But God is able to make every gracious gift abound towards you, that, having in every way always all-sufficiency, ye may abound to every good work
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
according as it is written, He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor, his righteousness remains for ever.
Paul is pressing the Corinthians to give, and he backs the appeal with a line from Psalm 112. That line describes a man with an open hand. It raises two questions. Why is generosity called righteousness and not kindness? And what is it that lasts forever?
The words come from Psalm 112, a portrait of the person who fears God and is blessed under His rule. One writer holds two things together. Christians have new and higher privileges. Yet God has not changed how He treats open-handed people.
It is true that God has now revealed Himself in Christ according to His own nature, with heaven and eternity in view. It is true that He has given us life in His Son, redemption through His blood, and union with that glorified man at His right hand... But this does not stop the way God governs, or the pleasure He takes in blessing large and generous hearts. It was so of old; it is so now. Special privileges do not cancel His general principles.
Another writer looks at who this psalm describes.
Psalm 112:9 is quoted in verse 9 for the generosity of the man that Psalm calls "a good man." It will be the character of the godly in Israel in a future day. They will be identified with their Messiah, and their hearts will be widened by grace toward others. The results abide forever.
Some have softened the word here into "benevolence." One writer resists that and defines the term instead.
There is no need to change the meaning of "righteousness" here or anywhere else. It does not mean "benevolence"... but it includes it. Righteousness means acting in keeping with the relationship you are in. Those who admit that everything in their own case is of grace should generously remember the needs of others, above all in the household of faith. What could be more consistent than that?
That one word changes how a Christian should think about the money that leaves his hands.
First of all, notice that giving is not a matter of charity. The Old Testament passage quoted in 2 Corinthians 9:9 reads, "He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness [not his charity, his righteousness] endures forever." That plainly shows that for a Christian to give is not charity in any sense. It is common, ordinary righteousness. God has poured in so much upon us that it is only righteous for us to hand out blessing to others.
The picture is of seed thrown wide, not stored up. One writer traces what God then does for the sower.
He who sows seed by dispersing abroad what he has to give has to do with a God "who is able to make all grace abound." ALL grace, note it — grace of every kind, grace in spiritual things and grace in material things. So the generous giver is "enriched in every way to be generous in every way." God enriches him so that his giving may go on and expand. This enrichment may not come in material things. God may choose to enrich him in spiritual things instead. Then the man who began by giving a little money may end by handing out a rich store of spiritual blessing.
Where does a free hand come from? One writer points to what the giver already owns.
Later in this letter we hear of the righteous man, who shows the moral characteristics of God. He scatters widely and gives to the poor, and his righteousness remains forever. Only wealthy people can afford to give away. We are made wealthy in the favour of God; there we are more than satisfied. And in the things of God, giving does not make you poor: "One gives freely, yet grows all the richer."
If giving is righteousness, then holding back is more than a missed opportunity.
If the Christian gives, no one should treat it as something wonderful and unexpected, deserving high praise. The case is rather that if he does not give he is unrighteous. It is plainly wrong for him to receive such a wealth of blessing from God and give out nothing as a result. It is not only wrong but dangerous. If a reservoir has a large intake and a choked-up outflow, a disaster of some sort is certain.
- Received — everything the believer holds came in as grace first. That intake is what makes giving normal, not heroic.
- Righteousness — the word means acting in keeping with your relationship. Remembering the needy is not charity; it is plain right dealing.
- Scattered — the giver is a sower, and God supplies him again. Sometimes with money, sometimes with a richer store of spiritual blessing.
- Blocked — a large intake with a choked outflow ends in disaster. Not giving is not neutral; it is unrighteous.
- Forever — God still blesses large and generous hearts, and the results of such giving last.
Now he that supplies seed to the sower and bread for eating shall supply and make abundant your sowing, and increase the fruits of your righteousness
Paul is finishing his appeal for a collection to help poor believers in Jerusalem. He steadies the Corinthians by pointing them away from their own accounts and toward God's supply. Two questions run through the verse. Is it a prayer or a promise? And what is the harvest God multiplies?
