 2Co_9:8 would not be suitable. As vv.9 and 10 have an obvious connection with 2Co_9:8, they cannot be taken as a parenthesis. [Our English A. V. regards 2Co_9:9 f. as a parenthesis, but in serts no ἐστέ, for it regards πλουτιζ. as an independent nominative. It is better to connect it (not with 2Co_9:8 but) with the verse immediately before it: “God will increase the fruits of your righteousness (i.e. your resources), being enriched” (i.e. so that ye shall be enriched) etc. Hodge.] Ἐν παντί shows that their being enriched was in the most comprehensive sense of the word, and it is implied that πᾶσα ἁπλότης, in the sense of perfect simplicity (2Co_8:2) was to be the result (though not precisely the designed object) of the enrichment. The Divine blessing upon those who sincerely loved their brethren and cheerfully assisted them in time of trouble, would be seen in their becoming rich in all spiritual and temporal blessings. The final result would be such a perfect simplicity or singleness of heart, and such a pure benevolence as knows nothing of selfish interests or painful forebodings, and manifests itself in a free and ample supply of others wants. [The word “bountifulness” in our version hardly expresses this.] Such a simplicity is not only the fruit of an abundant spiritual life, but is an actual experience which blesses even with temporal benefits those who kindly endeavor to alleviate the distresses of their brethren. In the relative sentence which works through us, etc., the Apostle comes back to the collection which had its origin and support in this ἁπλότης, and he gives prominence to one result of this simplicity which admirably corresponded to its origin, (2Co_8:1), inasmuch as it produced a spirit of thanksgiving to God. Ἥτις is here probably not causal, in the sense of quippe quæ, but equivalent to ἥ. It is thus like ὅστις, as commonly used in the later prose; or it is equivalent to: something which was working. In δἰ ἡμῶν Paul refers to himself and his assistants in the work of collection, since it was through their hands that the gift would be communicated and the receivers would thus be induced to give God thanks. Τῶ θεῷ is by some made dependent upon κατεργάζεται (for, or in behalf of God), but it is better to make it dependent upon εὐχαριστίαν, inasmuch as the construction of the verb will then be preserved (Meyer: a dative of appropriation).—The reason for this thanksgiving he finds (2Co_9:12) in the collection then in progress.

2Co_9:12-15.—Because the ministration of this service supplieth not only the wants of the saints, but also abounds through many thanksgivings unto God.—Neander: “The Apostle here brings forward another motive for their cheerful contribution, in the material and moral benefits which the saints at Jerusalem would derive from it.” The ministration spoken of was not the service which Paul and his associates performed when they took charge of the collection, but as in 2Co_9:13, the service of those who took part in the contribution itself, Τῆς λειτουργίας ταύτης shows more particularly that it was something done for the Christian community (comp. Rom_15:27; Php_2:25). The ministration, therefore, which consists in such a service must be of the same nature (Meyer: the work of distributing the alms). Whether such a word implies that this friendly service was an act of worship, or such a sacred performance as to deserve the name of an oblation (comp. Php_4:18; Heb_13:16), may be left in doubt.14 In this inference the Apostle intended to say that the ministration of which he was speaking would not only supply a want of the saints (προσαναπληροῦσα being strictly equivalent to: supplying by addition, 2Co_11:9), but would overflow through many thanksgivings toward God, or would cause such thanksgiving to ascend in great abundance. Here also τψ͂ θεψ͂ is governed, not by περισσεν́ουσα, but by εὐχαριστιῶν. [See T. Lewis’ explanation and illustration of this text in The Divine and Human in the Scriptures, p. 339.—As they glorify God on account of the proof which this ministration gives of the subjection which flows from your confession of the Gospel Of Christ (2Co_9:13 a). The Apostle here does nothing more than to define with more particularity what he had just said, but with a connection of the participle similar to that which we have seen in 2Co_9:11; as if he had written in 2Co_9:12 : in consequence of the fact that many give thanks, etc. Διά points out the external medium (i.e., the occasion) of a thing; in this place of the δοξάζειν, etc. [They (the thankful recipients) glorifying God when the proof which this ministration gives, etc.]. The attempt to bring this word into immediate connection with 2Co_9:12 is arbitrary and unnatural (comp. Osiander and Meyer). By δοκιμῆς (2Co_8:2) we must understand either the evidence which this service would give that the Corinthians were approved, or the evidence which this service would give that the distribution itself was right and just, i.e., that it was such as might be expected from the Christian standard οf benevolence (Meyer after Theophylact: δοὰ τῆς δοκίμου ταύτης καὶ μεμαρτνρημένης ἐπὶ φιλανθρωπία διακονίας). In behalf of the latter view may be alleged the most natural signification of the words, and the fact that with ἐπί is introduced a reason for thanksgiving which related to the Corinthians. It may be added that the δοκιμή must have been also a test of the Corinthians. That which was the object of their thanksgiving is said to be the ὑποταγὴ τῆς ὁμολογίας ὑμῶν. In Hellenistic Greek, ὁμολογίαsignifies: confession (not: agreement, comp. 1Ti_6:12; Heb_3:1; Heb_4:14; Heb_10:23), and it is the word for the way in which faith is outwardly expressed or made known (comp. Rom_10:9 f.). Εὶς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον may therefore be joined with it, analogously with πὶστις εἰς χριστὸν, πιστεύειυ—εἰς τὸ φῶς, and similar phrases. We should indeed have expected the article (τῆς) before εἰς τὸ εὐαγ. to give it more definiteness, but we ought not to regard this as indispensable, inasmuch as we find every where great liberty in the use of it. Comp. Winer, § 19, 2. The same is true with respect to τῆς κοινωυίς εὶς αὐτούς, where the article is in like manner absent, and the same would still be true if we were to join εἰς τὸ ευαγγ. with ὐπακοῇ, so that the phrase should mean a complying or obedient disposition toward the Gospel; in which case τῆς ὀμολογίας would appear to be the source of the ὐπακοή: on account of the obedience which results from your confession. On the other hand, by joining ὁμολογίας with εἰς τὸ εὐαγγ., the ὀμολογία may be regarded also as the object of the ὐπακοή, so that the idea shall be: since ye are obedient to your confession. [Beza, whom our A. V. follows, gives to the genitive the force of a participle, and renders τῇ ὑποτ.τῆς ὁμολ.ὑμῶν: “your professed subjection.” Doddridge, however, well remarks, that “the words express not merely a professed, but a real subjection to the Gospel which was professed”]. But the confession towards, or with reference to, the Gospe1 (=the confession directed to the Gospel), is the confession of a faith in which love completely sacrifices itself for another’s good (comp. 2Co_8:9), and it therefore essentially requires that those who make it should cherish and put forth a similar love (comp. 1Jn_3:6). Correspondent with this confession is the ὑπακοή of which the Apostle here speaks. Another reason for this thanksgiving is given in the words—And for the simplicity of your communion with them and with all. (2Co_9:13 b.)—Κοιςωυία, as in 2Co_8:4, means the practical communion which is shown in the communication of aid. Εἰς shows the direction in which this proceeds. The addition of ἐις πάντας was probably intended to suggest that it was well known generally and possibly among the Christians at Jerusalem, that the Corinthians were in the habit of sympathizing, in a practical way, and especially by a hospitable reception in their city, with Christians of every country. That those Jewish Christians should have concluded that the Corinthians were equally liberal to all simply because they were liberal to such distant brethren, does not seem equally probable. The connection of εἰς το Ìεὐαγγέλιον and εἰς αὐτοὺς, etc., with δσξαζοντεζ in the sense of: they glorify God, with reference to the Gospel, to themselves and to all (Meyer), has something very feeble and forced about it. Such a connection is required neither by the want of the article (see above) nor by the εἰς, inasmuch as this preposition fits very well here as expressive of tendency or direction; and might, according to the analogy of other words, be very properly substituted for the dative after ὁμολογίας and κοινωνίας. [The sense of the whole would then be: “they who receive such a proof as this ministration gives, will give glory to God for your obedience to the confession you have made with respect to the Gospel of Christ, and for the common fellowship with them and with all Christians which your single-hearted liberality displays.”]—Since they also, with prayer for you, long after you on account of the exceeding grace of God toward [among] you (2Co_9:14). It is somewhat difficult to decide with which of the previous sentences this verse ought to be connected. Against its connection with 2Co_9:12, it may be objected, 1, the extreme length of the intervening 2Co_9:13; 2 Corinthians 2, that διά does not stand before δεήσεως as it does before εὐχαριστιῶν, etc.; 3, that αὐτῶν stands emphatically at the head of the sentence, but on this construction has no special emphasis. If we connect it with 2Co_9:13, supplying ἐπί before δεήσει as previously before ἀπλότητι, it seems strange that they should be said to give glory to God for their own prayers; and to obviate this the language can hardly be made to signify the hearing of their prayers. We should prefer to connect it with δοξάζοντες in such a way as to point out the manner in which they give glory to God: not only by their thanksgiving (vv.12, 13) but by their intercessions. It must be conceded, however, that such a construction is somewhat harsh. The best way, therefore, probably is to take αὐτῶν ἐπιποθούντων together as a genitive absolute, (for we find this common enough with classical writers, where there is no distinction of subject), so that the meaning should be: “they, also, with prayers (i.e., in the midst of prayers) for you, longing after you, etc. There is nothing really forced or impertinent in this definition of ἐπιποθεῖν by δεήσει; it is rather a delicate way of hinting at the pious spirit which prompted this longing. There is an apparent inappropriateness in this word ἐπιποθεῖς, inasmuch as the churches could never be expected to come personally together. Some have, therefore, given it the meaning, cordially to love; but no example of such a meaning has been adduced. Nowhere else in the Scriptures is a meeting together of Christians in the future world (αἰὼν μέλλων) spoken of in this way as an object of Christian yearning. Neander takes ἐπιποθεῖν to be the ardent longing which is prompted by Christian love to have a better personal acquaintance with other Christians, and hence the final aim of this benevolent contribution may have been, to bring these Jewish Christians to acknowledge the Gentile Christians as their brethren in the kingdom of God. We must, however, remember that in the present case the more complete fellowship and the more animated enjoyment of common spiritual blessings in the church were actually brought about by means of personal intercourse through deputies. This is hinted at in the reason which is immediately subjoined: διὰ τὴν ὑπερβάλλουσαν χάριν ἐφ ὑμῖν. ̓Επί here designates them as the persons among whom Divine grace was active, and it is to be connected with ὑπερβάλλουσαν. The idea then would be: on account of the grace of God which superabounds towards you, i.e., because the grace of God is superabundant among or upon you. The charitable contribution was only one out of many streams flowing from this riches of grace (Osiander). As the Apostle contemplated this abundant result of Divine grace in the Corinthian Church, there arose from his deepest soul an outburst of holy thankfulness, to which he now gives expression.—Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift (2Co_9:15).—in this exclamation we need not suppose that he was endeavoring to repress some feeling of self-gratulation which he apprehended might spring up in the hearts of the. Corithians on account of what he had just said. The “unspeakable gift of God” was not strictly or exclusively the fortunate result which God had brought about by means of the collection, for the expression is rather too strong for such an application. The Apostle’s mind was evidently upon the great gift of redemption with all its rich results; (especially) in the church where was found that simple spirit of benevolence, on which depended all the good results of which he had been speaking. But the entire spiritual blessing which he expected from God’s grace included the particular effect of Divine grace or the especial blessing which God’s love had conferred on them. (The difference between Meyer’s and Osiander’s exposition on this point is not essential).

