Christ and the Christian’s Giving
Money answers everything.
ECCLESIASTES 10:19
The Money Pitfall
At the close of the classic crime movie The Maltese Falcon, a police officer gazes at a statuette, cast in lead in imitation of a prodigiously valuable, jewel-encrusted, falcon-shaped original, the quest for which had triggered the murder and mayhem throughout. He asks, “What is it?” Humphrey Bogart, as Sam Spade, the anti-heroic detective hero, replies, “It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.” That, surely, is the perfect comment on the deceptive lure of wealth, in all its forms, to the fallen human heart—which is where this chapter must begin.
What is money? A medium of exchange, a resource for getting hold of things you want and sometimes for getting rid of things you don’t want, and a means of gaining power and influence in your circle of society. Many view money as a kind of magic: the more they have of it, the more they want; the more doors they expect it to open for them; and, not surprisingly perhaps, the more reluctant they are to part with any of it. The waking dream of ever-greater wealth grips their hearts like a vice. Why? Because, while they think of poverty and limited resources as signs of inadequacy and weakness, they look on wealth as a source of stability and strength.
Our proud hearts shrink from weakness, real or fancied, in all its forms, as we have already noted, and they embrace whatever looks like strength, including the goal and the reality of affluence. The result? Idolatry: we end up worshipping our investments, our possessions, and our bank balance. And God—the transcendent triune Lord who is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together, the divine team that is currently in action for our salvation—comes a poor second in our loyalty and love.
Jesus saw this and warns us against it, “You cannot serve God and money” (Matt. 6:24). “Money” in the original is mamōna—Mammon—a Semitic word meaning not only money as such, but what money is expected to secure for us: things, property, gain, success, and so on. Again, Jesus tells us of the rich man who said to himself, “‘You have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” (Luke 12:19–20). And Jesus replies to the rich ruler, who has asked what he should do to inherit eternal life: “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Luke 18:22). Jesus meant, quite specifically, “join my disciples trekking with me through Palestine, living by the hospitality people show us, but personally penniless”—a prospect that, unhappily, the rich ruler could not face because his wealth had fast hold of his heart. Paul, we find, warns of the money pitfall in comparable terms: “Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Tim. 6:9–10).
So, what should we do when our basic needs have been met and we still have money in our pockets; when we find that doing whatever it is that we do professionally to earn our living, as we say, and that presumably we think of as service to others and so to God, is actually making money for us; when the business we run is proving profitable, and the money is piling steadily up? Jesus and Paul give the same answer. Use the money, not for yourself, but for God and God’s people; use it to spread God’s kingdom; use it to help persons in need. See yourself as manager, steward, and trustee of God’s funds, honored by the responsibility you have been given but totally accountable to God who gave it to you.
Paul directs Timothy:
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (1 Tim. 6:17–19)
And Jesus crisply exhorts us all, applying to us the lesson of his parable of the dishonest but shrewd manager: “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth [called “unrighteous” here because of the manager’s financial shenanigans in the story], so that when it fails [that is, can do no more for you, i.e., when you die] they may receive you into the eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9).
It was Luther, so I am told, who said that everyone needs three conversions: conversion of the mind to gospel truth; conversion of the heart to embrace the Lord Jesus as Savior and Master; and conversion of the purse, wallet, or pocketbook, the laying of one’s money at Christ’s feet. The saying is worthy of Luther, who sees to the heart of just about every issue, even if, as I suspect, Luther did not actually craft it. He certainly knew that getting sin out of the driver’s seat in relation to our money is one of the most difficult dimensions of the sinner’s repentance.
Today, pastors often tell us that when people become Christians, the last thing in their life to be touched by God’s transforming grace is regularly their wallet. When directed to commit their time, talents, and treasure to the Lord, giving him financial control starts later, goes slower, and takes longer than does the forming of the other two habits, presumably because the inner resistance is stronger.