An older English translation reads the verse as a wish. Kelly says Paul is not wishing but stating a fact, and he points the reader to Isaiah 55:10.
This is not a wish or a prayer, as the older English version makes it… Compare Isaiah 55:10. It is an assurance. The God who richly provides for us loves to give us both the means and the openings to bless others. He delights to acknowledge and reward these fruits of righteousness as if they were ours, though in truth they come from His grace and are His work through us.
Paul draws the picture from farming. A gardener knows how fast human effort runs out. One writer makes the point from an ordinary garden.
It is God who provides the seed so that things can grow and fruit can appear. God is the real source of all fruitfulness and blessing… We can provide the very best seed for our gardens. We can dig the ground. We can do everything the gardening books tell us. But if the rain does not come and the sun does not shine, nothing will happen.
Paul names two supplies: bread is for eating, seed is for scattering. So what God adds has a purpose beyond your own table.
God did not give these blessings to make His people comfortable in this world. He gave them so that they would be enriched in every way and made generous, so they would have something for anyone in need.
Here "righteousness" means the way a believer acts. The setting shows why giving to fellow believers counts as righteous and not just kind.
Paul is dealing with the care of poor believers in Jerusalem. Remember that the apostle John plainly ties that kind of care to love between believers… So when we acknowledge the duty to love God's people and act on it by meeting their need, as here, that is righteousness… This side of righteousness — practical righteousness, as it is sometimes called — is too often forgotten. Yet it fills a large place in Scripture.
What do "multiply" and "increase" promise? The reaping is real, but God chooses the currency, and the enrichment has a purpose — more giving.
If he gives sparingly, he reaps sparingly. If he gives generously, he reaps generously. Either way he reaps, and usually in spiritual things… God enriches him so that his giving can go on and grow. That enrichment may not come in material things. God may choose to enrich him in spiritual things instead, so that the man who began by giving a little money ends by handing out a rich store of spiritual blessing.
The harvest does not stop once the need is met. Kelly follows what such a gift produces in the people who receive it.
It meets their needs, but it also overflows and rises into many thanksgivings to God. Those who receive it praise God, because such giving shows submission to His name… It stirs them to pray, with deep longing for the people who show such grace.
- Supply — God gives both the bread you eat and the seed you sow. The verse is an assurance about Him, not a wish about you.
- Sowing — The seed came from His hand, so scattering it is safe. He gives both the means and the openings to bless others.
- Separation — Bread is for eating; seed is for sowing. God gives more than you need so you will have something for someone else.
- Increase — The harvest is certain, but God does not measure it in money. He enriches the giver, often in spiritual things, so the giving can keep growing.
- Thanksgiving — The fruit does not stop when the need is met. It overflows into praise and prayer offered back to God.
enriched in every way unto all free-hearted liberality, which works through us thanksgiving to God.
God's promise here is not just that givers will have enough. He makes them rich in one direction — toward open hands — and what they give travels on to end as thanks offered to God.
Some older English versions read verse 10 as a prayer ("may He supply"). One commentator says it is not a wish or a prayer at all.
It is an assurance that the God who richly provides for us loves to give us both the means and the opportunities to bless others. He delights in acknowledging and rewarding these fruits of righteousness, which really come from His grace, as if they were ours and not His through us.
The generosity God rewards was His own supply in the first place, yet He credits it to the giver.
The enrichment is not a payout. It is fuel — and it may not arrive as money.
The man who sows seed by scattering what he has to give deals with a God "who is able to make all grace abound." ALL grace — note that — grace of every kind, grace in spiritual things and grace in material things. So the generous giver is "enriched in every way to all free-hearted liberality." God enriches him so that his giving can keep going and grow. This enrichment may not come in material things. God may prefer to enrich him in spiritual things, so that the man who started by giving a little money may end up handing out a rich store of spiritual blessing.
The same writer turns this around as a diagnosis: believers stuck in "chronic weakness" and short on joy may find that "the explanation lies in their lack of compassion and generosity and openness of heart and hand."
