2 Corinthians 8
McGeeCHAPTER 8THEME: Example of Christian givingThe subject now changes. For the previous seven chapters Paul has talked of the comfort of God. I trust it has brought comfort and strength to you to know that you have a Helper in your Christian life. Our natural reaction is to say, “Paul, go ontell us more about comfort.” However, he changes the subject abruptly. He now talks about the collection for the poor saints of Jerusalem. He brings us back to earth with a thump! The subject changes from Christian living to Christian giving, which is as vital a part as living. This section, which includes chapters 8 and 9, divides this way:
- Example of Christian Giving, chapter 2Co_8:1-6
- Exhortation to Christian Giving, chapter 2Co_8:7-15
- Explanation of Christian Giving, chapters 2Co. 8:16-9:5
- Encouragement to Christian Giving, chapter 2Co_9:6-15 During my twenty-one years as a pastor in downtown Los Angeles I do not think that I preached more than three messages on giving, yet we saw the giving double and triple several times during that period. This confirms my belief that God’s people will support a ministry that teaches and preaches the Word of God. I resent the high-pressure promotion and money-raising schemes which are being used in Christian work. I do not think they are scriptural by any means. These two chapters give us the most extended and complete section on Christian giving that we have in the Scriptures. Actually, all we need to know is here. There are no rules, but there are certain clear-cut principles for giving. That may strike you as being unusual. Someone may say, “I thought we were to give a tithe.” No, that is not the rule for today. It might be a principle that you would like to follow, but it is not a rule for anyone today. The word that is important in this section is the word grace. In this chapter the word grace occurs seven times, and it occurs three times in chapter 9ten times in these two chapters. The subject is the grace of giving.
2 Corinthians 8:1
EXAMPLE OF CHRISTIAN GIVINGI want to spend a little time here on that word grace. We find it here in the first verse. We find it again in the fourth verse: “Praying us with much entreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.” The word gift in our translation is actually “grace.” Another way of translation would be, “Praying us with much entreaty that we would give effect to the grace and fellowship of the service to the saints.” The word appears again in the sixth verse: “Insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also.” He is calling giving a grace. It is a grace of God. It is a disposition created by the Spirit of God. He is writing to the Corinthians and is telling them that the Macedonians had that kind of grace, and he is hoping that the Corinthians will have that same grace. The theologian defines grace as the unmerited favor of God. I agree with that, and yet it does not adequately describe this word. It may cause you to miss the rich flavor of it. I studied classical Greek before I studied Koine, the Greek of the Scriptures, and I found that the Greek word charis means an outward grace like beauty or loveliness or charm or kindness or goodwill or gratitude or delight or pleasure. The Greeks had three graces: good, fine, noble. The Greeks were missionary-minded about their culture, and they wanted to impart this to others. The Holy Spirit chose this word, gave it a new luster and a new glory, and the Christian writers adopted it. Paul uses it again and again. Now notice carefully this definition: The grace of God is the passion of God to share all His goodness with others. Grace means that God wants to bestow upon you good things, goodnesses. He wants to make you fine and noble, and He wants to bring you into the likeness of His Son. This is the grace of which Paul writes in Ephesians: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph_2:8-9).
We were lost sinners; we had nothing to offer God for our salvation; so He saved us by grace. He had a passion for wanting to save us. He loved us, but He could not arbitrarily forgive us because He is a holy God. He had to provide a way, and that way was that He sent His Son to die for us. We are told that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (see Joh_3:16). God is in the business of giving, not receiving.