[Stanley: “In these four last verses the Apostle throws himself forward into the time when at Jerusalem he should receive the thanks of the Jewish Christians for this contribution, and thereby witness the completion of the harmony between the Jewish and Gentile Churches. Hence the impassioned thanksgiving for what else seems an inadequate occasion. Compare the abrupt introduction of similar thanksgivings in Rom_9:5; Rom_11:33-36; 1Co_15:57; Gal_1:5; Eph_3:20; 1Ti_1:17”].

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. As god looks upon the heart, the acceptableness of an act of benevolence in His sight depends upon the cheerfulness with which it is rendered, upon the degree in which those who are filled with Divine love find a real pleasure in relieving those who are in want. This inward delight will be shown in the pleasant manner with which the outward act is accompanied, and the receiver will thus be satisfied that the giver is glad to be called upon, and to be able to perform a duty which a God of goodness has committed to him. Where this spirit is wanting, and it is evident that the man gives with a painful reluctance, from a regard only to the expectations of others, from a vain ambition not to fall behind those of equal or less wealth, or from the urgent importunities of others, the gift will have no value in God’s sight, however costly it may be. But a cheerful heart will always make an open hand; whatever the man has will be freely dispensed, with no close or anxious calculations of the amount, if he can only be sure of doing good, and of relieving or removing the necessities of his fellow-men. Accordingly God has declared that everything sown in this spirit shall bring forth a corresponding harvest, that those who give from necessity, sparingly, unwillingly, or half willingly, shall have a proportionate gain, and that those who give cheerfully and liberally shall have showered upon them an abundance not only of spiritual but of temporal blessings. As the result of both these kinds of blessing, the cheerful giver will acquire that noble and perfect simplicity which more completely surrenders everything to One who never fails to supply every want, and which is more and more unwearied in works of beneficence. And not only is he himself thus prospered, but (what is far more important) many hearts which are refreshed by his bounty will overflow with thankfulness, and will give glory to God; a loving fellowship will spring up between the giver and the receiver; and the spiritual life of each will be quickened and strengthened.

[2. It has sometimes been questioned whether this promise, (vv.8–10) is fully borne out by observation and experience. Not to dwell, however, upon the fact that the Apostle is in this place only laying down what might be expected from God’s power, and leaves undecided the question whether that power will always be put forth in every specific case, we may suggest that the Apostle is merely giving the general tendency and result of righteousness (Hodge). It will be, however, time enough to show that our passage will admit of exceptions, when a case of failure has been produced.

3. The power of all active beneficence in promoting the Church’s unity and common life.—Paul’s earnestness in the matter of this collection was quite disproportionate to its importance as an isolated fact. He was evidently looking far beyond it to the kind feelings and fellowship which such a work was fitted to promote. There had been, and there still was, great danger of a rupture between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. Paul evidently anticipated much from this collection, in smoothing down any asperities which had already become apparent.

4. It is evident that a community of goods (whatever it may have been) did not preserve the Church at Jerusalem from poverty and want. Clearly it had never been compulsory nor absolutely universal, and was only for the occasion on which so many strangers were in Jerusalem. As a requirement, it seems only to have been that each one should hold all that he had subject to the call of necessity. (See on Act_4:34-37). Probably then, and certainly ever since, the apostolic rule was, “not an absolute uniformity, but a mutual coöperation and assistance.” (Stanley).

5. The community of love laid down in this section would preserve the whole Church from want. In the great body there would be “always an all-sufficiency in all things”, and with such a spirit it would be faithfully applied.

6. The Apostle clearly distinguishes between spiritual and temporal blessings.—The Corinthians might sow the one and not reap the other. We may sow much love and self-sacrifice, and reap abundantly the reward of such a sowing in kind, i.e., in their spiritual results, but reap very little of pecuniary or temporal gain. “What Paul promised these Corinthians was: 1, the love of God (2Co_9:7); 2, a spirit abounding in every good work (2Co_9:8); thanksgiving on their behalf (vv.11–13). A noble harvest! but all spiritual.” (F. W. Robertson). God might or might not give of His infinite sufficiency and ability (2Co_9:8), for their temporal wealth.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Starke:

2Co_9:1. Confidence and admonition may very properly exist together, the one in view of an honorable and upright character, and the other because many need a preparation for their duties.

2Co_9:2. A good beginning is not always sure of a good ending; we must therefore admonish one another and pray that we may continue diligent in every good work (1Th_3:2).—Hedinger:—Commendable solicitude to observe accuracy in all we say; and to fulfil all we engage to do; without this, our words are only vain boasting. Away with this

2Co_9:4. We should be careful to have good reasons when we praise another, otherwise both parties may only be brought to greater shame.—Ibid: Support of the poor, and support of pastors. Plead and pray for them! Oh, if all who are in comfortable circumstances would but remember how much their doing good has to do with God’s blessing! Their ability to do good is His blessing, and they ought to be the hand by which He blesses others, only that they themselves may be more blessed (2Co_9:6; 2Co_9:9). The covetous man only betrays himself by pretending to give liberally; for he gives only a little according to his ability, and this with evident reluctance and low motives.

2Co_9:6. Every thing we have is from God; the more we have, the more readily, abundantly and joyfully should we communicate for the relief of others, with no expectation of a reward. And yet it is not wrong to have an eye to those promises which are a token of God’s great love and readiness to help us in our weakness (Heb_10:35; Heb_11:26).—Ibid: Alms given merely by commandment are a kind of forced sins, transferred and deposited to our account. Gifts bestowed with curses bring no blessings or reward.

2Co_9:7. A generous love of our neighbor is like ripe clusters of grapes, whose sweet juices flow forth by their own force. It can scarcely be appealed to before its cheerful response is ready. Without such a love men must be hard pressed before they yield any thing, and the little that comes forth is soured by complaints and murmurings.

2Co_9:8. Hedinger:—Nothing bestowed upon Christ’s members is lost; and yet look well that no sighs adhere to your gifts! If it does not properly belong to you, it cannot be acceptable. To offer what rightfully belongs to another, is very fitly called, skinning your neighbor and hanging his hide up in the temple for God.—Christian virtues are joined together like the links of a chain. He is a perfect Christian who fails in no part of his duties. 2Co_9:9. Spener:—Genuine love is careful to bestow its bounty upon such persons and in such a way that goodness shall not encourage wickedness; but the hand which freely scatters must not be fettered with too many scruples, if only the worthy are not overlooked. Blessed are the merciful whose care reaches to the soul as well as to the body, to eternity as well as to time (Mat_5:7).

2Co_9:10. Hedinger:—The sower not unfrequently scatters on the soil what little seed he has, and with painful anxiety hopes for a plentiful harvest. Such a harvest God has promised to those who sow liberally (in well doing), and are moved by love to men and a desire to serve God.

2Co_9:11. God is the true centre from which all lines of blessing diverge, and in which all benevolent actions again converge in grateful thanksgivings.

2Co_9:12. How much good springs from love! It preserves the life of Christ’s members, and turns their hearts into altars of incense where God is adored.

2Co_9:13. The confession of a true faith and the overflowing of a genuine love are beautiful things, for which we have reason to rejoice and to praise the Lord.

2Co_9:14. Those who receive kindness should heartily thank God for the spirit bestowed upon the giver, and pray that he may receive an abundant blessing.

2Co_9:15. Let us never see or hear of a charitable work without rejoicing in it and praising God for it.

Berlenb. Bible:

2Co_9:2. Whoever leaves what he must do to the last hour, will find himself confused and his good work put to shame (the foolish virgins).

2Co_9:3 f. Satan endeavors to strangle our good purposes at the birth, and we should take care faithfully to finish what we have begun well. Every one is in danger during his religious course of becoming cold in heart; it is always well, therefore, when God sends some one to stimulate our zeal.

2Co_9:5. If nothing in the heart is pleasing to God, we may be sure that the outward act will have no blessing.

2Co_9:6. God delights in what flows liberally from a loving heart.

2Co_9:7. The Christian knows no joy without faith, or which proceeds not from grace. It is by the delight which the liberal man finds in giving, that God steals his heart and forces upon him a grace far richer than what he-gave.

2Co_9:8. In proportion as we apply to the poor those gifts with which Divine love has favored us will be the grace which we shall receive in their stead; only the returning stream will be the most abundant, that goodness and faithfulness may meet together.

2Co_9:9. In scattering his blessings, the Christian must recollect that though his heart should be open and unreserved, he should also proceed as carefully as possible, for the work of love should be wise. Even righteousness demands this. But it will be like a regular growth, in which there is no decay; for as it is in harmony with the Divine nature, it must be eternal.

2Co_9:10. God gives the seed, and He must give the harvest, but not immediately, for then we could not distinguish His several footsteps. When we open our hearts to God (by our alms) the blessings always return upon us in a thirty, sixty or an hundred fold increase of Christian graces.

2Co_9:12. It is said that, “Love is the fulfilling of the law;” and we here see that obedience to the second table reacts upon the better fulfilment of the first, inasmuch as it awakens a spirit of praise.

