And when I am arrived, whomsoever ye shall approve, these I will send with letters to carry your bounty to Jerusalem
Near the end of a letter full of correction, Paul turns to money. Churches were gathering a gift for poor believers in Jerusalem, and this verse raises two questions that never go away: who picks the men who handle church funds, and what protects both the money and their good name?
Paul does not name the messengers. He leaves that choice to the Corinthians. One writer sees here the same wisdom the apostles showed in Acts 6.
The apostle was careful to leave no room for suspicion or for the look of wrong. So here he applies afresh the apostolic wisdom we see in Acts 6. The crowd chose their own administrators. They gave the funds, and they, not the apostles, chose the men they trusted to hand them out.
So not every servant of the church is appointed the same way.
The deacons are servants, and servants of the Church... It shows us the men who did the work of deacons being chosen by the churches, with the apostles wanting it that way. And it shows us elders appointed by the apostle or by his delegates, and by no one else.
Commentators differ over whose letters these are. Some say the Corinthians wrote them to approve their own men. Others say the letters were Paul's, given to the men the Corinthians had chosen.
But the letters were to be his, not theirs, as the King James Version wrongly has it... What sense would it make for them to approve by their letters when the apostle came? The Corinthians were to select whom they approved, and Paul, on arriving, would send them on with letters from himself.
Either way, the letters did the same job. The men did not arrive among strangers as unknowns carrying other people's money.
Paul was the natural person to carry the gift himself. He refused to do it alone.
Our God is above all things a God of order. He loves to see His people careful in all their ways, and especially where money is involved... Paul was glad to have a part in this work of grace, but he insisted on having companions, men the assemblies had chosen with care for the job.
That care was not fussiness. Paul knew what he was up against.
The apostle knew the enemy's tricks, and so he guards with care against suspicion and damaging hints. Sadly, think what ruin dishonest gain, the love of money, greed, which is idolatry, has caused in the professing church, and how much offence it has given to unbelievers.
The destination was not random. The believers there were poor, and the Gentiles owed them a debt.
In that city there were many believers who had suffered persecution, and there were likely many widows and orphans... The gospel had gone out from Jerusalem to the Gentiles. Since the Gentile converts had received spiritual things, it was only right that they should share their material things. The collection was to go on steadily, each one putting money aside as God had prospered him.
Letters like these were not just for this one collection. The habit worked both ways.
The early Christians made it their practice to give letters of commendation to believers who left them for churches where nobody knew them. They also asked the same of strangers who came to them for fellowship... Such letters guard against receiving false believers. They build up confidence and fellowship between churches.
But a letter is a servant, not a master. It can be twisted into the very opposite of its purpose.
It does real harm when something God uses for our mutual comfort gets twisted by rigid rule-keeping into a tool of spiritual torture — sometimes over a missing letter of commendation, or some similar detail left undone.
- Given — the money came from the Corinthians. Each one set it aside as God had prospered him, so it was theirs to direct.
- Chosen — because they gave it, they chose who would carry it. Apostles appointed elders; the churches picked the men who handled money.
- Sealed — the carriers travelled with letters that introduced them to believers who had never met them. Commentators differ over who wrote the letters.
- Guarded — Paul refused to travel alone with the gift. He knew the enemy's tricks, and what damage the love of money has done in the church.
- Delivered — the gift went to Jerusalem, where believers were poor after persecution. The gospel had gone out from them, so the Gentiles owed them material help.
and if it be suitable that *I* also should go, they shall go with me.
Paul ends this letter with practical matters, and the first is money — a relief fund the churches gathered for believers in Jerusalem. Verse 4 settles one open question: if Paul travelled to Jerusalem himself, the men chosen by the church would still go with him.
Some read the clause to mean that the size of the gift settled whether Paul went. One commentator rejects that reading.
Many draw out the meaning, "if the occasion, or the size of the collection, warrants an apostolic mission to carry it." But that sense, though possible in grammar, seems to me unworthy — not only of the apostle, but even of the delegates. It is tolerable only because the begging habits of Christendom have lowered men... If it were suitable, then, that Paul also should go, the delegates should go with him. He would guard his services from all ground for reproach, providing for things honest, not only before the Lord, but also before men.
Paul does not name the carriers. He leaves that to the givers, and treats it as an old rule rather than a new one.
Here the apostle makes a fresh application of the wisdom we see in Acts 6. The whole company of believers chose their own administrators. They contributed the funds, and they, not the apostles, chose men in whom they had confidence to dispense them... Here, then, the apostle promises on his arrival to send with letters whomever they should approve to bring their bounty to Jerusalem.
The verse never has Paul carrying the gift alone. If he went, they went with him — and he kept that rule elsewhere too.
When money is in question, the apostles withdraw from taking that work on themselves. Later, Paul refused to handle the distribution of the offerings of the saints unless someone chosen by the churches worked alongside him. He would give no occasion, however small, for suspicion that could injure his ministry.
Such caution with money can look like weak faith.
This is not lack of faith. It is faith working by love. Such faith cuts off occasion from men, and walks with a pure conscience before God.
The shared journey was more than a safeguard. Paul wanted Corinthian hands to carry the Corinthian gift.
What the Corinthians sent must come from them, warm with their love, and handed over by their own messengers. This work needed more than a faithful discharge of trust. It needed real building up, through an exchange of brotherly kindness between the Greek and Jewish saints. He would gladly travel with their messengers, if that seemed fitting when the time came. Nothing lay closer to his heart than the pulling down of the barriers of prejudice on either side, and the practical union of those who were already one in Christ.
The believers waiting for this gift were poor for a reason. Part of it was their own earlier giving.
The believers there were very many. And there alone, so far as we read, had they sold their possessions and belongings to give to all, as anyone had need. There alone no one said that anything he owned was his own. They shared everything, so that no one was in want. But there, partly through this surprising testimony of unselfish love, poverty came later.
Paul had already told this church he took nothing from them for himself. That did not hold him back here.
Though Paul would accept nothing for himself from the Corinthians, he would still share with all his heart in their generosity toward the poor saints.
- Need — Jerusalem's believers were poor in part because they had once sold what they owned and shared it with all.
- Gift — The money was theirs, so the choice of carriers was theirs. Paul added his letters, and left the choice alone.
- Guard — He would not handle the fund alone. Faith working by love takes away any occasion for suspicion, honest before men as well as before the Lord.
- Company — If he went, they went with him. His own presence never replaced the church's messengers.
- Result — Greek hands carried a Greek gift to Jewish believers. That pulled down prejudice on both sides and showed the union of people already one in Christ.