In this section of 2 Corinthians, we have been reading about what Christian giving should look like. In today’s passage, we see that it is a cheerful kind of giving. But how is it possible?
(A) Growing a cheerful heart: it takes work! (2 Cor 9:7, c.f. 2 Cor 9:4-5)
In 2 Cor 9:7, Paul warns against giving out of reluctance, or under compulsion. He is saying that we should not bully or force people to give. We like this part but 2 Cor 9:7 also tells us that “God loves a cheerful giver”. What does this mean? Some of us have heard it told to us to give our tithe with a smile and to do so cheerfully. Ironically, it can make us feel guilty when we give and don’t feel ‘cheerful’.
But here, Paul encourages the Corinthians to give ‘as they have decided in their heart’. The word ‘decided’ introduces intention (making a choice). It tells us that there is an element of planning and preparation. In 2 Cor 9:4-5, Paul has sent brothers in advance to ‘arrange’ for the gift, and to help ensure that the gift is ‘ready as a willing gift’. The word ‘willing’ tells us that the visit is not just about tallying the numbers for the collection. Just as the giving needs to be prepared, so the hearts of the givers need to be prepared too.
This is a cheerful decision that they have to make! This means that one has to plan, work for, and prepare for it. It is the opposite of giving out of guilt. A cheerful heart is not left to chance – we are called to decide, to prepare, and others are involved in helping us ‘be ready’. What you are willing or unwilling to do today is a result of what your heart has fed on and stored up over time. This is sombre news for it teaches us that we have to bear responsibility for our giving. But it is also good news, because we are not helpless in this regard.
How well do you know the people that you give to? The church that you give to? For example, do you know the people in your church, or do you just come to church for the sermon and leave without interacting with people, and do not know your pastors, elders and deacons, or the ways your church is serving the community? If you do not know, it’s hard to have a cheerful heart when you give because you don’t know the church you are giving to. The giving here is not a sudden collection. Sometimes when the offering plate is passed around, or when the QR code flashes on the screen - we are almost rudely, unpleasantly jolted into remembering that we have to give. This could be because the needs of the church are not on our mind.Paul’s wisdom urges us away from one-off, “give and go” generosity. It calls us to committed, relational generosity.
This also calls us to involve others in our monetary decisions. Who is speaking into your life? Do they know about the promises that you have made? Who in your life is making your heart willing, joyful, cheerful in its obedience? Let us find people who will walk with us, and encourage us when we don’t want to give.
Does this sound like a lot of work? It is! The men that Paul sent travelled a distance to get to Corinth. They arrived months before the collection. It is good to realise that if cheerfulness is this much effort, we are not meant to get there on our own. But, what moves and fuels us towards this careful preparation? Is our diligence the foundation of our generosity? (No! God’s abundant grace is)
Why is it so important that those who give are cheerful? Some may misunderstand 2 Cor 9:7 and think: If I can only give a little bit cheerfully, then God would rather me only give a little bit. After all, God doesn’t want me to be reluctant or unhappy! It is important that giving be cheerful because our giving points to the Giver, and because our giving is a sign of our spiritual health. The joy of giving is not just for *some* Christians. It is for all Christians.
Our giving is not the start of the story: God loves a cheerful giver because God is a cheerful giver. Paul is not just concerned about prying the money from their hands. He wants something deeper. If giving is willing & cheerful & joyful, it testifies to something. Paul wants the Corinthians to think: why is my love for the church, God’s bride, not greater? Why is my giving not cheerful?
If we can only be cheerful to part with a small portion, that’s all we will give. If so, we should think about why we are so unwilling to part with what God first gave us.
(B) God’s abundant grace produces a harvest of righteousness (2 Cor 9: 6, 8-10)
The repetition of “all” is an assurance of grace. We receive all grace. That grace is then present, ready for us, in all things, at all times.There is a never a time or a place where we cannot be generous because God never stops supplying us grace. Giving becomes a joy because of God’s grace to us.
This should prompt our reflection: if God is so gracious, why isn’t my giving abounding? Have I been pretending that I know God’s grace? What fuels our giving? Are we trying to look good in front of others, or giving to fulfil just an obligation. This is something we have to think and reflect on. God does not challenge the Corinthian church to discover what is in their hearts. He already knows!
The call to give is an opportunity for them to discover what is in their hearts. It is for us to discover our spiritual condition. As we learnt at the start of 2 Cor 8, cheerful generosity is not a command, it is a mark, a fruit. When it is absent, it is a wake-up call to us: we need to know God’s grace.
Paul begins the section in the letter on generosity by inviting the brothers in Corinth to know about the grace of God (2 Cor 8:1). He began with this invitation to know, not just to do. We have 2 Cor 8-9 instead of a blatant IOU to the Corinthian church to pay up what they had promised. He is not just commanding them to gift, but also encouraging them to grasp the height and depth of God’s abundant grace for them. Is God able to make all grace abound to you? Money can really fill our vision, grip our hearts and make it hard for us to gift. Paul therefore responds to this bigness of money in their lives by showing them something bigger — the abounding grace of God.