2Co_9:15. Whoever recognizes and accepts of Christ as a gift, will be thankful and strive to live to the Divine glory. Each attribute of God has a tendency to produce in us something like itself; and as He freely gives to us, we also are led freely to give.

Bengel:

2Co_9:8. God gives us what we have, not so much that we may have it, but that we may do good. Every thing in life, even the best earned rewards, are seeds sown for a future harvest.

Rieger:

2Co_9:5. A gift will be a blessing, for the supply it affords, for the cheerful kindness it displays, and for the thanksgiving of which it is the occasion.—When it is a matter of covetousness, it will be done penuriously and unpleasantly, and Will be received without pleasure or satisfaction.

2Co_9:6. The figure of sowing and reaping is very appropriate to the work of charity. That which is scattered, is something which we look upon as needful for our support, but which will not be as profitable if it is hoarded up. We must not be anxious about wind and weather, but trust rather to God’s providence than to our own prudence. Much seed will doubtless fall by the wayside, but that on the good soil will abundantly reward us for all we sowed. 2Co_9:8. God can turn to our advantage not only the increase of our worldly wealth, but every blessing of His daily providence. In this way He may give us health, peace, pious husbands and wives, pious children and faithful domestics, and make them an advantage to us. We often see those who are reluctant to do kind acts for their neighbors lose more by extravagant children and unfaithful servants, than would have formed a handsome contribution for the poor.

2Co_9:11 ff. Where we have true simplicity of character, we are not particular in the enjoyment of what God gives us, but we are satisfied and hopeful, even where we seem to be in want.

2Co_9:15. Christ is indeed an unspeakable gift, but in Him is included the gospel, with all its power in the heart, and those works of charity to which it prompts us, a supply for every want, an overcoming faith, a thankful spirit, the common fellowship of prayer which He creates, and the prospect of a harvest of blessings through all eternity.

Heubner:

2Co_9:1. An enlightened Christian needs no long exposition of his duties.

2Co_9:2. Even for the sake of a good example, it may be a duty to give liberally.

2Co_9:4. If a minister has done all within his power, and his people are without benevolence, theirs must be the reproach. 2Co_9:5. God’s blessing depends not upon the amount, but upon the spirit with which we give. 2Co_9:8. The principles on which we shall be blessed are: the more active we are in doing good, the greater will be our blessing; the more we are emptied of earthly things, the more we are filled with God, and vice versa. Worldly prudence says: Do not make yourself a beggar! but Christian prudence says: Give all that thou hast! 2Co_9:7. The value of our charities depends upon their being given from a pure heart. God’s great grace in the heart makes a glad heart.

2Co_9:9. God can give abundantly, not only in earthly, but in spiritual things

2Co_9:12. The giving of alms is of an advantage even in the spiritual life; for it awakens and strengthens our faith in the reality of a Christian spirit in the church, and of course in the presence of God Himself, to help the poor through His children. When the heart of God’s professed people are unmerciful and severe toward others, it becomes hard and bitter, inclined to unbelief, and a dishonor to our religion.

2Co_9:14. A spirit of prayer is no slight recompense for doing good. Even those whom we never knew become interesting to us when we hear that Divine grace abounds in them.

W. F. Besser:

2Co_9:5. It is better to give today than to-morrow, for no one knows how long he will be able to give. Reason, indeed, always gives reluctantly, from fear of some possible misfortune in the future; but the Bible says: “Give a portion to seven, and even to eight, for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth” (Ecc_11:2, comp. Pro_3:27-28). God always gives with a liberal hand; and if it is a blessing for us to give, let us not measure our alms with a penurious and covetous spirit. God also cheerfully lets us have the best He has; and if our alms are a sacrifice of praise, let us not corrupt it with the leaven of covetousness, but accompany it with the sweet incense of a complete dedication of our own selves to God (2Co_8:5, Mal_1:14).

2Co_9:6. The giving of alms is itself a blessing, and of course the giver must be blessed. As the sun draws the water, and as the clouds give back in showers what they before received, (Ecc_11:3) so will God graciously return what we bestow (in His name and in His hand) although it sometimes may seem like casting our bread upon the waters. A poor man gives only an insignificant mite, but it is a blessing, and he will have a harvest of blessings; blessings from God’s children, and blessings from our heavenly Father in this world and in the next. He who sows in blessings (giving in the Lord and to the Lord), shall reap also in blessings: He will hear many exclaim, “God reward you!” and “Thank God!” and these shall rise up before God with his alms, and spring up in many full ears to form his harvest wreath in another, and even in the present world. If those who receive our gifts should be unthankful, and should have no share in our blessing, God is faithful to remember every seed sown, and to make it fruitful in blessings. Only see to it, therefore, that everything you sow is a bounty and not a covetousness, and then give over all care about the harvest, to the Lord who will not fail to make it exceedingly abundant!

2Co_9:10. We have the same God in the kingdom of grace as in the kingdom of nature. In the latter our Lord once asked his disciples, “Lacked ye anything?” and they replied, “Nothing!” (Luk_22:35). In the former also we may be sure that all cheerful givers, when asked, “Have you ever been impoverished by your scattering?” will glorify that Lord who has taken upon Himself the debts of all His poor (Pro_19:17), by answering: “Never; we have always had the blessing Paul promised the Corinthians.”—Just as a citizen shows his subjection to the civil law by a conscientious payment of all his legal assessments, so a Christian shows that his confession is subject to the gospel when he cheerfully assists in the collection of all church dues.

2Co_9:14. The longing which God’s people sometimes feel in every part of the general church on earth to enjoy each others’ fellowship is not extinguished even if they have no prospect of meeting in the flesh, but we instinctively yearn for a fellowship face to face in the mansions of the eternal city.

[Stanley:—The Apostle presses upon them (1) speed, vv.1–5; (2) readiness, vv.6–7; (3) bounty, vv.8–16. A Clarke: “The Apostle enumerates the good effects which would be produced by their liberal alms-giving: 1. The wants of the saints would be supplied; 2. many thanksgivings would thereby be rendered unto God; 3. the Corinthians would thereby give proof of their subjection to the Gospel; and 4. the prayers of those relieved will ascend up to God in behalf of their benefactors.” See a Sermon of Dr. Barrow on the passage from the Psalms quoted in 2Co_9:9, in which the subject of “Bounty to the Poor,” would seem to be exhausted (Works Vol. I. Ser. 31)].

Footnotes:

[1]2Co_9:2.—In some good MSS. [B. C. Sin. Vulg. Syr. et al. and some Lat. fathers] ἐξ is wanting before ὑμῶν. It seemed superfluous and was not understood. [Tisch. (7th ed.) inserts it, but Lachm. and Stanley omit it, and Alford puts it in brackets.]

[2]2Co_9:4.—Some important but not sufficient authorities have λέγω instead of λέγωμεν.

[3]2Co_9:4.—Rec. after ταύτη adds τῆς καυχήσεως, but the words are an explanatory gloss and in opposition to the best MSS. [B. C. D. (1st Cor.) F. G. Sin. (3d Cor. has it), several cursives, with the Ital. Vulg. and Copt. versions. They are cancelled by Lachm., Tisch. and Alford, but Bloomfield thinks they cannot be dispensed with either here or in 2Co_11:17.]

[4]2Co_9:5.—The predominance of authorities are for πρὸς, though the Rec. εἰς [And yet Tisch. and Alford retain εἰς, and are sustained by C. K. L.Sin. and some Greek fathers.] Rec. also has προκατηγγελμένην instead of the much better sustained προεπγγελμένην.

[5]2Co_9:5.—Rec. has ὥσπερ for the second ὡς, but its evidence is feeble.

[6]2Co_9:7.—Lachm. after B. C. F. G. [Sin.] et al. has προήρμται instead of Rec. προαιρεῖται. It was probably a correction, because the preter. seemed more appropriate (Meyer). [It is not surprising that the subsequent addition of Cod. Sin. should have determined the more recent critics in favor of Lachmann’s reading.]

[7]2Co_9:8.—Lachm. has δυνατεῖ with important MSS.; but if this had been the original reading a gloss would have naturally changed it into δυνατός ἐστιν or δύναται. [Alford still prefers δυνατεῖ, and sees no force in the above suggestion. The authority of B. C. D. F. Sin. is certainly strong in its favor.]

[8]2Co_9:12—Lach. has σπόρον instead of σπέρμα, but it was probably occasioned by the following σπόρον. The MSS. [B. D. F. G.] are not very conclusive in its behalf.

[9]2Co_9:10.—Rec. has χορηγήσαι, πληθύναι and αὐξήσαι instead of -ει-εῖ-ει, but the weight of authority is against them. The future was turned into an optative because it was supposed to be a wish. Comp. Rom_16:20. Perhaps also there was a reminiscence of 1Th_3:11 f.; 2Th_2:17; 2Th_3:5 (Meyer). The fut. form is sustained by B. C. D. Sin. and several Lat. fathers.]

[10]2Co_9:12.—Lachm. has χριστῷ. for θεῷ. He is sustained only by B. [and perhaps the Vulg.: in Domino.]

[11]2Co_9:15.—Rec. has δέ after χαρις, but contrary to much superior authorities.

[12][In order to procure means to assist the poor of Halle, Francke placed a charity-box at the door of his own house inscribed with 1Jn_3:17 and 2Co_9:7. One day (about Easter 1695), on opening this box he found a sum (only 7 gulden) so much larger than he had before been able to devote at one time to works of charity that he resolved immediately to found a free school for poor children.]

[13][Laurentius was one of the seven deacons at Rome, and had the care of the treasury for the poor. When his master Pope Sextus II. was led forth to martyrdom, L. begged to accompany him in this as he had done in other sacrifices, but he was told that he would not have long to wait. The governor of the city demanded that he should surrender the treasures which he so liberally dispensed to the poor. At the end of three days he made his appearance, followed by a vast train of miserable, lame and crippled persons, to whom he pointed, saying, “These are our treasures.” The governor, feeling insulted, immediately had him slowly roasted upon an iron seat or gridiron until he died (Aug. 9, A. D. 285). His dying words were, “Enter not into judgment with thy servant,” etc., Psa_143:2. The Church in after times observed Aug. 10, in his memory, and as his speech and life were looked upon as an admirable illustration of 2Co_9:6-10, that passage with profound judgment was assigned for the Scriptural reading of that day (harvest time). Whatever uncertainty rests upon the precise details of this story, Augustine has given his sanction to its general verity when he says: “As easily might yoa hide the glory of Rome itself as that of the crown of Laurentius.”]