We need to make that very clear. I think sometimes we give the impression that God is poor and that He needs our gifts. He doesn’t. God is not poor. He says, “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof” (Psa_50:10-12). God doesn’t get hungry. Even if He did, He would not tell us! God is not in need of anything. The early church considered giving to be a grace. It was a passion, an overwhelming desire to share the things of God with others. Paul is writing specifically of a local situation, and we need to recognize that. The Jerusalem church had been the first to give out the gospelthe gospel had begun there. Jesus had told the disciples they should be witnesses unto Him beginning in Jerusalem. The apostles loved Jerusalem, and they locked their arms around their beloved city until persecution drove them from it, scattered them abroad, sent them down the highways into Judea and Samaria and finally to the uttermost parts of the earth. The church in Jerusalem was weakened because of persecution. In fact, there was famine going on, and the church was poverty-stricken. Now as Paul went about on his third missionary journey, he collected an offering for the church in Jerusalem. That is rather revolutionary. Here the mission churches are sending an offering to help the mother church. Today it is just the opposite. The home church sends out missionaries and supports them out in the foreign field. But in Paul’s day the foreign field was supporting the home church. Paul was not yet able to come to Corinth; so in this letter he sends instructions to them about how to give. Because he intends to come to Corinth, he tells them that he doesn’t want any kind of promotion for givinghe doesn’t want to be taking up a collection while he is there. He doesn’t want to spend time talking about money after he gets there. This collection was to be done beforehand and then, when he arrived, he could spend his time teaching them the Word of God. What a contrast that is to the usual method today. The usual invitation that I receive is to come over and hold a meeting and while I am there a love offering will be taken for me. If it were done as Paul suggested, a love offering would be taken before an evangelist or a Bible teacher came to speak. Now I have given to you the color of the local situation and the background of the instructions in this epistle. The facts of the local situation have now passed into history, but the principles which Paul lays down abide. I believe they are as sharp and fresh today as they were when Paul first gave them. In the first verse Paul cited the Macedonian believers as examples in Christian givingthis referred to the church at Philippi. In verse 2Co_8:2 he lists their motives and methods of giving.
2 Corinthians 8:2
Notice that the Macedonians gave out of their “deep poverty.” They didn’t have riches. They didn’t give of their surplus or of their abundance; they gave out of their poverty. I’m afraid we don’t know much about that kind of giving today.
2 Corinthians 8:3
It would be more accurate to translate this: “Praying us with much entreaty that we would receive the grace"that gift they had taken up was a grace, and it was fellowship, which means it was a sharing of the things of Christ. You and I cannot realize the love that they had one for another. We talk about social action in the church today; I must confess that we have almost lost sight of it in our fundamental churches. It is a wonderful thing to give to the missions, but must we neglect folk in our own congregations who are in need? Many of them don’t even want their needs to be known in the local congregation because they know it would become a subject of gossip in the church. They don’t want to accept help because they feel it would be more or less a disgrace. I’ve discovered this in my own ministry.
Sometimes I could not reveal the name of the person in need to a committee or a group that wanted to know to whom the help was going, because the committee would not keep it in confidence, and by the time it got to their wives, it would be throughout the church. We have lost today this wonderful grace of giving. Now notice what the believers in Macedonia had donethis is unusual.
2 Corinthians 8:5
Paul says this was not something that he had expected. First of all, they had given themselves to the Lord. That is basic. Secondly, they had given themselves, apparently to some local work of Christ and they were sold out to it. They gave themselves to Paul by the will of God, which means they helped him to get out the gospel. You see, they were sold out to God. Back in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he wrote about the Resurrection and heaven (see ch. 15), and they were about to say, “Brother Paul, tell us more about heaven.” Then Paul shook them right down to their shoestrings by saying, “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye” (1Co_16:1). He wanted to talk to them about something very practical. And he tells them here in his second letter that they are not to give grudgingly. The Macedonian believers gave out of “the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty.” What a picture! God loves a cheerful giver, and we see it in shoeleather hereit was a fellowship. They shared what they had. They owed the home church in Jerusalem for all their spiritual blessings. They had received the gospel from them. Now they were returning material gifts to the home church which was in such a sad situation. Paul writes in Gal_6:6: “Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.” That literally means, “Pay the preacher.” It means, my friend, that you ought to support the work from which you derive a spiritual blessing. A man, living out of fellowship with the Lord, heard our radio messages and the Word of God brought him back to the Lord. We have a building which belongs to “Thru the Bible” because he gave that building to us. He gave it hilariously. He gave it joyously. That is the way it should be given. It should be out of the abundance of joy. We are never to give reluctantly or because we think we ought to give. We should have a passion to give so that the Word of God can reach others. You remember that the Lord Jesus stood aside and watched the people give in the templeI think He still does that. The rich came in and gave large gifts, but the poor little widow came and put in her two mites. The Lord said she had cast in more than they all (see Mar_12:41-44). She gave of her poverty and she gave all that she had. If you measured the value of those little coppers against the riches of that temple, they didn’t amount to anything. But the Lord Jesus gives God’s evaluation: “And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had” (Luk_21:3-4). It has been said, “When it comes to giving, some people stop at nothing.” That is where a great many folk stop. The story is told of a Scottish church that was attempting to raise money for a new building. One member of the church was a rich Scot who was known to be worth fifty thousand pounds. He was a typical Scot and was pretty stingy, like most of us are. A deacon came to see him and asked, “Brother, how much are you going to give for the new church?” The Scot replied, “Oh, I guess I’ll be able to put in the widow’s mite.” The deacon called out in the next meeting, “Brethren, we have all the money we need. This brother is going to give fifty thousand pounds.” The man was amazed. “I didn’t say I would give fifty thousand pounds; I said I would give the widow’s mite.” The deacon replied, “Well, she gave her all, and I thought that is what you meant to give!” It is interesting that God notes what you give but also what you keep for yourself. In another church they were taking up an offering for a building program. The man calling on one of the members said to him, “How much are you going to give, brother?” “Well,” he said, “I guess I could give ten dollars and not feel it.” The man replied, “Then why don’t you make it twenty dollars and feel it?” You see, the blessing only comes when you feel it, my friend. This is the meaning of “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The Macedonian believers gave themselves to God. And, my friend, if God doesn’t have you, He doesn’t want anything from you. If God doesn’t have the hand, He doesn’t want the gift that is in the hand.