This is Paul’s logic:
(1) Look at your fellow brothers who give. How do we encourage others to give, or how do we motivate ourselves? Paul does it by pointing to the bigness of God’s grace in the lives of fellow believers. Paul wants the Corinth church to give as a result of them seeing God’s abounding grace. In 2 Cor 8:2, Paul emphasises the abundance of the Macedonians’ giving (“wealth of generosity”) alongside their abundance of joy. He wants the Corinth church to notice – something strange and inexplicable is happening there.
(2) Now look at this church in desperate need. It is the ‘relief of the saints’ (8:4) and it is ‘supplying need’ (9:12). This is what the church is doing when she gives.
(3) Finally, look at the cross. The power of the cross is not the power of strong emotion, but of action. Why was there a physical collection of money? Because generosity is grace made visible. When Jesus Christ was filled with compassion, that feeling did not stay as a feeling. God’s grace to us is marked by a physical Jesus of Nazareth on a physical cross, enduring actual shame. It does no justice to Christ to have our gratitude for His grace lived out as an invisible, private feeling that never turns into visible giving.
Generosity is God’s grace revealed in the joyful, cheerful obedience of God’s people. Because God has not given us crumbs, we are free to give real bread to others. In our material giving, we point to the Giver.
What does this mean for us? Because God’s abundant grace is for all, all are invited to know the joy of giving. Even the poor can give. The example of the Macedonian church in extreme poverty can give. Poverty does not disqualify you from participation in generosity because God supplies the resources that we need to give. The rich too, are called to give! God knows that we can be materially rich and yet be spiritually poor. When we have more, we can develop a fear of not having enough. Is the grace of God for rich people too? Yes! Then the gift of generosity will also be theirs.
Because God’s grace abounds, we can also share of His grace and abound in good work despite our circumstances. In sickness and in health, God enables us to abound in good work. When we love people yet do not know how to tell them about Jesus, about this wonderful thing that God has done, generosity is one of the languages that God provides. God speaks the language of generosity on the cross, and He teaches us to speak it by inviting us over and over to discover His abundant grace, and to respond to it.
Paul writes of having “all sufficiency in all things at all times” in 2 Cor 9:8, 14. What comes to mind? Does this mean we will have enough to pay off our mortgage and stop working? Or, does it mean we can buy something (a bag or shirt or dress or car) that we’ve been longing to own? Maybe some of us dream of being financially independent from our parents.
God’s vision of sufficiency is far richer than ours. To “have all sufficiency” is not a signal to us to withdraw, retreat, hoard and pamper ourselves, but to go and give. To be able to give, to be in a position to give, is itself a gift. Giving is not just an extension of God’s grace to others, but also a means of drawing us closer to one another. Instead of ‘sufficiency’ allowing us to withdraw, it actually results in greater interdependence.
2 Cor 9:14 shows us the relationship and interdependence of the churches (“they long for you and pray for you”). Why doesn’t God just divinely make all churches have the same amount? The gift and provision of God is distributed through the obedience and participation of His people so that God can give His people to each other. As the Apostle to the Gentiles, one of Paul’s goals was to unite Jew and Gentile in a single household – to tear down the dividing wall of hostility. How do you get different people to realise that they are family? One answer is to encourage them to give like they are family and as they give, they step into the reality that Christ has bought. Christians are joined to Christ and thus, have a new family, one with other believers!
Christians often teach and speak of our union with Christ. Paul is challenging us here to think about how to live this doctrine out practically. One way we can understand our union with Christ and communion with believers is to give. Who do we give to? People who look like or talk like us? Or do we really believe that Jesus has adopted all sorts of people we would never meet or love by His precious blood? Giving helps us to realise that Jesus really has made us all one in Christ (c.f. Gal 3:28).
An agricultural metaphor is used in 2 Cor 9:6 and 2 Cor 9:10. The logic is: what you put in is what you get (2 Cor 9:6). But if we read it together with 2 Cor 9:10, we also realise that God, the Creator is the one who supplied the seed to the sower and also provided our basic needs. He is the one that will supply and also multiply the seed for sowing. Thus, there is no sowing and reaping sparingly because God has provided bountifully.
By using the picture of sowing, we realise that this act of sowing and growing also requires commitment and preparation! If someone said “I don’t want to put my seed in the ground - I don’t want to lose it”, we would encourage them to understand what they have sowed, and what fruit will yield. Sowing is not loss if we understand what happens next! We need to encourage each other to see giving as more than just giving, but is sowing that takes a long time. We don’t just give and go in our church but it is really a sowing, where we stick around to see where our money is going, like a farmer who sows and prepares the ground, and also watches for growth!