[14][The word λειτουργία, by which the Apostle designates once more the contribution of the Corinthians, was derived from the old Greek, and especially the Attic language. Etymologically it was from λἐἲτος, of or belonging to the people, and ἔργον. a work, a public work in the service of the people. At Athens, it was any public service (as the conducting of the public shows, or theatres, or choirs (2Co_9:10), or the supply of food for the people on public occasions) which the wealthier citizens discharged at their own expense, and usually in rotation. The word passed over into Scriptural and ecclesiastical language, retaining principally the two ideas of a work or service, and a service of the public. In the New Testament, sometimes one and sometimes another of the historical ideas connected with the word is most prominent. It is sometimes a secular employment, though still in the service of God (Rom_13:6, comp. Eccles. 7:30), sometimes a service done to a public servant of the Church (Php_2:30) sometimes a ministry of instruction, but more usually it was applied to the priestly or sacrificial services (Luk_1:23; Heb_8:2; Heb_8:6; Heb_9:21; Heb_10:11). The more ethical idea is appropriate in our passage, viz.: a voluntary act of benevolence for the public good, but for God‘s service, and hence an offering to the Lord of the Church. Comp. Osiander. The Art. Liturgie in Hertzog’s Encyc. by Palmer].

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. Exhortation and Encouragement.

CHAPTER 9

1. Further Exhortations to Liberality. (2Co 9:1-5)

2. The Blessings Connected with Giving. (2Co 9:6-15.)

Again he exhorts them to liberality in giving. He knew their willing mind and had boasted of it to them in Macedonia and told them they were ready a year ago. This had stimulated many. He hoped that they would measure up to this report and fall not behind in this expectation “lest our boasting should be in vain in this behalf.” To encourage them in giving and carrying out what they had purposed, he speaks of the blessing: “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully.” There is, then, blessing according to faithfulness in this ministry; as any other faithful ministry is not forgotten of God. Giving must not be grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. God Himself delights to give. In infinite love He gave His only begotten Son, and He delights in all who imitate Him in His ways. There is no compulsion in giving save the constraint of His love.

“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” Such a loving ministry is not an unremunerative service. He is able to make up to all who, out of love, minister to the needs of poor and suffering and afflicted brethren. The apostle shows that thanksgiving to God would be the result of their loving ministry in giving. Three causes are specified:

1. Their subjection to the gospel.

2. Their liberal gifts to the Saints of God.

3. “By their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you” - that thanksgiving and glory to God for the fervent and longing prayers of other Saints, who received their ministry.

This section ends with thanksgiving unto God, “for His unspeakable gift.” There is no need to add what that gift is, for every saint knows, God’s unspeakable gift is His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9:1-5 Two motives reinforce the spirit of love in giving: (1) to emulate the Macedonians, who in their poverty had been forthcoming in their generosity (9:2); and (2) not to shame Paul or themselves, since he had boasted about the Corinthians’ generosity to the Macedonians (9:3-5). To ensure the timely gathering of the collection at Corinth, Paul would send the delegates (8:16-24) in advance to make sure the gift you promised is ready.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

2Co 9:1. Τὸ γράφειν, to write) For you will have witnesses present with you, and I know, that you are ready without writing letters to you.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co_9:1. Since the γάρ connects the verse with what precedes, not only does the opinion of Semler, that chap. 9 contains a separate Epistle, fall to the ground, but also the hypothesis, that Paul writes as if he were beginning a new topic,on the basis of which, e.g. Emmerling (comp. Neander) thinks that between the composition of chap. 8 and that of chap. 9 a considerable time had elapsed. Against this may be urged also the fact that in new sections he does not begin with περὶ μέν, but with περὶ δέ (1Co_7:1; 1Co_8:1; 1Co_12:1; 1Co_16:1). Estius is right in saying that the apostle specifies with γάρ the reason why he, in what goes before (2Co_8:24), had exhorted them not to collecting, but to affectionate receiving of the brethren. Comp. Fritzsche, Dissert. II. p 21: Laute excipite fratres, id moneo (2Co_8:24); nam praeter rem ad liberalitatem denuo quidem provocarem ad eam jam propensos homines, 2Co_9:2. So also Schott, Isag. p. 240; Billroth, Rückert, Olshausen, Osiander; but there is no indication of a contrast with the Gentile-Christian churches (as if the ἅγιοι were the ἐκκλησία κατʼ ἐξοχήν), although Hofmann imports i.

μέν] To this the δέ in 2Co_9:3 corresponds. See on that passage. The counter-remark of de Wette (who, with Osiander and Neander, takes the μέν as solitarium), that δέ in 2Co_9:3 makes a contrast with 2Co_9:2, does not hold good, since the contrast is quite as suitable to 2Co_9:1 (though having respect to what is said in 2Co_9:2). Even in classic writers (often in Thucyd.) the clauses corresponding to each other with μέν and δέ are found separated by intervening clauses. See Kühner, II. p. 428.

τῆς διακονίας τῆς εἰς τ. ἁγ.] as in 2Co_8:4. Beza is incorrect (see 2Co_9:2) in saying that the bringing over only is meant. The word itself corresponds to the idea of Christian fellowship in love, in which the mutual activity of love is a constant debitum ministerium (Rom_13:8; Heb_6:10; 1Pe_4:10), after the example of Christ (Mat_20:28; Luk_22:26 f.). Comp. Gal_5:13.

περισσὸν μοί ἐστι] i.e. I do not need writing, namely, to effect my objec.

τὸ γράφειν] with article, because the writing is regarded as actual subject.

REMARK.

Certainly Paul has written of the collection both in chap. 8 and again in what follows; and he meant it so, otherwise he would have ended the section with chap. 8 But he delicately makes a rhetorical turn, so that, in order to spare the readers sense of honour, he seems not to take up the subject again, but to speak only of the sending of the brethren; and he annexes to that what he intends still to insert regarding the matter itself. Σοφῶς δὲ τοῦτο ποιεῖ, ὥστε, μᾶλλον αὐτοὺς ἐπισπάσασθαι, Theophylact and Chrysostom. Probably, when he wrote 2Co_8:24, he meant to close the section with it, butperhaps after reading over chap. 8 againwas induced to add something, which he did in this polite fashion (τῇ τοιαύτῃ τῶν λόγων μεθόδῳ Theodoret). Hofmanns ideathat recommendation of the collection itself was superfluous, but that there had been delay in carrying it out, etc.is quite in accordance certainly with 2Co_9:1-5, but from 2Co_9:5 to the end of the chapter there again follow instructions and promises, which belong essentially to the recommendation of the collection itself.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 9:1-5 . HE IS CONFIDENT OF THEIR READINESS TO GIVE; BUT TITUS AND HIS COMPANIONS HAVE BEEN SENT ON, THAT THE COLLECTION MAY BE READY WHEN HE ARRIVES AT CORINTH.

2Co 9:1 . περὶ μὲν γὰρ κ . τ . λ .: for concerning the ministration to the saints, i.e. , the collection (see on 2Co 8:4 ), it is superfluous ( cf. 2Ma 12:44 ) for me to write, sc. , this letter (note the force of the art. before γράφειν ), to you , who “were the first to make a beginning” (2Co 8:10 ). Cf. 1Th 4:9 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1–5. The assistance to be rendered to the three delegates. What the Corinthians have to give should be collected soon, so as to be ready when S. Paul arrives.

1. περὶ μὲν γὰρ τῆς διακονίας. The μέν looks forward to the second point, which comes in 2Co 9:3 (δέ): the γάρ looks back to the end of 8—the reception of the three delegates. But, as μέν and δέ cover 2Co 9:1-4, this shows that the explanation implied in γάρ is to be looked for in 2Co 9:1-4, not in 2Co 9:1 only. Thus understood, the connexion between 8 and 9 is natural enough. To say that 2Co 9:1 does not explain 2Co 8:24 is to state the case incorrectly. See the note at the end of this chapter. For the use of εἰς in τῆς εἰς τοὺς ἁγίους see on 2Co 8:4 and comp. 2Co 9:13. For διακονία see on 2Co 9:12.

περισσόν μοί ἐστιν τὸ γράφειν. It is superfluous for me to write, because he is sending men who are competent, and because the Corinthians do not need to be told their duty. Nevertheless, in his intense anxiety, he does write about it. He must take every means to secure a good result. περιττὴν ἐκάλεσε τὴν περὶ τῆς φιλοτιμίας παραίνεσιν· οὐ περιττὴν ὅντως ὑπολαμβάνων, ἀλλὰ τῇ τοιαύτῃ τῶν λόγων μεθόδῳ πρὸς πλείω διεγείρων φιλοτιμίαν (Theodoret).

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9:1-5.] He recurs to the collection itself, and prays them that they would make good before the brethren his boasting of them, and prepare it before his own coming.

1.] The μὲν γάρ connects with the last verse, thus, ‘I beseech you to receive the brethren whom I send, courteously; for concerning the duty of ministration to the saints, it is surely superfluous for me to write to you who are so prompt already.’ No new subject begins, as some have supposed; nor is there any break in the sense at all. Some obscurity has been introduced unnecessarily, by taking τῆς διακ. τ. εἰς τ. ἁγ. for merely this collection which is now making: whereas the Apostle chooses such general terms as a mild reproof to the Corinthians, who, well aware as they were of the duty of ministering to the saints, were yet somewhat remiss in this particular example of the duty. There is an emphasis on γράφειν: ‘nam testes habebitis præsentes,’ Bengel. Theophyl. well remarks: τοσαῦτα καὶ πρότερον εἰπὼν καὶ πάλιν μέλλων εἰπεῖν, ὅμως περιττὸν αὐτῷ λέγει τὸ περὶ τούτων γράφειν. σοφῶς δὲ τοῦτο ποιεῖ, ὥστε μᾶλλον αὐτοὺς ἐπισπάσασθαι. αἰσχυνθήσονται γὰρ εἴ γε τοιαύτην ὑπόληψιν περὶ αὐτῶν ἔχοντος τοῦ Παύλου, ὅτι οὐ δέονται συμβουλῆς πρὸς τὸ ἐλεεῖν, εἶτα φανῶσιν ἐλάττους τῆς ὑπολήψεως.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9:1. Here again (see on 7:1) the division between the chapters is not well placed. As the γάρ shows, 9:1 is closely connected with what precedes. The Apostle continues to make arrangements respecting the collection. He has assumed all along that what has been begun will not be allowed to drop, and he has suggested reasons for a liberal contribution. He now begs them, whether they give much or little, to have all in readiness before he himself arrives.