A comic strip I enjoyed showed a mother, with a bawling baby in her arms, chatting in the street with a friend: “What’s the trouble with baby?” “Oh, he’s teething.” “And your husband?” (who is sitting on a bench in the background, his open-mouthed agony matching that of the baby). “Oh, he’s tithing.” Tithing as a life commitment to Christian giving at 10 percent annually is always a good start, but however much it is commended from the pulpit, it is constantly evaded by those in the pew. To motivate generous giving goes against the grain of the fallen human heart, and so it is always hard labor.
So when Paul formed his plan of getting Gentile churches he had planted to contribute to a major collection for the relief of Jewish Christian poverty in Jerusalem, he must have known from the start that the project was a bold one and that convincing success in it—that is, the raising of a worthy sum, one that would demonstrate real love on the part of the Greeks for those who were in Christ before them—could by no means be guaranteed. The project was very much a venture of faith.
Concerning the Collection
The sense in which the Christian life is essentially a pathway of weakness along which God leads us, sustaining and strengthening us for service as we go, is now becoming clear. With regard to tasks and relationships, it is often right, and part of our calling, that we should embrace options in which we may easily find ourselves out of our depth, and in which we know that we cannot hope to succeed without God’s help. And with regard to circumstances, it is often the case that in God’s sovereign providence unforeseen difficulties arise, throwing us back on the Lord for support and subjecting our faith and faithfulness to very grueling tests. One way or another, God works out in all our lives the baptismal pattern of through-death-into-new-life-with-Christ, which the rite itself models as under-the-water-then-up-from-under. And that shows us how absolutely right and on target William Law was when he wrote:
Receive every inward and outward trouble, every disappointment . . . darkness . . . and desolation, with both thy hands, as a true opportunity, and blessed occasion, of dying to self, and entering into a fuller fellowship with thy self-denying, suffering Saviour.
. . . Look at no inward, or outward trouble, in any other view; reject every other thought about it; and then every kind of trial and distress, will become the blessed day of thy prosperity. (An Humble, Earnest, and Affectionate Address to the Clergy [New-Bedford: Lindsey, 1818], 136–37)
When circumstances seem to conspire to make and leave you weak, Law is saying, Christ always intends that you should turn to him and find new strength, as we have already heard Paul tell the Corinthians that he is doing vis-à-vis his thorn in the flesh. In all of everyone’s Christian life and ministry, weakness is indeed the way.
This being so, one way of understanding what is going on as Paul writes 2 Corinthians, perhaps indeed the profoundest way, is as follows: Paul’s central purpose is to make sure that when he reaches Corinth, the collection will be complete for him to take to Jerusalem. Chapters 8 and 9, then, which call for this, are the real occasion for the letter, and the real heart of it. But Paul fears his call for completion will not be taken seriously, partly because his entire apostolic pastorate is under criticism at Corinth, and partly because he fears he alienated the congregation, deep down, first by his severity against the person whose alleged aberrations made necessary the fact-finding visit and sharp letter, and then by his decision not to visit them as early as he planned.
Paul’s fear is that the Corinthians will conclude that he is a flighty, unpredictable, self-serving person, as many traveling teachers in those days no doubt were. When the chips are down, Gentiles living in a rough-and-tough Greek port city might not seem to matter much at all to him, save as a cash cow to exploit for the benefit of his fellow Jews. Proper respect for Paul as the Corinthians’ founder-pastor would be impossible if that happened, and Paul’s anxiety here is fully understandable. So what does he do?
He starts by spending what turns out to be more than half the letter laboring to reestablish the Corinthian’s trust in him and, if possible, their affection for him, before he ever mentions the collection. When finally he gets to it, he spends two chapters bending over backwards to encourage and motivate the Corinthians toward generosity. Then, transitioning suddenly for the second time, he rounds off the letter in tones of apostolic authority alternating with crushing testimony, pleading that he be taken seriously now so that there will be no ground for tension when he comes among them again. But for Paul it is really the collection that is crucial all the way, from the letter’s first sentence to its last.
