Bible Commentaries
2 Corinthians 8

Verses 1-15

On Christian Giving (8:1-9:15)

The next two chapters, 8 and 9, have been thought by sonic to be a letter, or even two letters, in themselves. The only good reason for supposing this to be true is that they are on a separate subject from the rest of the letter. A survey of Paul’s letters would show that this is not unusual with him. We should note that while there is a shift in subject, there is no shift in atmos­phere. The same relaxed assurance with which he has been writing carries right on into these "financial" chapters. So there is really no good reason for supposing that there has been any editorial scotch-taping at this point. Paul does repeat himself somewhat, but this was a habit with him, one might almost say a trademark.

There is almost no need for a commentary on these chapters, so far as difficulties go. There are really only two small points that may seem obscure. One is the question: Who are the men men­tioned in 8:18 and 22? Nobody knows. Many have thought the unknown "brother" of verse 18 is Luke, but that is no better than a guess. Since Paul at this point is trying to arouse confi­dence in the way the fund he speaks of is going to be handled, you would expect him to name, as well as describe, all the com­mittee in charge. But he does not. In verse 23 the Greek word translated "messengers" is actually "apostles." This is one of the places where it appears that in the Early Church the word "apos­tle" was not confined to the original Apostles.

What fund is this? Paul is not talking about Christian giving in general, but about a particular project he had started. Before he gets through with it, again typically, he has launched into some great thoughts on giving in general. But this is "the offering" he is talking about. Besides being preacher, organizer, theologian, bishop, writer, and poet, Paul was a man of business. He was a "fund-raiser" as we would call him today, a shrewd and practical man who knew how to go after money and get it.

This particular fund is mentioned in Romans 15:25-28, also in 1 Corinthians 16:1-4. (First Corinthians was, of course, written before this, and Romans a few years after this.) You should refresh your mind on those other passages before you read 2 Corinthians 8, 9.

The church at Jerusalem, as readers of Acts will remember, experimented with property and practically abolished private property. "No one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common" (Acts 4:32). From the common fund, thus created, the committee headed by Stephen distributed "to each as any had need" (Acts 4:35). This was a successful plan for a while. The author of Acts says, "There was not a needy person among them" (Acts 4:34). But by the time Paul wrote Second Corinthians, some twenty years later or more, the mother church at Jerusalem had fallen on evil days. The cause was partly a famine, which of course they could not help. But their poverty was also due to the fact that in their gen­erous sharing of what they had, they forgot something important: production. Their system of distribution worked splendidly; but distribution without production ends in the poorhouse, for indi­vidual or nation. You reach the point where your system of dis­tribution has nothing left to distribute.

At this low point in the Jerusalem community’s history, Paul conceived a simple but hopeful plan. Jerusalem was the mother of all churches; why not let the children come to their mother’s rescue? It is this fund-raising scheme that is the subject of 2 Corinthians 8, 9, as well as of the passages in Romans and First Corinthians already mentioned. But its real importance to us is that in dealing with this particular fund, Paul brings out a great deal that is universally true. This section has been well called "A Philosophy of Christian Giving."

At the risk of making wooden and artificial what is actually smooth-flowing and alive, we shall not try any paragraph-by-paragraph notations but shall sum up these two chapters under vari­ous heads, under the main title, "How to Raise Money in the Christian Church."

First, we note several general principles.

Consecration. "First they gave themselves to the Lord" (8:5), Paul says of certain Christians whose generosity had sur­prised him. Without consecration each contributor opposes himself, for without consecration a man will give, no matter how good the cause may be, only what he can spare out of what he plans to spend on himself. Without consecration, a giver will think, "What can I get by with?" This is why giving, as the Christian Church encourages it, is a means of grace. In order to meet the challenge of some benevolence fund, there has to be a spiritual re­vival first. Giving, to put it plainly, is a part of the committed Christian life. This is why raising money for Christian purposes by means of raffles, carnivals, and the like is unchristian. Money thus spent by a man at a gambling device is virtually stolen from the man by the church. Money taken in by selling in a "bazaar" goods for three times the normal value is likewise stolen. Funds for Christian purposes should be given by Christian people as part and token of their personal devotion to the Lord, not raised in ways that contradict the spirit of Christ.

Readiness, that is, willingness, the spirit of the cheerful giver. By the way, the word translated "cheerful" (9:7) means more than an absence of grumbling. It borders on the meaning "gay," and is in fact the root of our English word "hilarious." Paul does not want reluctant or forced contributions. There were to be no assessments in the Corinthian church. He does not men­tion any sum which the church should supply as its quota, or any average per member, or any minimum amount. He says not a word about tithes. He wants free gifts from those who are conse­crated to the Lord. When the consecration and the willingness are there, you do not need to worry about quotas.

Proportionality. Maybe that is too long a word. But there is no short one to express this third principle of Christian giving. "If the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a man has, not according to what he has not" (8:12). Paul does not want the Corinthians to be too generous. Is it possible for Christians to be too generous? Can any virtue be overdone? Yes, indeed! Granted, more people are too stingy rather than too free with their gifts. But an overgenerous giver will reduce himself to the point where he in turn needs help, and this Paul does not want.