As in the case of 6:14-7:1, we have again to consider the hypothesis that a fragment of another letter has somehow or other been inserted here. It is urged that 9:1 does not explain 8:24, and therefore the γάρ cannot refer to 8:24, and that in 9. we have repetitions of things which have been already said in viii. Repetitions in letters are common enough, especially when the writer is very much in earnest and has to feel his way with caution. “The tautological urgency of the appeal does not show a plurality of epistles, but a lack of certainty as to the result” (Reuss). The γάρ, as we shall see, is very intelligible. Indeed, if the division between the chapters had not been so misplaced, no one would have proposed to separate 9:1-5 from 8:16-24. Schmiedel divides the paragraphs between 8:23 and 24, giving 24 to what follows.* Hypotheses of stray leaves from other documents being imbedded in N.T. writings are to be received with much scepticism, unless they are supported by strong external evidence, as in the case of Joh 7:53-11. Some critics suggest that it is ch. 8. that has been interpolated. But there is no evidence in any MS., or version, or series of quotations, that ii Corinthians ever existed without 8. or without 9. Cyprian quotes from both, and commentators, both Greek and Latin, comment on both without betraying doubt about the genuineness of either. It will be found that 9. helps us to understand 8. See Massie, pp. 60, 61.

1. Περὶ μὲν γὰρ τῆς διακονίας εἰς τοὺς ἁγίους. The μέν anticipates δέ in v. 3; the γάρ looks back to the conclusion of 8. Cf. 1Co 11:5, 1Co 12:8. ‘I have commended the envoys to you rather than commanded you to give (8:8), for, with regard to the ministration to the saints, in the first place (μέν) it is superfluous for me to be writing (pres. not aor.) to you.’ The similar statements in 1Th 4:9 and 5:1 should be compared; also 4:13. For διακονία εἰς τ̔ ἁγ see on 8:4. In neither place does the εἰς limit the ministration to the transmission of the money. C, Arm. omit γάρ as unintelligible.

περισσόν μοί ἐστιν. Ex abundanti est mihi scribere vobis (Vulg.); better, supervacaneum est. We often do this; especially in cases in which we are deeply interested. We begin, ‘I need not say’; and immediately we do say, perhaps at some length: σοφῶς δὲ τοῦτο ποιεῖ, ὥστε μᾶλλον αὐτοὺς ἐπισπάσασθαι (Chrys.). On the art. with γράφειν see Blass, § 71. 2, and comp. 7:11; Php 2:6, Php 4:10.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He wisely meeteth with the suspicion which the Corinthians might conceive, as though the Apostle in urging them so carefully, should doubt of their good will. Therefore he witnesseth that he doeth it not to teach them that they ought to help the Saints, seeing that he had become surety for them to the Macedonians, but only to stir them up which were running of themselves to the end that all things might both be in a better readiness, and also be more plentiful.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

CHAPTER IX.

St. Paul intimates that so ready were the Corinthians to make

this charitable contribution, that it was scarcely necessary

for him to write, 1, 2.

But lest they should not be ready when he came, he had sent

the brethren, Titus, c., beforehand lest, if any of the

Macedonians should come with him, they should find them not

prepared, though he had boasted so much of their ready mind,

3-5.

He gives them directions how they shall contribute; and the

advantage to be gained by it, in the fulfilment of the

promises of God, 6-11.

He shows them that by this means the poor shall be relieved,

God glorified, their Christian temper manifested, and the

prayers of many engaged in their behalf, 12-14.

And concludes with giving thanks to God for his unspeakable

gift, 15.

NOTES ON CHAP. IX.

Verse 1. It is superfluous for me to write to you] I need not enlarge, having already said enough. See the preceding chapter.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

This statement may seem at first view to suit ill, or not sufficiently well, with what goes before; for he seems to speak of a new matter, that he had not previously touched upon, while in reality he is following out the same subject. Let the reader, however, observe, that Paul treats of the very same matter that he had been treating of before — that it was from no want of confidence that he exhorted the Corinthians, and that his admonition is not coupled with any reproof as to the past, but that he has particular reasons that influence him. The meaning, then, of what he says now is this: “I do not teach you that it is a duty to afford relief to the saints, for what need were there of this? For that is sufficiently well known to you, and you have given practical evidence that you are not prepared to be wanting to them; but as I have, from boasting everywhere of your liberality, pledged my credit along with yours, this consideration will not allow me to refrain from speaking.” But for this, such anxious concern might have been somewhat offensive to the Corinthians, because they would have thought, either that they were reproached for their indolence, or that they were suspected by Paul. By bringing forward, however, a most, suitable apology, he secures for himself the liberty of not merely exhorting them, without giving offense, but even from time to time urging them.

Some one, however, may possibly suspect, that Paul here pretends what he does not really think. This were exceedingly absurd; for if he reckons them to be sufficiently prepared for doing their duty, why does he set himself so vigorously to admonish them? and, on the other hand, if he is in doubt as to their willingness, why does he declare it to be unnecessary to admonish them? Love carries with it these two things, — good hope, and anxious concern. Never would he have borne such a testimony in favor of the Corinthians, had he not been fully of the mind that he expresses. He had seen a happy commencement: he had hoped, that the farther progress of the matter would be corresponding; but as he was well aware of the unsteadiness of the human mind, he could not provide too carefully against their turning aside from their pious design.

1. Ministering. This term seems not very applicable to those that give of their substance to the poor, inasmuch as liberality is deserving of a more splendid designation. Paul, however, had in view, what believers owe to their fellowmembers. For the members of Christ ought mutually to minister to each other. In this way, when we relieve the brethren, we do nothing more than discharge a ministry that is due to them. On the other hand, to neglect the saints, when they stand in need of our aid, is worse than inhuman, inasmuch as we defraud them of what is their due.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

IX.

(1) For as touching . . .—The division of chapters in the English version, unfortunately, gives the impression of the introduction of a new subject. In reality there is no new topic, and all flows on with unbroken continuity. This is part of the appeal to their self-respect begun in 2Co_8:23-24. “You will pardon,” he practically says, “my words of counsel as to the necessity of prompt action; as to the general duty of that ministration to the saints you have shown that you need no instruction.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For as touching the ministering to the saints,.... It looks at first sight as if the apostle was entering upon a new subject, though by what follows it appears to be the same; for by "ministering to the saints", he does not mean the ministry of the Gospel to them; nor that mutual assistance members of churches are to give each other; but either the fellowship of ministering to the saints, which the churches had entreated him, and his fellow ministers, to take upon them, namely, to take the charge of their collections, and distribute them to the poor saints at Jerusalem; or rather these collections themselves, and their liberality in them: with respect to which he says,

it is superfluous for me to write to you; that is, he thought it unnecessary to say any more upon that head, because he had used so many arguments already to engage them in it, in the foregoing chapter; and because he had sent three brethren to them, who well understood the nature of this service, and were very capable of speaking to it, and of enforcing the reasonings already used; and more especially he judged it needless to dwell on this subject, for the reasons following.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1 For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you:

Ver. 1. The ministering to the saints] Or the service that ye owe the saints in ministering to their necessities, διακονια. Amadeus, duke of Savoy, Stephanus, king of Hungary, Hooper, bishop of Gloucester, and Doctor Taylor, martyr, are famous for their labour of love in ministering to the saints.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For as touching the ministering to the saints - In regard to the collection that was to be taken up for the aid of the poor Christians in Judea; see the notes on Rom 15:26; 1Co 16:1; 2 Cor. 8.

It is superfluous ... - It is needless to urge that matter on you, because I know that you acknowledge the obligation to do it, and have already purposed it.

For me to write to you - That is, to write more, or to write largely on the subject. It is unnecessary for me to urge arguments why it should be done; and all that is proper is to offer some suggestions in regard to the manner in which it shall be accomplished.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The ministry, that is, the contributions for the brethren, so it is also called again, (ver. 12.) the ministry of this office, or, as the Greek signifies, of this sacrifice, inasmuch as alms, and such charitable works, are spiritual sacrifices to God. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

I should think the particle γαρ, here translated for, had been better translated but, as in 1Pe 4:15, and 2Pe 1:9, our translators do render it. So these words contain an elegant revocation of himself from the argument he had dwelt upon in the whole former chapter, and the sense amounts to this: But to what purpose do I multiply words to you, to persuade you to minister to the saints in distress? As to you, it is superfluous. By this art letting them know, that he had no doubt, but a confident expectation, concerning them; the suggesting of which hath also the force of another argument, that they might not deceive the apostle’s good opinion and confidence of them.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Encouragement to the Corinthians to fulfil their promises by giving speedily (vers. 1-5), amply (ver. 6), cheerfully (ver. 7), and thereby earn God"s blessing (vers. 8-11) in a cause fruitful of blessed consequence (vers. 12-14). He concludes the subject with a heartfelt thanksgiving (ver. 15).

For. This word shows that he is continuing the same subject, and therefore excludes the supposition that this chapter is a separate letter or fragment. No doubt, however, the express mention of the collection after he has been practically writing about it through the whole of the last chapter looks as if he had been interrupted, or had left off dictating at the end of the last verse. Such breaks must often and necessarily have occurred in the dictation of the Epistles, and doubtless help to account for some of their phenomena. Perhaps, on reperusing the last paragraphs before resuming the subject he observed that, after all, he had not directly mentioned the contribution, and therefore explains that he thought it superfluous to do so. To the saints. The poor Christians of Jerusalem. (2Co_8:4) Superfluous. Because the subject had been already fully brought to their notice by himself and by Titus.

Vers. 1-5.

Paul"s directions for collecting the contributions of the Corinthian Church.

as touching the ministering to the saints," etc. The work of collecting was entrusted to Titus and a brother whose praise was "throughout all the Churches," and probably to other Christians more or less distinguished. Concerning the collecting of their subscriptions, three things are observable in Paul"s own conduct.