Why is the collection so important for Paul? Because when in Jerusalem something like a decade earlier, James, Peter, and John agreed that Barnabas and Paul should go with their blessing to evangelize the Gentile world, “they asked us to remember the poor [in Jerusalem], the very thing I was eager to do” (Gal. 2:10). So for some years Paul, bound by his promise, has been planning poor relief via the Gentile churches that he founded. In 1 Corinthians 16:1–4 Paul prescribes a discipline of setting money aside each Lord’s Day for this purpose. A year later, in 2 Corinthians 8:10–11, Paul gently chides his readers for having become irregular and slack in this, and encourages them to finish what they started. For him, as these chapters show, it is very important that the Gentile churches fulfill the undertaking given when the Gentile mission began.
What does Paul actually say about the collection to stir the Corinthians to renewed effort? His points may be summarized thus:
The churches of Macedonia (the Philippians and Thessalonians, in northern Greece) have already excelled in the grace of giving to this good cause, despite their poverty. Paul wants the Corinthians, who excel in so much else, to match them, or do even better (8:1–7). Here, Paul is gently shaming the Corinthians into taking action.
He is not giving a command to them, but expressing a hope for them, that they will give in a way that shows their gratitude to Christ for enriching them through the cross, that corresponds to their earlier commitment and to what the Macedonians have already given, and that is proportional to their measure of affluence (8:8–15). Here, Paul is vigorously stirring the Corinthians into taking action.
Titus and two other leaders will come to Corinth ahead of Paul to ensure that the collection is complete and ready for him to pick up when he arrives. That way, there will be no risk of embarrassment should Macedonians, to whom Paul has proclaimed the Corinthians’ commitment, arrive with him, as they might, and find the Corinthians unready after all. Clearly, Paul is anxious that the whole process of collecting and transporting this gift of money to Jerusalem should be, and be seen to be, smooth, straightforward, honest, and aboveboard, first to last. His anxiety is reasonable enough. For a traveling teacher to collect and then abscond with money would not have been hard in those days; Paul knows this, just as the Corinthians did, and has resolved to make it evident that no such thing will happen in this case (8:16–9:5). Here, then, Paul is dispelling suspicions that could hold the Corinthians back from generous contributions and keep them from taking wholehearted action.
God in his providence will do good to those who become generous, cheerful donors to his cause (9:6–11). Here, Paul gives practical encouragement to the Corinthians, as believers in God’s faithfulness, to express their faith and hope in responsive action.
The Jerusalem Christians will appreciate the Corinthians’ generosity enormously, and will express their appreciation by thanksgiving and prayer for them and a desire for closer fellowship with them. So God will be glorified (9:11–14). Here, Paul gives spiritual encouragement to the Corinthians, as units in the body of Christ and devotees of God, to give themselves to God and Paul as the Macedonians had done, and thus to take consecrated action.
It would seem that Paul’s pleas succeeded, for we read that he, with a team of eight (the seven named in Acts 20:4, plus Luke the narrator), came to Jerusalem in due course, and “the brothers received us gladly” (Acts 21:17). No doubt the entire collection was delivered to the leadership at that time.
A Primer on Giving
“Primer” is a word that we use to refer to what is first and fundamental in various branches of life, from applying paint to learning languages. (I was taught Latin three-quarters of a century ago from The Revised Latin Primer.) I now offer my readers a primer on Christian giving, for which 2 Corinthians 8–9, the main New Testament passage on the subject, provides the raw material.
This, to start with, is the text of 2 Corinthians 9, where all the key principles are directly stated:
Now it is superfluous for me to write to you about the ministry for the saints, for I know your readiness, of which I boast about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaia [the part of Greece where Corinth was situated] has been ready since last year. And your zeal has stirred up most of them. But I am sending the brothers so that our boasting about you may not prove empty in this matter, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be. Otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated—to say nothing of you—for being so confident. So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for the gift you have promised, so that it may be ready as a willing gift, not as an exaction.