One word in Scripture carries both "simplicity" and "liberality". A writer explains why the two ideas sit so close together:
"He that gives, let him do it with simplicity." Some translate that word as liberality, but in fact the two things are very similar. A man who gives simply will give generously. The need will appeal to him, and it will stir up the love inside him. True love is wise. It is not blind.
So generosity starts with a simple heart, not with the size of the gift.
Since the gift ends in thanksgiving to God, the motive behind it matters.
Look at the motive, and the gifts and acts of kindness that God acknowledges turn out to be thank-offerings to Him. So they are part of the beauty that adorns the righteous in His eyes. A man may give away everything he owns to the poor without one spark of love, because pride or self-seeking unbelief can make such sacrifices too. But faith works by love.
Paul says the thanksgiving is produced through us. He is handling this collection himself, and he follows what the money does after it leaves the giver's hand.
He commends them to the rich goodness of God, who was able to make them abound in everything. Then they would be in a position to multiply their good works, enriched to all generosity, so that through the apostle's service their giving would produce thanksgiving to God in others… Those who received the gift blessed God that their benefactors had been brought to confess the name of Christ, and to act with this practical generosity toward them and toward all. That thought stirred them up to pray with earnest desire for the people who met their need, because of the grace of God shown in them.
This giving does two things at once. The second reaches further than the first.
It is an honourable service and a ministry of love. It meets their needs, but it overflows, and rises into many thanksgivings to God… Love working in the heart supplies poor believers with things that would otherwise be used up and gone. If that is its blessed effect, what shall we say or feel as we think of Christ? Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.
- Source. The enriching is God's own supply, handed back to the giver as fuel — He "delights in acknowledging and rewarding these fruits of righteousness, which really come from His grace."
- Shape. The riches point one direction: God enriches him "so that his giving can keep going and grow" — often in spiritual things rather than money.
- Heart. The word translated "generosity" also means simplicity. "A man who gives simply will give generously" — yet a man can give away everything "without one spark of love."
- Reach. Paul's service carries the gift on. It meets a need, then draws out praise to God and "earnest desire" in prayer for the givers.
- End. The money "meets their needs, but it overflows, and rises into many thanksgivings to God" — and every such gift points back to God's own indescribable gift.
Because the ministration of this service is not only filling up the measure of what is lacking to the saints, but also abounding by many thanksgivings to God;
Paul is writing about money. Gentile believers had made a collection for poor Christians in Jerusalem. Yet he describes the handling of that money in the language of the sanctuary. The gift does two things at once: it fills an empty cupboard, and it raises thanks to God.
The need in Jerusalem had a history, and the relief sent to meet it did more than feed people.
We find a mention of this collection for the saints in 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, and again at much greater length in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9... The Acts of the Apostles gives us a twofold explanation of what gave rise to the need. There was a famine in those days (Acts 11:27-30). The sharing of possessions the believers in Jerusalem practised at the beginning (Acts 2:44-45) had also left them especially poor. Their poverty, however, gave the occasion to cement the practical bonds of Christian fellowship between Gentile and Jew.
Paul's word for this service is the word for the work of the Levites — the family in Israel set apart to serve at the sanctuary.
It makes the entire body of the Church answer to the pattern of the Levites. It shows that the Holy Spirit sanctifies the Church to serve our great High Priest, just as the Levites were set apart to the service of Aaron and his house. So the word leitourgia is used of the Church's service in 2 Cor. 9:12 and Phil. 2:30, and not only of Paul's, as in Rom. 15:16.
Paul could have stopped at the good done to the poor. He keeps going, because natural kindness and the love the Spirit gives do not look to the same end.
The whole of this passage shines brightly with the moral beauty of the gospel. Natural kindness is as shallow as its source, and looks no further than the thing in front of it. True love, which is the chief fruit of the Spirit, does its busy work in the light of God, and in its power to build up it tends to His glory. To supply the wants of others is the beginning, not the proper end, of charity. The apostle looks ahead to this ministry of love, and dwells on the later and lasting fruits of their generosity rather than on its immediate effect.
"Overflowing" is the key idea. The money runs out at the point of need. The thanksgiving does not stop there. It rises past the people who receive the gift, up to God.