I HE RECOGNIZED THEIR MERITS. "For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you: for I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many." He gives them full credit for what they had already done. They had so much cheered him some months before with the readiness with which they had entered into his beneficent enterprise, that he had boasted of them to those of Macedonia and Achaia, and he assures them that their zeal had stimulated, or "provoked very many." We may be assured that Paul not only credits them for what they had done, merely as a matter of policy or politeness, but as a matter of justice. It is right that goodness in others should be recognized wherever found, and that we should with a hearty frankness praise them that do well. This is a duty sadly neglected.

II HE RESPECTED THEIR REPUTATION. "Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting." The apostle knew human life and the circumstances that influence it, and he apprehended that, had the members of the Corinthian Church been called upon suddenly, without any previous advice, to complete the beneficent work into which they had entered so readily some twelve months before, they might not be able on a sudden either to do justice to their own reputation or to justify the high praise he had given them. The reputation of Christian men should always be sacredly respected. Reputation is social power; deprive a man of this, and he is powerless in society; deprive a Church of this, and you leave it as infirm as a merchant without credit. Respect for the reputation of good men is the duty of all. No man can deprive me of my character, hut he may of my reputation, and without my reputation my social influence is nil.

The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away, Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. (Shakespeare.)

III HE STUDIED THEIR CONVENIENCE. "Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty," etc. "Every one knows," says Robertson, "how different is the feeling with which we give when charity is beforehand, from that which we give when charitable collections come side by side with debts and taxes. The charity which finds us unprepared is a call as hateful as that of any creditor whom it is hard to pay. Paul knew this well; he knew that if the Corinthians were taken unawares their feelings would be exasperated towards him with shame, and also towards the saints at Jerusalem, to whom they were constrained to give. Therefore he gave timely notice." Special duties have times and seasons. There are moods of mind, and passing circumstances so unfavourable as to render their discharge almost impossible, hence men"s conveniences have to be studied. The apostle, in recognizing merits, respecting reputations, and studying conveniences, should be taken as an example by all Christian ministers in dealing with their people.

HOMILIES BY C. LIPSCOMB Vers. 1-5.

Reference to his former argument; its completeness; why he resumes the subject.

Reviewing the reasoning on the duty of Christian beneficence, the apostle concluded that he had expounded the subject in a manner so clear and explicit as to make any addition "superfluous" on the score either of logic or of appeal. Recall the argument for a moment, and see if he was not justified in this opinion. The appeal was for the poor of the Church at Jerusalem. Macedonia was depressed and sorely troubled, Achaia was internally agitated by Judaizers and free thinkers; and between this upper and nether millstone the young Churches were well nigh ground to powder. St. Paul himself was greatly afflicted. But he had strong faith in Christ and in human nature under the influence of Christ"s grace, and having this confidence he was hopeful, resolute, and courageous. Macedonia had done nobly. Corinth would not fall below the standard he had set for their generosity. Full of heart, he presses the claim of the occasion, bat his zeal and anxiety never betray him into using a false motive or into pushing a true motive too far. The "rod" is not threatened. All through, the appeal is to the best elements of our nature, for he recognizes, as "the sacred writers constantly recognize, the fact that the freest and most spontaneous acts of men, their inward states and the outward manifestations of those states where good, are due to a secret influence of the Spirit of God which eludes our consciousness. The believer is most truly self-determined when determined by the grace of God" (Hodge). We have seen that the apostle never loses sight for a moment of the one inspiring motive the love of Christ towards us and his Divine sacrifice in our behalf. Equal with God and infinitely blessed, he left his glory, assumed our flesh took its infirmities, bore its sins, endured its shame and humiliation, and expiated its guilt. The abnegation was so complete that he depended on the Holy Ghost for wisdom, fortitude, and strength. A man of prayer, he sought the Spirit"s aid on every occasion, and was so dependent as to say, "I do nothing of myself." Every adventitious help was set aside; loneliness and sorrow were his self-chosen lot; and he made himself the poorest of men, that he might show how supremely he rested upon the Father in his mediatorial work. But poverty and sorrow were not thus borne for their own sake, nor, indeed, was it the circumstances of his lot, but the lot itself, that marked the greatness of his condescension. The argument of St. Paul is directed to one point, viz. what Christ was and what he became, so that the contrast between his earthly position and that of other men is not so much as hinted at, but the whole force is thrown upon the contrast as to his being "rich" and becoming "poor," that we "through his poverty might be rich." On this basis Christian beneficence was founded. Christian "equality" was a natural sequel. For this was, in the order of Providence, the one specific and preeminent sphere in which Christian conscience and affection and humane impulses would most fully and freely combine to glorify God in Christ. On no other ground could a Church be a spiritual human community, and hence the stress laid on human virtues sanctified by the grace of Christ. There is emulation; how he exalts it! There is imitation; how he emphasizes it! There is prudence; what an excellence it is to protect our good from being spoken of as evil! After such a presentation of gospel truth and its effective enforcement, he might well say that it was "superfluous" to write concerning "the ministering to the saints." One bright spot had all along lingered on that murky horizon; "Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many." Men who are backsliding in religion do not lose their hold all at once on the Christian virtues. Happily for us, some of these virtues are stronger than others, and these act as a breakwater against the incoming surges of temptation. One or more qualities exist in us that are more receptive of grace than other qualities, and they are specially resistant of decay. As in physical disease life would often succumb were it not that some organs have so much more functional vitality than others, so in religious life, a single vigorous principle or sentiment may save us from spiritual death. So it was with the Corinthians. Despite of their corruptions, they had one redeeming excellence, viz. the "forwardness" of their "mind" in this benevolent enterprise of helping the poor saints in Jerusalem. God honoured this trait of their character. Many a virtue had gone down under the pressure of worldliness and carnality. This survived, and it was capable of being evoked into healthy and energetic action. St. Paul knew his opportunity. He saw the good in these erring brethren. If he had not, he could never have seen the evil. And seeing the good so clearly, he recognized it and laboured for its immediate development in a very earnest form. The true growth would choke out the weeds, and to this he directed his wise husbandry. Every way the prospect was encouraging. Yet he would make assurance doubly sure. He had boasted of the Corinthians. If they should not be ready in time with the collection, "we too delicate to say, "ye" should be ashamed in this same confident boasting." On this account he sent Titus and the deputies to "make up beforehand" their bounty. It must be "bounty," not a matter of "covetousness." Postponing the work might open the way for selfishness to suggest reasons for less giving. Love of money might have a sudden quickening. Risks were numerous when men believed that the heart of today would be the heart of tomorrow. Satan was mightier at some times than at others, and Christian men were not always quite themselves. "Make up beforehand." The right thing was ennobled by doing it at the right time, and the right time was now. "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Debts of love mature when the heart is first warmed by the Spirit. Fatting off invites covetousness. "Beforehand" is the watchword of the bountiful soul. L.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

To write to you - Largely.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Paul’s Final instructions concerning the Collection.

The example set by the readiness of the Corinthians:

v. 1. For as touching the ministering of the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you.

v. 2. For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many.

v. 3. Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf, that, as I said, ye may be ready,

v. 4. lest haply, if they of Macedonia come with me and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting.

Paul’s kind diplomacy and pastoral tact is evident in every line of this admonition. In an almost apologetic manner he writes: For so far as the ministry which is intended for the saints is concerned, it is superfluous for me to be writing to you. Of the need of the brethren in Judea and of the necessity of the collection for them the Corinthians had been convinced long ago, aside from the fact that they were fully aware of their Christian duty to help all such as were suffering. That fact, therefore, the apostle did not feel called upon to stress; on that point they needed no further instruction. His suggestions concerned only the time and the manner of making the offering.

The apostle takes this opportunity of acknowledging with proper praise their stand in the matter of this collection: For I know your willingness, which I praise of you to the Macedonians, that Achaia was fully prepared a year ago; and your zeal has provoked the majority. It was a source of the greatest pleasure and gratification to Paul whenever he could make a favorable report concerning any person, particularly when such information would tend to encourage and incite others to make progress in sanctification. And here was a splendid opportunity, since, as he had stated above, chap. 8:10-11, the Christians of Corinth had accepted the obligation and stated their readiness to take part in the proposed collection for the poor at Jerusalem when he first laid the matter before them. The Corinthian congregation, as we here learn, had not been alone in passing favorable resolutions with regard to the project, but the other congregations of the province had declared their willingness to join them in their charitable undertaking, and Paul could make his boast accordingly. The result had been that the churches of Macedonia and the majority of their members had been inspired to a like zeal; they had come to the front all the more promptly and liberally, as Paul had written above, chap. 8:1-4; they had even, in turn, proved an example to the Corinthians by forging ahead of them in the actual execution of the ministry.

For that reason Paul, feeling that the Corinthians only needed encouragement to complete the work as soon as possible, tells them: At the same time I have sent the brethren, that our glorying about you might not be rendered void in this respect, in order that, even as I said, you may be fully prepared, lest, if any Macedonians should come with me and find you unprepared, be brought to shame we (that we say not, you) in this confidence. As the apostle had said, the Corinthian Christians indeed knew their duty and had declared their willingness to perform the same, but he was anxious for them to carry out their intention soon. That was the reason why he sent Titus and his two companions with this letter, to remind them of their promise, and to urge them to have their collection finished by the time he himself could come. For it was probable that some of the brethren of Macedonia might make the journey to Corinth with him. If it appeared then, upon his arrival with these brethren, who knew of his confident boasting concerning the Corinthians, that the collection had not yet been completed, the situation would be most embarrassing. It would bring shame upon the apostle, who had spoken so confidently of their eagerness to help in this emergency; but still more would it redound to the shame of the Corinthians, not only because they had not lived up to his expectations, but also because they would stand before the Macedonian brethren as negligent in their Christian duty. Paul felt sure, incidentally, that their love for him was stronger than their solicitude for their own honor. Note: Though the love of Christ should always be the supreme motive of a Christian congregation with regard to all works of holiness, the fact that their pastor, too, may suffer in his good name on account of their remissness may also be urged under circumstances.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 9:8

The All-ability of God.

