2 Corinthians 9

Today’s Passage: 2 Corinthians 9

Paul is finishing what he started. For years he has been gathering a relief offering among the Gentile churches for the poor believers in Jerusalem, and Corinth had been the first to be eager about it and then had let it drift. Chapter 8 set the Macedonians before them, poor churches who begged for the privilege of giving, and set the Lord Jesus before them, rich, who became poor. Now chapter 9 brings the matter home. It opens with the practical arrangements, the sending of three trusted brothers ahead of Paul so that the money is collected before he arrives and no one is put on the spot in front of visitors. From there it moves into the heart of the thing. A short proverb about sowing and reaping. A rule for the giver that rules out both the arm-twisted gift and the careless one. A promise about the God who is able to make all grace abound, and a psalm about the man who scatters his gifts abroad. Then the picture of God as the one who hands the farmer both the seed for the field and the bread for the table, and who can enlarge a harvest of righteousness. And then, in the last four verses, the camera pulls back and you see what this collection was always for. Money crossing the Mediterranean from Greek believers to Jewish believers who had never met them will set a whole city praying and give God the glory. The chapter, and the entire two-chapter appeal, ends on a single line of praise that has nothing to do with money at all.

As you read, hold this: God supplies the giver so that the giving can keep going, and the whole appeal ends not with the givers being praised but with God being thanked for a gift too great to tell.

2 Corinthians 9:1–2 (BSB)

¹ Now about the service to the saints, there is no need for me to write to you. ² For I know your eagerness to help, and I have been boasting to the Macedonians that since last year you in Achaia were prepared to give. And your zeal has stirred most of them to do likewise.

Watch the courtesy of a wise pastor here. He has just spent a whole chapter on this offering, and he opens the next one by saying there is no need for him to write to them about it at all, which is his gracious way of saying that he is not going to lecture people who already agreed. He assumes the best of them. He tells them he has been boasting about them to the Macedonians, that Achaia had been ready since last year, and that their example had stirred up the churches to the north. Sit with the direction of that for a moment, because it is easy to miss. Corinth had inspired Macedonia. The eagerness of these people, imperfect as they were, had gone out ahead of them and provoked poorer churches to give beyond their ability. You are almost never the only one watching what you do. Paul does not manipulate them with it, and he does not pretend the follow-through has happened. He simply lays the record of their own good intentions on the table, and lets it do its work. There is a mercy in being reminded of what you once meant to do. Many a good purpose has died not from a change of heart but from twelve months of nothing in particular, and a friend who quietly says, “you were going to do this, and you meant it,” is doing you a kindness.

2 Corinthians 9:3–5 (BSB)

³ But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove empty, but that you will be prepared, just as I said. ⁴ Otherwise, if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we—to say nothing of you—would be ashamed of having been so confident. ⁵ So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you beforehand and make arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. This way, your gift will be prepared generously and not begrudgingly.

Now the practical reason for the delegation, and it is worth noticing how much of Paul’s care goes into protecting the Corinthians from themselves. If he arrives with Macedonian companions and the money has not been gathered, there will be a scene, and a collection taken up under the eyes of visiting Christians is a collection taken under pressure. Paul will not have it. He sends the brothers ahead so that the whole thing is finished and settled before anyone is watching, and he tells them exactly why in the last line of verse five: “This way, your gift will be prepared generously and not begrudgingly.” That is the pivot of the chapter, stated as a matter of arrangements before it is ever stated as a matter of theology. The same coin can leave the same hand in two entirely different ways. Given freely, it is a blessing. Squeezed out of a man in a crowded room because he would be embarrassed to be seen holding back, it is something else, and Paul will not accept it on those terms even though the Jerusalem saints need it. He would rather the gift be smaller and free than larger and forced. Be honest about how rare that is. Almost every appeal you will ever hear is built on exactly the pressure Paul is here going out of his way to remove.

2 Corinthians 9:6–7 (BSB)

⁶ Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. ⁷ Each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not out of regret or compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver.