The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written,
“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
His righteousness endures forever.”
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!
In light of what this chapter teaches, I shall attempt to answer four questions: (1) What is Christian giving? (2) Why should we Christians give? (3) How should we Christians give? (4) How do the principles and practice of Christian giving bear on our exploration of how apparent human weakness becomes real spiritual strength in and through our Lord?
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN GIVING?
I answer the what question with four assertions.
1. Christian giving is both a spiritual gift and a discipline of discipleship to our Lord Jesus Christ.
What is a spiritual gift? Paul’s Greek has two label-nouns for identifying any item in this category: charisma, meaning a product of the active, communicative, redemptive divine love that the New Testament calls charis, and we call grace, and pneumatikon, meaning an expression of the life and energy of the divine person whom the New Testament calls hagion pneuma, the Holy Spirit. A spiritual gift, a grace gift as we may well describe it, is essentially a pattern of service in the church that honors Christ, glorifies God his Father and ours, edifies one’s fellow believers and oneself too, and imparts strength and maturity to the church as a whole. Some gifts are abilities that transcend one’s natural resources and are supernaturally bestowed in and through Christ; others are natural abilities redirected, sanctified, and activated by the Holy Spirit from within on each occasion of their exercise. Thus, Paul’s intermittent healing powers were a gift of the first type, while his unflagging powers as a teacher of gospel truth were a gift of the second type. Giving, now, is a gift of the latter sort.
In Romans 12:6, Paul writes, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them,” and he proceeds to give examples of this, emphasizing each time that one use his or her gift in the best way possible. He speaks of prophesying (i.e., preaching the word of God), serving, teaching, exhorting, and exercising leadership. Then in verse 8 he comes to this: “the one who contributes [should do so] in generosity.” “Contributes” is a word in the Greek that means “shares” and certainly refers to the sharing of money, as those who have give to meet the needs of those who have not. “Generosity” is a term that also signifies “sincerity,” and Paul probably selects it for use here because it always carries overtones of transparent goodwill being expressed.
So giving or sharing or using money to relieve needs is a spiritual gift, and one who gives generously is as truly a charismatic as one who prays for another’s healing or who speaks in tongues. Also, giving is a discipline of discipleship to the Lord Jesus. Disciplines do not come naturally, without effort. On the contrary, they are acquired and sustained habits of thought and/or behavior that need constant practice if they are ever to be anything like perfect, and they often involve specific techniques of their own.
Christian virtues, of which generosity is one, are disciplines that Christ commends, commands, and models as life qualities that should mark out all his disciples, that is, all those who have committed themselves to learn his way of living. (The Greek word for “disciple” means learner.) All spiritual gifts are, from one standpoint, disciplines of discipleship, and if we are not actively traveling the path of generous giving, it will have to be said of us straightaway that we really are weak and deficient in our discipleship to and dependence upon Christ Jesus our Lord—which means that we need, urgently, to change our ways.
2. Christian giving is management of God’s money.
When we set ourselves to think about Christian money management, in whatever connection, from buying groceries to supporting missionaries to investing in industry to financing a holiday, the first thing we have to get clear on is that the money that is ours to manage is not ours, but God’s. Yes, we have been given it to use, but it remains his. We have it as a loan, and in due course we must give account to him of what we have done with it.
That is the point of the word stewardship, which nowadays is in effect the church’s label for the discipline of giving. A steward is someone whom an owner entrusts with the managing of his assets. An investment manager is a steward: he has control of his clients’ assets in one sense, but his job is to understand and implement his clients’ wishes and priorities regarding their use. In the same way, a trustee is a steward: his job is to invest, safeguard, and disburse the money in the trust according to the stated purpose of whoever appointed him.