It is so wonderful to think of giving in this way, where it is not a one-off act, but one which has a long- term impact and as 2 Cor 9:10 says, produces a harvest of righteousness. We think of giving as loss when we do not see ourselves as part of a body of believers. Giving is gain also because it points others to God’s grace. We abound in good works and this is a sign that we have receive God’s grace.
2 Cor 9:9 also quotes from Ps 112:9. How can we understand this OT reference? Even in the OT, righteous living includes giving, and giving to the poor. To us, it makes no sense to give to the poor. It has very poor yield! Thus, we need to see that what is not just about material gain and the poor are worth our giving because they have inherent value. Giving to the poor makes us realise what it means that we are image-bearers in a deeper way – one that we will never learn if we only think of our money as an ‘investment’ in worldly terms. We need to think of it on God’s terms. Do we really believe that all are made in God’s image? Do we really believe that God loves those who have nothing to offer in return? Giving to the poor helps us grasp that reality. And it is righteous.
(C) God’s abundant grace produces a harvest of thanksgiving (2 Cor 9: 11-15)
When we find ourselves enriched, we are to be generous in every way (2 Cor 9:11a). The only way we can not be generous is by ignoring His clear words. God is so clear here that if we are not generous, we will be uncomfortable, and driven to search for answers.
This is grace to us, because it is so clear and prompts us to search our own hearts if we do not obey. It does not allow us to avoid this clear wisdom!
We have already seen that generosity deepens our grasp of God’s grace, and deepens unity within the body. In 2 Cor 9:11b-12, we see that generosity also produces firstly, a thanksgiving to God and secondly, help for saints in need. These are spiritual and material fruit. By meeting the material needs of the saints, thanksgiving to God happens. Why?
In 2 Cor 9:12, notice the word “overflowing”. The image that Paul has painted, since2 Cor 9:8, is that of abundance. The repetition of “all”, “abounds”, “multiply”, “increase the harvest” show us a cascading and intensification effect of grace. God’s grace flows to God’s people who overflow in generosity which flows forth in thanksgiving to God. It is an image of abundance. Paul is assuring the hearers and us that we don’t need to worry about lacking. God gives to us so that we can overflow.
God’s gracious provision of wealth and resource isn’t meant to stop with the individual. After all, what we hoard wastes away for moth and rust can easily destroy it. At the same time, hoarding means closing your ears and your eyes to the need around you, and to the clear word of Scripture. It means refusing to drink from God’s grace. It will rot the heart.
2 Cor 9:13 tell us that if we overflow, the needs of the church are met. As the needy church receives the gift, God will be glorified. This verse equates generosity with a “confession of the gospel”. As we’ve already seen, we do not just confess truth with our mouths, but with our hands and our deeds. We do not just take the membership pledge with our mouth, but with our wallets, our time, our energy. A genuine confession of the gospel and submission to God are inseparable.
As the Jews see the submission of the Corinth church, who frankly have no reason to give to Jews, they realise that the gospel has truly gone forth to the Gentiles. Jesus is Lord of Jew and Greek alike. And they glorify God as they experience this generosity. What right do the Jews have to take the money of Corinth? This is proof that the gospel is real.
This is the “inexpressible gift” (2 Cor 9:15). In a sense, grace is invisible. We cannot see Jesus on the Roman cross. We cannot see Jesus at all! But we know that we have received Him as a gift when we receive the gift of generosity, generosity that makes no sense, that obeys no capitalist logic, that is not a “sound investment”. It is and can only be a response to God’s free grace. Generosity makes grace visible.
Notice here, that the Jerusalem church sees the grace of God on the Corinth church in their giving, just as the Corinth church was invited to see the grace of God given to the Macedonian church in 8:1 (2 Cor 9:14).
What about us? Do we know our church well enough? Other churches in Singapore? To be able to experience the grace of giving to those in need, or to see the grace of God work itself out in others? What about those of us who get to serve in church? How did you come to be here today, serving God’s people? How did you come to have the time, energy, money that you have? 2 Cor 9 says: it began with the grace of God to you.
Paul starts in 8:1 pointing to God’s grace by pointing to God’s people who are marked by His grace – in their generosity. Paul points to God as the source of grace, the source of seed, and so the one deserving of praise for the harvest. We must see the poverty of a ‘give-and-go’ approach. And the richness of giving that is considered, that is thoughtful, that is a response to grace, that invites us into each other’s lives.
Giving is therefore a rich gospel reality that God invites us into and we must enter into it. Giving matters because until we learn how to give based on God’s grace rather than how deserving the recipient is, we will never fully believe that God gives to the undeserving. But when we learn to give as the righteous man in Psalm 112, we learn anew how true our salvation is. How amazing it is that God gives grace to those who could never earn it! Praise Him!