Paul reaches for the farm, because everyone in the ancient world understood the farm. A man carries a bag of seed to the edge of a field, and every handful he throws is a handful he could have eaten. To sow at all is to let go of something you could have kept, and the size of the harvest has a great deal to do with the size of the sowing. That is all the proverb claims, and we shall come in a moment to what the harvest actually is, because Paul tells us plainly and it is not what the advertisements say. Then verse seven, which is one of the most freeing sentences ever written about money. “Each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give.” Not what he was told to give, and not what the moment swept him into giving. The verb behind “decided” means to choose something out beforehand, to settle it in advance, and it rules out two opposite errors at once. It rules out the arm-twisted gift, the one extracted by a skilled appeal or by shame, which Paul has just spent three verses making impossible. And it rules out the impulsive gift, the flare of feeling in a warm room that a man regrets by Tuesday. Notice that Paul names no sum. He does not tell a single Corinthian what to put in, and neither will this page, because the amount is a matter to be settled in your own heart before God, who alone knows what is in your hand. What He asks for is the manner. Not out of regret, that is, not grieved over the loss of it. Not out of compulsion, that is, not squeezed. And then the reason, and it is the sweetest clause in the chapter: “For God loves a cheerful (ἱλαρός) hilaros, pronounced hih-lah-ROSS. Strong's G2431, cheerful, glad, bright of face. Hilaros appears in the New Testament only here, and you have met its family already, because through Latin it gives us our English word hilarious. Do not press that too far. In Greek the word did not mean comic or hysterical; it meant bright, glad, of a good countenance, the look of a face that is genuinely pleased to be doing what it is doing. Paul almost certainly has an old line from the Greek Old Testament in his ear, where Proverbs speaks of God blessing a man who is cheerful and generous. Put the word beside its opposites in the same verse and you can see it clearly. Not regret, which gives with one eye on what is leaving. Not compulsion, which gives because it cannot decently refuse. But gladness, the same gladness with which a man hands a plate to somebody hungry at his own table. And then look at what God is said to do with such a giver: He loves him. That is a startling thing to say. God is not merely satisfied by the cheerful giver, or supplied by him, or willing to accept the gift. He takes delight in him. Praise God that He cares so much more about the face of the giver than about the size of the gift, because that means the poorest reader on earth can bring Him something He delights in this very week. giver.”

2 Corinthians 9:8–9 (BSB)

⁸ And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. ⁹ As it is written: “He has scattered abroad His gifts to the poor; His righteousness endures forever.”

Read verse eight slowly, and read it whole, because it is the verse this chapter is most often robbed of. There is a way of teaching these words that promises the reader financial return on money given, seed sown now for a larger crop of the same currency later, and Manna Praxis will not teach them that way. Not because the promise is too generous, but because it is too small, and because it cuts the sentence in half. Paul does not stop at “God is able to make all grace abound to you.” He tells you what the abounding is for, and the little clause is bolted to the front of it: so that. God supplies you so that “in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” The supply is not the destination. It is the current running through you toward somebody else. And notice how carefully Paul words the middle of it. Not having all that you want, and not having more than the man beside you. Having enough. Having all that you need (αὐτάρκεια) autarkeia, pronounced ow-TAR-kay-ah. Strong's G841, sufficiency, contentment, having enough. Autarkeia was a proud word before Paul got hold of it. The Stoic philosophers used it for the settled independence of the wise man who needed nothing outside himself, who had trimmed his desires down until neither poverty nor loss could touch him, and self-sufficiency of that kind was one of the highest achievements a Greek moralist could name. Paul takes the word and quietly moves its source. Here the sufficiency is not manufactured inside the man at all; it is a gift, handed to him by a God who is able to make all grace abound. The BSB renders it beautifully as “having all that you need,” which is exactly the sense: enough, and enough at all times, for everything to which God has called you. Paul uses the same family of words when he tells the Philippians he has learned to be content in any circumstance, hungry or full, and when he writes that godliness with contentment is great gain. So the promise here is not that a generous believer will always have a surplus. It is that he will always have enough, which is a thing the anxious heart finds far harder to believe. And the reason God gives enough is stated in the same breath: not so that you can settle back into it, but so that you may abound in every good work. He funds the work He assigns. , always, in everything, which is a quieter and far surer promise than wealth, and one that God has kept for millions of His poor saints who never had a spare coin in their lives. Then Paul seals it with the psalm about the man who scatters his gifts abroad, and the psalm ends where the whole chapter is going: “His righteousness endures forever.” Not his balance. His righteousness. What lasts out of a life of open-handed giving is not the estate. Here is the psalm in full, and hear the honor God Himself attaches to such a life:

"He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor; his righteousness endures forever; his horn will be lifted high in honor." Psalm 112:9 (BSB)

2 Corinthians 9:10–11 (BSB)

¹⁰ Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your store of seed and will increase the harvest of your righteousness. ¹¹ You will be enriched in every way to be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will produce thanksgiving to God.

Here Paul finishes the picture, and the two things God hands the farmer are worth separating carefully. He supplies “seed to the sower” and He supplies “bread for food.” One is for sowing and one is for eating, and God gives both without apology. There is no hint anywhere in this chapter that a believer is wrong to eat his bread, feed his household, or enjoy what God has provided. What Paul says is that the God who fills both hands is able to fill them again, and that the seed in particular He will “supply and multiply.” Then comes the plainest statement in the chapter of what actually grows: God “will increase the harvest of your righteousness.” Not the harvest of your income. Righteousness. What a generous life yields is more of the character of the God who gave it, and more capacity to keep giving, and Paul makes that explicit in the very next line. You will be enriched in every way, and the purpose clause is attached again just as it was in verse eight, “to be generous on every occasion.” Every promise of increase in this chapter comes fastened to a purpose outside yourself. Take the promise, and take the purpose with it, and you have Paul’s actual doctrine of giving: God enriches givers in order to keep the giving flowing, and He is never in danger of running short of seed. And where does the whole arrangement finally land? Not on the giver. “Through us your generosity will produce thanksgiving to God.” Paul is watching money leave Corinth and turn into praise in Jerusalem.