2 Corinthians 8:6
Paul says that the grace which motivated the Macedonians should be the same grace that would motivate the Corinthians. The real test of any person lies in what he gives. Someone has said there are three books that are essential for a worship service: the first book is the Bible, the second is the hymn book, and the third is the pocketbook. Giving is a part of our worship to God. If we do not have the grace of giving, we should pray to God and ask Him to give us a generous, sharing spirit.
2 Corinthians 8:7
EXHORTATION TO CHRISTIAN GIVINGPaul is commending them. They abound in faith; they were able to witness; they had knowledge and diligence; and they had love for Paul and for the other apostles. Now he asks them to abound in this grace also. What does he refer to? He means the grace of giving.
2 Corinthians 8:8
Paul is saying here that giving today is not by law, by rote, or by ritual. I know that there are good Bible expositors who say we are to give the tithe. Obviously, the tithe was basic back in the Old Testament. However, if you examine it very carefully, you will find that the people gave three tithes. One was actually for the support of the government, which would be what we call taxes today. So the “tithe” is not the basis on which Christians are to give. Paul says, “I speak not by commandment.” He is not asking the Corinthians to give because it is a commandment. Paul gives two reasons by which he is asking them to give. The first is “by occasion of the forwardness of others"which would be the example which the Macedonians had given. The second reason is to “prove the sincerity of your love.” It is still true today that the pocketbook is really the test of a man’s love. It is the most sensitive area of a Christian.
2 Corinthians 8:9
If you are looking for a standard for giving, here it is: the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He was rich but He became poor. He came down here and took a place of poverty. Imagine leaving heaven and coming down to this earth to be born in Bethlehem, to live in Nazareth, to die on a cross outside the walls of Jerusalem, and to be put into the darkness of a tomb! He was rich but He became poor for you and me.
2 Corinthians 8:10
This indicates that the Corinthians had made a pledge or a promise and had begun to give for this collection a year earlier. This raises the issue of making a pledge to give a certain amount of money. Some people say they don’t think a Christian should make a pledge. I think we need to recognize that we sign pledges for everything else, and I think that people ought to be willing to make a pledge to God’s work. We promise to pay our rent; we sign notes when we buy an automobile or a refrigerator. I say that we can sign on the dotted line for God’s work, too.
2 Corinthians 8:11
Paul is saying they should carry through with their pledge. They should put their money where their mouth is. However, remember that this is not a commandment. We are not commanded to make a pledge. However, this verse does tell us that if we do make a pledge, then we are to carry it through and perform it.
2 Corinthians 8:12
Here is something very important to note. Each should give according to “that a man hath,” and he is to do it with a willing mind. No one is to give according to what he does not have. In the section on 1 Corinthians, I gave an illustration which I will repeat because it is a very fine example of this principle. When I was pastoring a church in Texas, one of my officers owned several Coca-Cola plants, and one of them was in our town. He was a man of means, and he owned a ranch where we used to go out to hunt and fish. Often he would ask me why I didn’t preach on tithing. One day I said, “Why should I preach on tithing?” He said, “Because it is the Bible way of giving.” I agreed, “Yes, it was the Old Testament way of giving, but under grace I don’t believe tithing is the way it should be done.” So he asked me, “How do you think it ought to be done?” I took him to this verse: “As God has prospered him.” Now this was during the Depression. If you are as old as I am, you will remember that the Depression in the 1930s was a very serious time. So I said to him, “For some strange reason, Coca-Cola is selling, and you are doing very well.