I. God is able to make all grace abound. Then surely He is able to rule the world He has created and still creates. He is the God of creation, and not its servant. He can get behind all the points that are visible to us, and without altering the order of nature, He can produce what change He desires. We may therefore ask Him to give us what we think would be good for us. This will be one of the practical results of the full belief in the all-ability of God. If I may not ask my daily bread from God, if I may not tell Him what I wish about the weather and what the country needs, then what may I speak to Him about? "About spiritual blessings," does any one say? Then are they not also given according to law? If God is bound to act invariably in the material sphere, He is equally and even more bound to act invariably in the spiritual sphere; and if we may not reasonably pray to Him as to the one, still less may we reasonably pray to Him about the other. It is God or no God. God is able to make all grace abound, to give blessing in every sphere, and will answer in some way every sincere prayer that is offered to Him.

II. Prayer is asking. It is not dictation. If it were, it would be liable to the objections which have been urged against it. It is telling the Father what we believe to be our real needs, leaving Him to judge what and how much to give and what to withhold. We may leave Him to maintain the laws. He will take care that there is no infringement of anything that ought to be observed, and that no injustice is done to some by answering the prayer of others; He will be true and faithful to Himself and to His great perfections; He will be attentive and compassionate to every child who speaks to Him; He will be the Hearer and Answerer of prayer to the end.

A. Raleigh, The Way to the City, p. 252.

Reference: 2Co 9:11.—R. Maguire, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 236.

2Co 9:15

In order to arrive at the full meaning of the words "His unspeakable gift" we should inquire what it is, of all the blessings of redemption by Christ, that most perfectly answers to this description, that is so full, so inexhaustible, as best to satisfy this epithet "unspeakable," far beyond our words to describe and our powers to grasp by their conceptions, that is most entirely and properly God’s gift—His one great bestowal over and above all others. And I hesitate not to say at once, it is God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. Consider how the Spirit is properly and finally the gift of God.

I. A guardian angel might dwell with the believer—and such, we hold, do dwell with us, and minister around us—but a guardian angel can never dwell in the believer, can never be to him an indweller and enlightener, an inseparable friend and comforter, a mighty advocate and unfailing champion. Go then even to the throne of the Godhead, and ask who shall do this. The Father dwelleth in light inaccessible; Him no man hath seen, nor can see; He ruleth all things after the counsel of His own will. The Son is gone up from us, and is waiting in our manhood at the right hand of the Father, till all things be put under His feet. Where then shall we find this ever-present help in God? where but in the Holy Spirit, whose especial glory it is that He works and energises in creation, in the material and the immaterial ranks of being, who first brought light out of darkness, who is the Source and Upholder of all life and joy?

II. Very various and very wonderful are the ways in which God’s Spirit originates and carries on the new life in men. One man speaks with the Spirit in the lofty cathedral, resonant with studied praise; and another comes from his week-long toil to the mean and crowded conventicle, and in the illiterate accents of his brother-mechanic the same blessed Spirit speaks to his heart, in his heart’s own way, and he too hears and follows. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift. For wherever He is found, however He works, He is this one crowning gift of our God, without which no man can live unto Him, with whom we have Christ in all His fulness, and the Father in all His love.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iv., p. 274.

References: 2Co 9:15.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1550. 2Co 10:1.—H. Wonnacott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 138; A. Rowland, Ibid.,\o\. xxxvi., p. 282; H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 1870, p. 54. 2Co 10:3-5.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. vi., p. 216; R. Whittington, Church Sermons, vol. i., p. 203. 2Co 10:4.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 132; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 381. 2Co 10:4, 2Co 10:5.—Homilist, vol. iv., p. 32; W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 282; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 378.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, The holy art and skill of this wise and great apostle, in promoting forward, and putting on these Corinthians to, this work of pious charity: he insinuates their present forwardness, to provoke them to farther forwardness; he tells them, it was superfluous for him to use farther arguments with them; for their forwardness was known unto him, and boasted of by him, to the Mascedonians, that the Christians in Achaia (of which Corinth was the chief city) had made a proposal to supply the poor saints of Judea a year ago; and that their zeal therein had provoked very many to the like forwardness.

It is very happy, when the ministers of Christ find their people foreward and ready to every good work, to costly works of charity especially; yet it will be their wisdom, by commending their people for what they have done, to encourage them to do farther; not only for increasing their own reward, but for provoking many to do the like: I know the forwardness of your mind, and that your zeal hath provoked very many.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. “But concerning the ministry to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you.” In view of the glorious encouragement Titus gave him, he feels very bold to approach them on all subjects. So he takes strong hold on them in behalf of the poor saints.

2. “For I know your promptitude, which I am in the habit of boasting to the Macedonians, that Achaia was ready from last year. Oh, your zeal has aroused many.

3. “I also sent the brethren in that our boasting in your behalf in this region may not be empty.” He had sent unto them Timothy and Titus, and their evangelistic comrades, so there would be no delinquency on this line nor any other. “In order that as I said, ye may be prepared.

4. “Lest perhaps, if the Macedonians may come along with me and should find you unprepared, we (in order that we may not say you) may be put to shame in this confidence.” Certainly he would be in a serious dilemma if, after boasting of the Achaians to the Macedonians, some of the latter should accompany him (as they did) and find Achaia unprepared. Hence the pertinency of sending on the brethren and working the matter in anticipation. Preachers need common sense as well as other people.

5. “Therefore I considered it necessary to exhort the brethren [i.e., Titus and his two helpers] that they come to you beforehand and previously prepare you? long-announced benefaction, that the same may be ready as a beneficence and not as a stingy offering.” We see here that Paul was very particular about that contribution. He was not satisfied simply to raise the amount, but he was determined that it should be a blessing to the donor. He constantly uses the word eulogia, which means a spiritual blessing, and charis, which is the regular word for the grace of God. God help us all to heed the Pauline example and remember that we have no right to take contribution for the cause of God unless it comes in such a way as to be a positive spiritual blessing. Oh, how this knocks up all of your church festivals and various devices to raise money just any way you can get it. How shameful these devices, when as a rule the money is not needed except to sacrifice to church pride and enjoy the honor of paying the full assessments, which are frequently several times more than necessary; e. g., raise ten thousand dollars to run the church when it would actually be better to run it on two thousand. Here Paul refuses to accept, even for God’s poor, a stingy contribution. Would it not do the poor saints just as well as if it had been given cheerfully? So did not Paul make a mistake? Oh, no! God has charge of His poor, and it is an insult to Him to take a stingy contribution. Church benefactions are all taken up in the name of the great God, who is infinite. Hence it is grievous to Him to resort to the claptrap policy of church frolics, festivals and fandangos. No wonder the church is dead and the people going to Hell in platoons, when the hue and cry is money, and all sorts of questionable strategy laid under contribution to get it, and behind the whole compoodle enormous and utterly unnecessary assessments laid on the people in order to raise a big lot of money that the pastor’s family may live like kings in pomp and splendor, thus exposed to the most terrible temptation to lead a proud, wicked life, and turn out wicked and worldly, for which they are actually proverbial, lead many to ruin and make their bed in Hell.

6. “But I say this, He that soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly, and he that soweth unto blessings hall also reap unto blessings.” Here we see Paul settles the matter that all financial contributions to the Lord shall be given in such a way as to be a spiritual blessing to the donor at the time he takes the contribution. Hence our collections should be religious services, as spiritual and profitable in the way of spiritual edification and inspiring as our praying. Others likewise will forfeit the final blessing resulting from the benefaction. How can this be? Will not the contribution prove a blessing in the end, even if I give it grudgingly or actuated by pride? The answer is in the negative. It is the same as if you cast it into the sea, for unless you give it unto “blessings,” you shall not receive reward “unto blessings.” Why, Paul, will not a stingy contribution help the saints at Jerusalem? The answer is in the negative. Why? The saints are not dependent on human liberality. God’s ravens are not all dead. He can take care of His poor and His missionaries as well without you as with you. Let us not be caught in the devil’s delusion to think we are important. If we should die, we would not be missed. N. B. — God can run His machinery without us. God is better than any board of stewards or finance committee.