2 Corinthians 9:12–14 (BSB)

¹² For this ministry of service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanksgiving to God. ¹³ Because of the proof this ministry provides, the saints will glorify God for your obedient confession of the gospel of Christ, and for the generosity of your contribution to them and to all the others. ¹⁴ And their prayers for you will express their affection for you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you.

Now Paul tells them what their gift will actually accomplish, and the list runs in an order we would never have chosen. First, yes, it supplies the needs of the saints, and that is no small thing; hungry believers in Judea will eat because of it. But Paul does not linger there. He calls it a ministry of service (λειτουργία) leitourgia, pronounced lay-toor-GEE-ah. Strong's G3009, service, ministry, a public service rendered. Leitourgia is the word behind our English liturgy, and it had two lives before Paul used it. In the Greek cities it was the ordinary term for a public service performed at private expense: a wealthy citizen would fund a chorus for the festival, fit out a warship, or pay for the grain, and the city recorded the debt of honor it owed him. Then in the Greek Old Testament the same word was picked up for the service of the priests in the tabernacle and the temple, the ministry carried out before the LORD. Paul takes both senses and lays them on a relief collection for poor believers. This is your public service, Corinth, the civic benefaction of the people of God, only there is no inscription and no honor coming back to you from the recipients. And it is priestly work as well, an offering carried up and laid before God, which is exactly why he says it overflows in thanksgiving to God rather than in gratitude to the donors. Do not let anyone tell you that money is a lower and less spiritual matter than worship. Paul just called a shipment of coin a liturgy. What is done with a purse in the fear of God is temple service, and it rises where all liturgy rises. that is “overflowing in many expressions of thanksgiving to God,” and that overflow is what he wants them to see. A gift given in Corinth becomes praise in Jerusalem. It runs past the need it met and keeps going, up to God. Then he names something the Corinthians could not have produced any other way. When Jewish believers open a purse sent by Greeks in Achaia, it is “proof” to them, evidence they can hold in their hands that these Gentiles really do confess the gospel of Christ and that the wall between the two peoples has genuinely come down. This offering was always an argument as well as a relief fund. And then the loveliest turn of all, in verse fourteen. The Jerusalem saints will pray for Corinth, and long for them, “because of the surpassing grace God has given you.” Notice they do not admire the Corinthians for their liberality. They look at the gift and they see grace, God’s grace, resting on a church in a harbor town they will never visit, and their hearts go out to them. That is what happens when the church behaves like the church. Strangers become family across a sea, on their knees for each other.

2 Corinthians 9:15 (BSB)

¹⁵ Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

And there it ends. Two chapters of careful, tactful, unhurried work on a collection, and Paul lays down his pen with a shout that never mentions the collection at all. Everything in the appeal has been climbing toward this line, and if you have been reading closely you will feel the ground shift under the word gift. Paul has been using that vocabulary for the Corinthians’ contribution all the way through, and now he takes it out of their hands and lifts it up to God, and the meaning goes so far past money that the two things can hardly be spoken of in the same breath. What is the indescribable (ἀνεκδιήγητος) anekdiēgētos, pronounced an-ek-dee-AY-gay-tos. Strong's G411, indescribable, beyond telling. Anekdiēgētos occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and it may well be a word Paul coined on the spot, which is itself part of the point. Take it apart and it is ek, out, plus diēgeomai, to tell a thing through from beginning to end, with the little a on the front that cancels the whole thing. So: not able to be told all the way out. Not a gift too vague to describe, but a gift too great to finish describing. You may begin the telling of it, and you will never come to the end of the telling. This is a man who has just written that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, and who has spent his life explaining the gospel to anyone who would sit still, and here he stops and admits that language has run out. Let that be a comfort when your own praying feels thin and your own words feel small. The gift was never one we could adequately put into words, and heaven itself will still be at the telling of it after ten thousand years. Praise God for a mercy that outruns the vocabulary of every tongue on earth. gift? It is not their offering, and it is not anything God is promised to send them back. It is the Lord Jesus Christ, the One Paul set before them in the previous chapter as the pattern of the whole business: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” That is the fountainhead. Every generous act any believer has ever performed is a small stream running out of that. God gave first, God gave His own Son, God gave beyond all telling and beyond any possibility of repayment, and the giving of His people is nothing more or less than the family resemblance showing. So the chapter that the world reads as a lesson in getting turns out to end with the church on its feet praising God for a gift it can never describe and never deserve. Thanks be to God indeed.