However, there are some members in our church who couldn’t give a tithe right now. I don’t believe God is asking them to give a tenth. There are a few people who are doing well, and they are to give as they have been prosperedand they are not to stop with a tenth. Probably they ought to give a half.” Do you know that this man never again suggested that I preach on tithing! The reason was that he found out that a man is to give according to what he hath, not according to what he hath not. The tithes were a basic measurement in the Old Testament, and I cannot believe that any Christian today who has a good income should give less than one tenth. In this time of great abundance Christians should be giving more than a tenth.
2 Corinthians 8:13
Paul is saying that a burden should not be placed on anyone.
2 Corinthians 8:14
Perhaps you have been blessed with a good automobile, a lovely home, nice furniture, and all the appliances that are considered necessary in our contemporary culture. May I say to you that God expects you to share in the Lord’s work. You may be like my rancher friend who would like to settle for the tithe. He wanted me to preach on the tithe so he would feel comfortable in his giving. After I had talked with him, I don’t think he ever felt comfortable about his tithe-giving. Those who are able to give should give, and we should not burden those who are unable to give.
2 Corinthians 8:15
Paul gives the example of the gathering of the manna in the wilderness. Each was to gather enough for one day. Some man might go out with several baskets and say, “Let’s just fill them up. I’ll gather bushel baskets of manna while I can.” He would go out and greedily gather up much more than he needed. What would happen? After he had eaten what he needed for that day, he would find that all the rest had spoiled by the next morning. It was God’s plan that each one should have just enough and no more. We will learn in chapter 9, verse 2Co_9:6, that “…He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” I think that God will begin to deal with you as you have been dealing with Him. I think that God keeps books. He does not put us under law because He wants our giving to be a grace, a passion, a desire to share. It should be a joyful experience. You ought to be able to say to other folk, “You ought to listen to Dr. McGee. He’s talking about the most wonderful privilege in the world. He is telling us how we can be happy by giving.” That may sound crazy to you, but that is exactly what Paul is saying here.
2 Corinthians 8:16
EXPLANATION OF CHRISTIAN GIVING"Thanks” is the same Greek word charis, which has been translated “grace.” Although “thanks” is a good translation, it would be equally correct to translate it “grace be to God.” Paul is saying that he sent Titus to get their offering, but it was already a grace in his heart. Titus wanted as much as Paul did to take up an offering for the poor saints in Jerusalem.
2 Corinthians 8:17
You see, Titus and his companion had this grace in their hearts. The giving was to be for the glory of God. Whatever we give, my friend, should be for the glory of God.
2 Corinthians 8:20
Paul is saying, “We are going to be honest in the use of the money we collect from you and in the way we handle it.”
2 Corinthians 8:21
This is one of the more sensitive areas in the Lord’s work. Many Christian organizations and churches major in heavy promotion to encourage giving to a certain work. No effortor at best, little effortis made to tell how the money is used. There should be the presentation of tangible evidence that the money is used to give out the Word of God and that there are results that can be documentednot just isolated cases. There should be confidence in the organization to which we give, that it is honest and is operated on the highest level of integrity. We should not support an organization about which we have doubts. We must remember that this is a big, bad world and that there are religious racketeers in it. We need to beware. Even Paul, this great apostle, says, “Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.” It should be obvious that the money is being used for the purpose for which it is given.
2 Corinthians 8:22
They can trust Titus. He will make a good report. They can trust Paul who will also report to them. The money will be not be delivered by just one person.
2 Corinthians 8:24
Paul is asking for proof of their love. You see, friend, if you really mean business, there will be more than verbiage. Giving will be a tangible expression of your love. I’m afraid there are a great many Christians who are like the young fellow who wrote to his girl: “I would cross the widest ocean for you. I’d swim the deepest river for you. I would scale the highest mountain for you. I’d crawl across the burning sands of the desert for you.” Then he concluded with a P.S.: “If it doesn’t rain Wednesday night, I’ll be over to see you.” A great many of us like to talk about how we love Jesus, but we are not willing to sacrifice much for Him. Paul is urging the Corinthians to show the proof of their love.