4. Christian giving is proportionate giving (8:10–12)
4. Christian giving is proportionate giving (8:10–12)
10And here is my advice about what is best for you in this matter: Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. 11Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. 12For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.
During the previous year the Corinthian Christians had been the first not only in giving but in desiring to give (v10). So now Paul urges them to finish the task they had begun, so that their doing will keep pace with their desiring. This must be according to their means (v11). For Christian giving is proportionate giving. The eager willingness comes first; so long as that is there, the gift is acceptable in proportion to what the giver has (v12).
This expression ‘according to his means’ might remind us of two similar expressions which occur in Acts. In Acts 11:29 members of the church in Antioch gave to the famine-stricken Judean Christians ‘each according to his ability’. In Acts 2 and 4 members of the church in Jerusalem gave ‘to each according to his need’.
Does this ring a bell in our memories? In his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875) Marx called for a society which could ‘inscribe on its banners “from each according to his ability” and “to each according to his need” ’. I have often wondered if Marx knew these two verses in Acts and if he deliberately borrowed them. Whatever our politics and economics may be, these are certainly biblical principles to which we should hold fast. Christian giving is proportionate giving.
Of course there are times when we are called to give as the Macedonians gave, out of proportion to their income, as a sacrificial offering in particular circumstances. But the principle here is a foundational one. Christian giving should never be less than proportionate to our income.