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 Corinthians 8:9
For several years Paul gathered an offering from his Gentile churches for “the poor among the saints at Jerusalem” (Rom. 15:26). Corinth had been one of the first churches to say yes. A year earlier they had started the collection and wanted to finish it (2 Cor. 8:10). Then it stalled.
Paul had an example he could point to. The churches of Macedonia, in towns like Philippi and Thessalonica, were poor and under pressure, yet they gave beyond their means, “of their own accord” (2 Cor. 8:3). They even begged Paul for the chance to take part.
Paul does not scold Corinth for stalling. He tells them they already excel in faith, speech, knowledge, and earnestness, and asks them to excel in this grace too (2 Cor. 8:7). Then he writes, “I say this not as a command” (2 Cor. 8:8), and points them to Jesus, who was rich and became poor for their sake.
Paul had the authority to command. He was their apostle. But an ordered gift would have missed the point, because the gift Paul held up as the pattern was never ordered. No one forced the Son of God to leave His glory. He chose to empty “himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7).
Paul tried to live the same way. “Though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all” (1 Cor. 9:19). He was free, and he served anyway, because grace had reached him first.
God needs nothing from us. No church offering supplies something He lacks. What He wants is love that answers His love, and love squeezed out under pressure is hard to call love. When the Philippians, one of those Macedonian churches, sent Paul a gift they did not owe him, he called it “a fragrant offering” (Phil. 4:18). A forced gift can still meet a need. It just does not carry that fragrance.
So Paul set the measure on willingness. “If the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have” (2 Cor. 8:12).
Paul also explains what the collection is for. He does not want Jerusalem comfortable while Corinth goes without. He writes, “your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness” (2 Cor. 8:14).
Then he reaches back to the wilderness. When God fed Israel with manna, some gathered more and some less, yet when it was measured, “whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack” (2 Cor. 8:15; Exod. 16:18).
This kind of fairness happens when believers see themselves as one body, so that what one part has to spare reaches the part that is short. It also runs both ways: today Corinth has more, and another year Corinth may be the one in need.
All of this goes back to Christ, who became poor so that we could become rich. People who have received that grace begin to give the way He gave.
Most of us give something: money, time, attention. The harder question is why. Some of what we give comes from obligation or habit, or from not wanting to look bad. Paul could have pressed on those motives in Corinth. He did not. He reminded them of Jesus and trusted that would be enough.
Maybe there is something in our own lives that started with real eagerness and then stalled. Paul’s words to Corinth still fit: finish it out of what you have. It can be small, as long as it is willing.
He was rich, and He chose to become poor for us. Every gift we give gladly starts there.
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