7. “As each one hath determined in his heart, not from reluctance or from necessity.” The Holy Ghost here actually uses a pleonasm and tautology, two grammatical errors in the estimation of modern critics, in order to enforce the grand fact that He does not want the contributions which are not made cheerfully, willingly, gladly and adoringly, in such a way as to be a spiritual blessing to the contributor at the time. Hence we are to pray over this part of the service like we do our preaching and altar work, and everything connected with the worship of God. I believe that it is a great mistake to refrain from singing while taking up a contribution, because a really good spiritual song would prove the vehicle of the Holy Ghost to pour blessings on the congregation during the contribution. I love Revelation John Norberry’s methods. He passes no contribution boxes, but exhorts the people to give with an eye single to the glory of God or withhold their contribution, all standing and coming forward and laying their money on a table while the doxology and other good songs of a most spiritual character are being sung by the whole congregation, the pastor and many others leading the way to the Lord’s table, laying down their contributions and then falling on their knees in adoration and supplication, meanwhile all the congregation enjoy the privilege to come or send their gifts to the treasury of the Lord. We have in this sentence the preposition both before lupee, “reluctance,” and anangkee, “necessity,” a grammatical pleonasm and tautology, in order to enforce with burning emphasis God’s prohibition of that blasphemous religious farce which so frequently derogates and pollutes His house. This salient fact should be emphasized before every congregation and efforts made to keep people from thus recklessly and blasphemously grieving the Holy Ghost by giving from reluctance, i. e., when it does not come freely from the heart as an offering to the Lord, enjoyed and appreciated as a precious privilege and a means of grace. Again, we are not to give from necessity, i. e., with a feeling that I have to do it or the Lord’s preachers and the poor saints will starve. That is a downright insult to God in His own house, who says, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the cattle on a thousand hills are mine.” The popular churches are everywhere blaspheming the name of God and disgracing Him before the infidels by this constant, indiscriminate and unscrupulous effort to get money. The result is they actually run into idolatry, ceasing to worship the God of the universe, who is infinitely rich, and disgusted and blasphemed by their stingy and reluctant contributions. But millions are actually worshipping a poor little god who is in an awful financial embarrassment and no akin to the omnipotent Jehovah, who sits upon the circle of the Heavens and turns the seasons round, with millions of ravens ready to fly and carry bread to every missionary girdling the globe and every suffering saint beneath the skies. When the Lord sanctified me thirty years ago He gave me light on this subject. Since that time I have been circuit rider, presiding elder, and occupied a diversity of ministerial relations. But I have stuck close to the Word of the Lord on finances. Twenty-eight years ago my Conference sent me to an old, dead, run-down circuit. My stewards met me and all wanted to resign, giving as a reason that none of the members were willing to pay the preacher, and they just had to wring from them their stingy and reluctant contributions amid rebellion, denunciation, and even abuse, because they asked them for ministerial support. I said to them, “I have but one charge to make you with reference to your duty to collect money for me, and that is that you be sure that you never receive anything that is not given with a free and cheerful heart. If I find out to the contrary I will send back everything that is reluctantly contributed.” “Well,” they said, “you will starve sure, for with all our efforts we have never been able to raise the pastor’s salary in full, and you will just about get nothing.” I not only thus charged my stewards, but I told the people from the pulpit what they had said to me about finances, and my order to them, then repeating it to the people: “I am glad to tell you that I serve a God who owns millions of immortal worlds and mountains of gold and silver. Be sure that you make no contribution to me this year unless you do it with an eye single to the glory of God, as a means of grace and blessing to your own souls.” The year passed away. The people gave me more than I knew what to do with, actually more than double the amount in former years assessed for the support of my predecessors, which, by all their financial strategy, they had never been able to collect in full. The stewards told me that the people ran after them from all directions with their contributions, begging them to receive them. Of course God was with us that year, gloriously converting four hundred people within the boundary of my little circuit, so that I went up to Conference with three times as many members as I had at the beginning of the year, meanwhile giving the Baptists ninety and the Presbyterians thirty who ha been gloriously converted at our altars. For many years I have traveled five to twenty-five thousand miles per annum with no person on the globe in any way being responsible for a penny, God Himself being my support, temporal as well as spiritual. Obedience to these commandments would actually bring a revival wave over the dead churches of Christendom, rolling from ocean to ocean like a sea of glory. Oh! that we could all wake up and take God in our finances an everything else. I am now preaching on the Atlantic Coast, responsive to calls which I received in California, four thousand miles distant. My response to the question, “What must we pay you to come to New England?” was the simple statement in brackets on a postal card: “No charge.” I travel constantly throughout the continent, making no charge and recognizing no financial obligation anywhere. God is better than all the banks in America. Do not fear. If you are doing His work, His ravens are already on the wing. “For God loves a laughing giver.” The Greek is hilaros, i. e., “hilarious,” the same word used in English, slightly modified in the spelling pursuant to the idiom of the English language. Look in your dictionary for hilarious. You will find it means “laughing uproariously.” Remember this giving is an act of devotion to God, which He blesses like He does your prayers, testimonies, songs, sermons and exhortations. The idea here is that you are to be so glad of the opportunity to co-operate with God in the salvation of the world that you will accompany your contribution with a glorious, uproarious, religious laugh, a regular hallelujah gaudeamus. This is the way the colored people in the South have astonished the world by building up church edifices and school-houses all over the country since they were emancipated in abject poverty. They walk up with shining faces and hilarious shouts and lay it down on the table. If the preachers and deacons would everywhere not’ only proclaim but enforce this rule, their finances would not only prove a paradoxical success, but instead of chilling the spiritual ardor would prove the vehicle of fiery baptisms poured on the congregation, and actual incentives to revival power.

8. “But God is able to cause all grace to abound unto you in order that always in everything, having all sufficiency, you may abound in every good work .” God help us to believe this truth, and make our contributions with a free will and a glad heart, hailing the glorious privilege and appreciating the means of grace, utterly saved from the diabolical lie that would make us feel that our poor benefaction is in any way a necessity to the cause of God. Oh, that we may constantly recognize in our God “all sufficiency,” temporal as well as spiritual! Such are His infinite resources that He can do without any of us and not know the difference. Here is the great culminating fact revealed. Our God has “all sufficiency,” temporal and spiritual, so that He does not need us nor anything we can do; meanwhile it is a privilege so glorious to be permitted to co-operate with God in His glorious philanthropy for the salvation and amelioration of the world that we should leap with joy and laugh uproariously, with the very ebullition of holy gratitude at the very thought of being permitted to bear some humble part in the glorious work of our wonderful Savior in redeeming this poor lost world from in, death and Hell.

9. “As has been written, He has scattered abroad, He hath given to the poor, His righteousness endureth forever.” What a wonderful promise! If you scatter your benefactions to the ends of the earth for the glory of God, helping the missionaries in all lands, and gladdening the hearts of the poor, your righteousness will endure forever. Here is a perfect guarantee against all backsliding.

10. “He that ministers seed to the sower and bread for eating shall supply and multiply your seed, and increase the fruits of your loving Heavenly Father. In ten thousand mysterious ways He will, to your own unutterable astonishment, multiply the seed which you are sowing in all the earth and increase the fruits of your righteousness.” How glorious it will be when the guardian angels in Heaven shall introduce to you many a soul saved through your instrumentality! Your little contributions crossed the great ocean, traveled half around the world, and carried the gospel to souls perishing for “the Bread of Life.” The guardian angels know you and know them. Happy will be your introduction in Heaven to the souls saved through your humble benefaction while toiling in earthly poverty.

11. “In everything being enriched unto all liberality, which worketh out through us thanksgiving unto God.” Here you see Paul prays that the Corinthian saints may be enriched unto all liberality, i. e., liberality in every respect and in the superlative degree. This liberality, which makes every little contribution a laughing blessing, is really a spiritual grace, the beautiful and delicious fruit of the blessed Holy Spirit Himself. And it works out in us gratitude to God. Oh, how infinitely alien from every conception of reluctance, burden or necessity! The idea here is that it works in us adoring thanksgiving to God for the blessed privilege.

12. “Because the ministry of this offering is not only supplying the deficiencies of the saints, but also abounding through much thanksgiving unto God.” Here you see the double inducement to participate in this philanthropy; i. e., because they are not only supplying the deficiencies for the saints, which is a glorious privilege and to them a great blessing, but it is reacting in showers of blessing on both the donors and the beneficiaries in the way of adoring gratitude to God, which of itself is a grand and amiable spiritual grace.

13. “Through the proof of this ministration glorifying God for the subjection of your confession unto the gospel of Christ and the liberality of your contribution as regards them and as regards all men.” How elaborately here Paul enlarges upon the gracious aspect of this contribution! exhibiting before the world the rich spiritual enduement of Christian liberality.

14. “Through their prayer in your behalf longing after you with Christian affection on account of the grace of God which superabounds unto you.” How beautiful this incentive: The Jerusalem saints will not only pray for you incessantly, but will actually long to see you and enjoy your saintly fellowship, drawn toward you with holy admiration on account of the sweet grace of God which actually superabounds in you.

15. “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift;” i. e., His own Son to come down, suffer and die to redeem us all from sin, death and Hell; in consideration of which momentous reality how glad should we be to cast in our little mite and bear some humble part in the glorious enterprise for which God gave His only Son to die. This is the climax of all incentives to Christian liberality.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you :

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2 Corinthians Chapter 9

In the next chapter the apostle (being on his way to Judea) exhorts the Corinthians to prepare relief for the poor of Israel; sending Titus that all might be ready as of a willing mind-a disposition of which he had spoken on his journey as existing among these Christians, so that others had been stirred up to give likewise. And now, while reckoning upon their goodwill, and knowing that they had begun a year before. he would run no risk of finding that facts gave the lie to what he had said of them. Not that he would burden the Corinthians and ease those of Judea, but that the rich should provide for the need of the poor brethren, in order that none should be in want. Every one, if his will were in it, should be accepted of God according to his ability. He loved a cheerful giver. Only they should reap according as they sowed. Titus, happy at the result of his first visit, and attached to the Corinthians, was ready to go again and gather this fruit also for their own blessing. With him went the messengers of the other churches, charged with the collection made among them for the same purpose-a brother known to all the churches, and another of approved diligence, stimulated by Paul’s confidence in the Corinthians. The apostle would not take charge of the money without having companions whose charge it should also be, avoiding all possibility of reproach in affairs of this kind, taking care that everything should be honest before men as well as before God. Nevertheless he did not speak by commandment in all this, but on account of the zeal of other churches, and to prove the sincerity of their love.

It will be remembered that it was this collection which occasioned all that happened to Paul at Jerusalem-that which put an end to his ministry, stopped him on his way into Spain, and perhaps other places; and which, on the other hand, gave occasion to write the epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and, it may be, to the Hebrews. How little we know the bearing of the circumstances we enter upon, happy that we are led by Him who knows the end from the beginning, and who makes all things work for good to those who love Him!

In closing those exhortations to give according to their ability, he commends them to the rich goodness of God, who was able to make them abound in all things, so that they should be in circumstances to multiply their good works, enriched to all bountifulness, so as to produce in others (by means of the apostle’s services in this respect) thanksgiving unto God. For, he adds, the happy effect of your practical charity, exercised in the name of Christ, would not only supply the want of the saints (through his administration of the collection made at Corinth) but abound also in thanksgiving to God; for, those who received it blessed God that their benefactors had been brought to confess the name of Christ, and to act with this practical liberality to them and to all. And this thought stirred them up to pray with fervent desire for those who provided in this way for their need, because of the grace of God manifested in them. Thus the bonds of eternal charity were strengthened on both sides, and glory redounded to God. Thanks be to God, says the apostle, for His unspeakable gift; for whatsoever may be the fruits of grace, we have the proof and the power in that which God has given. Here ends the matter of the epistle properly so called.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1, 2. The ministering to the saints. Contributions to supply their needs. It is superfluous. They were fully instructed, and had begun the work. Yet he does write and explain why in verse 2.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Paul continues on the subject of giving. He wants to make sure that the collection of their offering for the needy believers in Jerusalem takes place before he comes so that it does not seem as though he takes advantage of them. He talks about how giving blesses the giver and glorifies God.

General Information:

When Paul refers to Achaia, he is talking about a Roman province located in southern Greece where Corinth is located. (See: How to Translate Names)

the ministry for the believers

This refers to the collection of money to give to the believers in Jerusalem. The full meaning of this statement can be made explicit. AT: "the ministry for the believers in Jerusalem" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

Achaia has been getting ready

Here the word "Achaia" refers to the people who live in this province, and specifically to the people of the church in Corinth. AT: "the people of Achaia have been preparing" (See: Metonymy)

translationWords

to minister

believe

boast

people group

Macedonia

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.