Society (which Scripture calls “the world”) sees each person’s money as his own possession, to use as he likes. Scripture, however, sees our money as a trust from God, to be used for his glory. In the Holy Communion liturgy in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, the collection is offered to God with the words: “All that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee” (words taken from 1 Chron. 29:11, 14). Such is the constant biblical perspective. The money that is ordinarily thought of as ours remains God’s; we receive it from his hand as his stewards and trustees, and must learn to manage it for his praise.
3. Christian giving is ministry with God’s money.
Ministry means service; service means relieving need; need means a lack of something that one cannot well do without. Paul calls his plan of financial help for the Jerusalem poor “the ministry for the saints” (2 Cor. 9:1) because the poverty of the poor is denying them necessities of life. Paul celebrates, and sets forth as a model, the way in which the Macedonian churches have embraced this mode of ministry, ascribing their action directly to the grace of God. “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty”—what a combination!—“have overflowed in a wealth of generosity . . . . they gave . . . beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints . . . they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us” (2 Cor. 8:1–5).
The ministry of giving has many goals: spreading the gospel, sustaining the church, providing care for distressed individuals (as the Samaritan in Jesus’s story did for the beaten-up, half-dead Jew), and for distressed groups like the Jerusalem Christians, and more. The ministry of giving in all its forms aims to advance the kingdom of God, which becomes reality in human life whenever the values and priorities of Christ’s teaching are observed. It goes without saying that in this ministry, all God’s people are meant to be involved.
4. Christian giving is a mind-set regarding God’s money.
Management and ministry are matters of motivated performance. A mind-set, or mentality as we may prefer to call it, is a characteristic attitude, a habitual orientation, an entrenched desire, and as such a matter of motivation and purpose. Christian giving aims at pleasing and glorifying God and never settling for what is clearly second-best; such, positively and negatively, is the use God means us to make of the money he entrusts to us.
Jesus told the story of a servant who, given a talent to use, did nothing with it beyond hoarding it till he could return it to his master; “wicked,” “slothful,” and “worthless” are the adjectives his master applied to him (Matt. 25:14–30). Never settling for the fairly good, the possibly good enough, or the not-bad calls for enterprising and imaginative thought, for which the biblical name is wisdom. Giving randomly, without wisdom, is sub-Christian, just as is giving nothing or giving far less than one could.
That raises the question, how much should one give? Specifically, should we tithe? Some seem to think that tithing is like paying God rent: when we have given him 10 percent of our income, the rest is ours. But no, it is all God’s, and the New Testament nowhere tells Christians to tithe. What Paul tells the Corinthians is not that they should raise their share of the collection by tithing, but that if they give generously to God, he will give generously to them.
The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. . . . God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. . . . You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us [as we deliver your gift] will produce thanksgiving to God. . . . they will glorify God because of . . . the generosity of your contribution for them. (2 Cor. 9:6, 8, 11, 13)
Paul’s appreciation of the Macedonians for giving “according to their means . . . and beyond their means, of their own accord” (8:3) suggests that his answer to the question, how much should one give? would be, give all you readily, easily, and comfortably can, and then prove your zeal and wholeheartedness for God by giving something more.
In light of Jesus’s commendation of the poor widow who put into the temple treasury all she had, it is natural to suppose he too would answer our question by challenging us along these lines. This is certainly how John Wesley was thinking when he told his lay preachers, “Give all you can,” and how C. S. Lewis was thinking when he directed a correspondent who had put our question to him, “Give till it hurts.” By dint of constant giving, Wesley himself died almost penniless, and Lewis’s private charities, so we are told, were huge.
It may be a good idea to practice tithing as a crutch until we get used to giving larger sums than we gave before, but then we should look forward to leaving the crutch behind because now we will have formed the Christian habit of giving more than 10 percent. When the amount to give is in question, the sky should be the limit, and the word of wisdom, “Go for it.”
WHY SHOULD WE CHRISTIANS GIVE?