(4) A Definite Purpose. (This may belong under the head of "method," but it is a principle as well.) Paul does not encourage the Corinthians to give, he just encourages them to giving. He does not cover up what he wants to do with the money by some big word like "benevolences." He had already explained (in First Corinthians) where this money was going. Churches that leave a basket at the door for "Missions" never take up anything like as much as churches that invite missionaries to visit them and tell of particular needs in particular places.

Second, in these chapters there are suggested several methods.

Someone to Push. Everybody’s business is nobody’s business. Some person, some group in the church, has to have the special responsibility of fund-raising. Paul in this case was the pusher. Churches nowadays use, sometimes, firms of professional fund­raisers. This is not bad, provided such firms do not resort to non-Christian devices to pry money loose from the unwilling. Further, the professionals are not likely to touch a job if they have no one to work with and are expected to do it alone.

Honesty. Paul aims at "what is honorable not only in the Lord’s sight but also in the sight of men" (8:21). Honesty is re­quired not only in stating the aims in view, but also in accounting to the givers for what has been spent. Church budgets and treas­urers’ reports, dry as they may seem, are the church’s way of carrying out the basic principle of honesty in church finance. Modern banking and business methods were then unknown. The funds raised in Achaia (including Corinth) and Macedonia (in­cluding Philippi, Thessalonica, and Beroea) would have to be taken to Jerusalem in cash, by personal messenger. Paul was of course scrupulously honest, and he knew that his own churches knew it. But he had enemies, and to keep those enemies from being able to cast the least shadow of suspicion on him, Paul proposed that the funds be conveyed not by himself alone but by a committee. He names some of this committee in 8:16-24, and gives the qualifications of them all. This is the equivalent of our modern audit. It is no reflection on a treasurer, or on a fi­nance committee, to have their accounts audited. It is a tempta­tion to say, "This is the Lord’s work, we are accountable to God alone, we do not need to be approved by men"; but that is the way men talk when they are about to juggle the accounts. A good treasurer, a good committee dealing with money, will not only welcome an audit, they will insist on it.

Psychological Smartness. Once in a while you hear someone say that for success we ought not to depend on psychology but on the Holy Spirit, especially in the work of the Church. Paul did not feel that way about it. He did depend on the Holy Spirit; he used psychology, too. For psychology is just a word for the way people tick, the way their minds work, the motives that affect them, and so on. If you find a door locked, you do not try to open it by whistling into the keyhole. You use a key, because it is the nature of locks to respond to keys, not whistles. That’s all psychology is: knowing what keys to use to get into people’s minds.

One bit of psychology Paul uses is something close to flattery. He tells the Corinthians (8:7) that they excel in everything—in faith, knowledge, and love, for example; and urges them to bring their generosity up to the level of their other virtues. This does not sound like the Corinthians described in Paul’s earlier letter to them. Paul could condemn the Corinthians, or the Galatians, or any church to which he was writing; and often he did so. But when you are raising money it is no time to find fault. If 8:7 is an exaggeration, it is a pardonable one under the circumstances.

Yet is it an exaggeration from Paul’s point of view? The good news about the church at Corinth, which he had received from Titus, filled him with such comfort and delight (see ch. 7) that he very likely, at that time, could see no fault in the Corinthians. The last sentence before he begins speaking of the offering for Jerusalem ends, "because I have perfect confidence in you."

Another psychological move on Paul’s part is the way he played off Corinth and Philippi (or Achaia and Macedonia) against each other. He brags about Achaia to Macedonia (9:2-4) and about Macedonia to Achaia (8:1-5). Those two provinces of the Roman Empire had once been rival states in Greece. Old rivalries die slowly, and Paul makes use of this one. He knew that a church in Achaia would not willingly let a church in Macedonia outdo it, and vice versa. Some would call this a moral compromise; but it seems better to let human nature work with you than against you.

(4) Perhaps another point of method is suggested in 8:7, namely, persistence. Many a good work has never been more than an intention, because once the first enthusiasm was over, nobody had the patience to carry on and on. "Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well," the proverb says; and likewise, whatever is worth doing is worth carrying through to the finish. A distin­guished business executive has said that in his office the word "practically" is forbidden; for when someone reports that a job is "practically" done it means all done but the most difficult parts of it. Many a church fund-raising campaign has gone or the rocks because by the time it was "practically" done everybody quit, and it was never done after all.

Third, Paul appeals to at least three motives, and their high spiritual nature indicates the really high regard he must have had for the Corinthian church. An unspiritual church would hardly rise to such motives as these.

Giving is a test of love (8:24, and by implication all the way through). Christian giving is a way of putting 1 Corinthians 13 into action.

Giving by Christians is modeled after the self-giving of Christ. The real measure of Christian generosity is not what some church somewhere else has done, but what Christ has done. Christian "giving" which denies in any way the spirit of Christ cannot really be called Christian.

Christian giving produces profound spiritual results. Paul is a practical man and he does not overlook two quite practical points: This gift to Jerusalem will keep some fellow Christians from going hungry, and also some day they may come to your rescue if you are in the same kind of trouble. But Paul does not stop with this. Note the climax to which he rises at the end of chapter 9. This service will not only supply the wants of the saints but will overflow in many thanksgivings to God. This gift will glorify God; it will be a public testimony to the gospel’s truth and power; and it will be a source of grace within the givers themselves. Thus Christian giving is not only a part of Christian living; it is also a means and support of the life in Christ. Plain ordinary money can be a seed out of which grow the finest fruits of the Spirit.