Though the question of why we should give has effectively been answered already, it will be helpful, I think, briefly to pull the threads together and crystallize our answer by taking a leaf out of the book of the Bible teacher who recast Christ’s Beatitudes (indicatives about Christian life) as Be-attitudes (imperatives about Christian living). Here, then, are four Be-attitudes that make up my answer to the question.
1. Be grateful to your gracious God.
It has been truly said that in the New Testament the doctrine is grace and the ethic—that is, the prescribed behavior—is gratitude. And the gratitude is prompted by both the knowledge of the grace of Christ in one’s head and the power of that grace in one’s heart, with Christ as the center of attention at all times in both. “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 by his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). Giving to God should ever express unending gratitude for almost unbelievable grace.
2. Be generous to your needy neighbor.
We may properly label grand-scale generosity to someone in trouble “Samaritanship,” in echo of Jesus’s parable. But we should not forget that he told that story to answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” And his answer plainly is, any and every person whom you meet, or who confronts you, is your neighbor, whose need, once you see it, you must do your best to relieve. The essence of Christian existence is, after all, a matter not of labeling but of loving, and loving is a matter not of words but of action.
3. Be given to Christ your Savior as his disciple.
Follow the pattern of your Master’s lifestyle. Some years back, a popular description of Jesus was “the man for others.” More, certainly, must be said than that but, equally certainly, not less. Self-giving, in the sense of devoting all his powers and resources to the service of others, was his hallmark and must be ours too. We are to make good our claim to be Christ’s disciples, and to avoid Ananias-and-Sapphira-type hypocrisy, we also must give, and share fully, for his sake, whatever kind of wealth we have.
4. Be a glorifier of God.
Praise, honor, and thank him yourself for all he has given you. Plan, like Paul, to do and give in a way that will draw out of others praise and thanks to God. And thus labor to evoke, and ensure, adoration and appreciation of the God you yourself appreciate and adore. Generous giving, in particular, will ordinarily give rise to this effect, as will all the forms of single-minded obedience and service to God that others see in us.
Paul is working hard as an organizer, facilitator, and courier of the collection, but he is not looking for personal praise. Thanksgiving that glorifies God, by all involved in the situation, is what he wants to see. Writing in the slightly stilted style that reflects his sense of the extreme delicacy of the motivating enterprise that he has in hand, Paul says that the Corinthians’ generous giving
through us [as proposers and deliverers of the gift] will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supporting the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they [the Jerusalem believers] will glorify God because of your submission [to the claim of their need, as communicated by Paul] that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others. (2 Cor. 9:11–13)
Taking these four Be-attitudes to heart will surely make givers out of the most miserly of us.
Paul’s closing words, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (9:15), seem to refer comprehensively to the gift of Jesus Christ to be our Savior and to involve us, with the Corinthians, in the chain-reaction process of generosity, thanksgiving, and fellowship that glorifies God and is in itself an enriching privilege to be part of.
HOW SHOULD WE CHRISTIANS GIVE?
What should be the manner of Christian giving, attitudinally speaking? Let us learn the five points that Paul makes about this.
1. Giving should be voluntary.
Donors must not be put under pressure and stampeded into precipitate and perhaps reluctant action. They must be given space to think out what they are going to do so that their action will express a considered judgment that this is what they ought to do, and in doing it they are doing the best they can in their particular situation to further the kingdom of God, acting, first to last, of their own free will.
In 9:3–5 Paul explains why he is sending three colleagues to Corinth ahead of himself, namely, to “arrange in advance for the gift you have promised, so that it may be ready [when I arrive] as a willing gift, not as an exaction.” The Greek word rendered “exaction” regularly expresses ideas of active greed and squeezing out of people donations that they do not wish to give. Paul does not want anyone to give unwillingly, doing it only because the apostle is hounding them for money, and so he makes a point of negating any suspicion to that effect. “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (9:7)—and no giver will be cheerful who wishes that he or she did not have to give at all.
2. Giving should be cheerful.
“God loves a cheerful giver” (9:7). Whence the cheerfulness? The next verse answers that question: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” Those who give as generously as they can, with their spirit anchored in this confidence regarding God’s future for them, will find a certain exhilaration and lightness of spirit within them as they do it and then reflect on what they have done. Their action has expressed both gratitude to God for his grace hitherto and faith in his faithfulness for time to come, and it should be no surprise when God himself acknowledges this by sustaining in them a happy heart that feels his love. Any readers who make this experiment for the first time will, I think, be surprised to discover how marked the exhilaration can be.
3. Giving should be deliberate.
It should be planned and thoroughly thought out, taking account of all the preexisting financial claims that we are under obligation to meet. Maximal giving must not lose touch with reality and become irresponsible, any more than it should invoke the “Corban” evasion of the Pharisees that Jesus denounced in Mark 7:9–13. “If the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have,” writes Paul (2 Cor. 8:12). Readiness with realism is what he is commending.
4. Giving should be wisely managed.
Paul’s anxiety that everything connected with the collection should be, and be seen to be, aboveboard and accountable to all the parties involved is obviously prudential wisdom. So too is the care he takes to ensure that neither he, who has trumpeted to the Macedonians about Corinth’s readiness to contribute, nor the Corinthians themselves should be embarrassed by the Macedonians, who have given so freely themselves, now finding that the Corinthians are not ready after all (9:2–5). Paul understands Christian fellowship to require of him, and of everyone else, a threefold relational concern: to trust, to be trusted, and to be found trustworthy. Surely he is a model for us in this.
5. Giving, where possible, should be cooperative.
Common causes, in which people band together to give for a single purpose (like Paul’s collection, or a local church budget, or a neighborhood project today), call for giving according to Paul’s principle of fair shares: fair in the sense not of all parties giving equal amounts, but of all being equally committed to giving all they can and so helping each other to reach the target (8:10–15). It is a fact that when done on the fair-shares principle, thus understood, giving deepens fellowship wonderfully.
(We should note that Paul makes his fair-shares point in a delicate and roundabout way, like a man walking on eggs. This is doubtless because he knows that the Corinthians know, or if they do not they soon will, that what they promised a year earlier was much more than the Macedonians, whose generosity Paul has praised so highly, have managed to raise. And he is very anxious that no attitudes of rivalry or superiority arise in Corinthian hearts to keep them from enthusing about the project as a venture in all-round Christian fellowship.)
HOW DOES MONEY BEAR ON WEAKNESS?
Finally, what has all this to do with walking the pathway of weakness, which I ventured to identify as the truest Christian life?
We saw at the start of this chapter that fallen human nature puts a very improper, inflated value on money, treating our investments and bank balances as the supreme source of security, status, significance, respect, and influence in society. The world, it seems, sees itself as a place where the rich count and the poor don’t, and many Christians appear to have bought into this view. So the more prosperous they become, and the older they get, the harder they find it to contemplate taking the risk—and risk, humanly speaking, it is, of course—of giving generously, year by year, to Christian causes. It is embarrassing to acknowledge that the wealthier Christians become, the less they give, but that is what in many cases seems to happen.
Weakness, however, meaning inability finally to control our life situation relationally, circumstantially, financially, healthwise, and so on, despite all that our therapeutic present-day culture can do for us, will be with us as long as life in this world lasts. Our Lord Jesus Christ lived in poverty through the years of his ministry and, having been despised and rejected, as Isaiah phrased it, he was “crucified in weakness” (2 Cor. 13:4). This tells us what kind of life road we as his disciples must be prepared to travel. Paul, depending on the risen Christ, found strength to live with weaknesses and shows us how to do the same. But our weaknesses will not go away any more than his did, and if we think that money can banish them, we actually add to them by cultivating self-deception. The truth to face here is that we are all called to learn the skill of godly money management and wise Christian giving as Jesus and Paul teach it, and we should be grateful for 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, chapters that give us a head start.