It is an honourable service and a ministry of love. It meets their wants, but it overflows, and rises into many thanksgivings to God. It draws out praise from those who receive it in this subjection to His name.
God Himself gains from it.
The service "is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God," and God is glorified. So the gift not only supplies the wants of the saints; there is also a harvest for God Himself in which He delights.
Everyone involved ends up giving thanks. Even the poor pay back what they cannot pay in money.
The saint who has been helped and relieved gives thanks to God again and again — for the gift, and for those who brought it to him. Before long God so blesses and enlarges those who gave that they begin to give thanks that they were ever allowed to give. We have the very best authority for saying that "It is more blessed to give than to receive." And finally the poor saints, who have nothing to give in return, do repay the gift with answering affection and earnest prayer. The givers reap the blessing that flows from the love and prayers of those they have helped.
The gift also told those who received it something about the people who sent it.
Those who received it blessed God that the givers had been brought to confess the name of Christ, and to act with this practical generosity to them and to all... So the bonds of eternal charity were strengthened on both sides, and glory flowed back to God.
- Service. Paul's word for this money-handling is the word for Levite work. Giving to the poor is priestly service, and the whole church does it, not a special class.
- Supply. Filling the need of the saints is real and good, but it is where love begins, not where it ends.
- Overflow. The gift runs past the person who receives it and rises to God as thanksgiving. He gets a harvest from it that He delights in.
- Return. Receivers thank God. Givers thank God that they were ever allowed to give. Those with nothing to give repay in prayer and love.
- Result. Jew and Gentile had every natural reason to stay apart. The gift bound them together, and the glory went back to God.
they glorifying God through the proof of this ministration, by reason of your subjection, by profession, to the glad tidings of the Christ, and your free-hearted liberality in communicating towards them and towards all;
Paul is writing about a collection taken among Gentile churches for poor believers in Jerusalem. Here he tells the givers what their money will produce: those who receive it will test the gift, see a real faith behind it, and praise God for it.
A Bible dictionary sums up the word behind "approval" in a single word:
Simply "proof." 2 Cor. 9:13.
The gift itself becomes the evidence. One writer names what it produces beyond the relief it brings:
Handing out this provision did not only supply the need of the poor believers. It would also draw out "many thanksgivings to God." Is this not an excellent reason for our generosity? Others would glorify God because of this precious proof of their subjection to the truth of the gospel of Christ, seen in the freehearted giving of their money for the Lord's sake. So there are not only blessings for the giver; there is also glory given to God.
Paul does not stop at the relief the money brings. He dwells on what it will still be producing long after the need is met:
This whole passage shines with the moral beauty of the gospel. Natural kindness is as shallow as its source, and looks no further than the person in front of it. True love is the chief fruit of the Spirit. It does its busy work in the light of God, and its power to build others up leads to His glory. Meeting the needs of others is where charity begins; it is not its proper goal. As the apostle looks ahead to this coming ministry of love, he dwells on the later and lasting fruit of their giving rather than on its immediate effect.
One writer counts the causes of thanksgiving in this work of giving:
This work of charity brings three causes of thanksgiving and glory to God. First, the subjection of the Corinthian believers to the gospel. Second, their open-handed generosity towards their brothers and sisters in the faith, whether Jew or Gentile. Third, the fervent and longing prayers of these believers far away on their behalf. The first has to do with their compliance. The giving seems to have started as a spontaneous impulse, but it came to them now as an apostolic instruction, and so it called for ready obedience from them.
The service does more than meet a need. It ends in praise to God:
It is an honourable service and a ministry of love. It meets their needs, but it flows over and rises into many thanksgivings to God. It draws out praise from those who receive it in this subjection to His name; for why else would anyone remember them so generously at all?
Jewish believers had doubted whether Gentile converts were genuine. The gift answered that doubt without a word of argument:
Jewish believers would no longer doubt whether the Gentiles' profession was real, once it proved itself to their hearts in such a practical way. And God would be glorified far more by this knitting together of souls who were strangers by nature, in the new shared bond that binds all together in perfection.
The verse ends by widening the reach: the gift is for the Jerusalem believers and for everyone else. The blessing then runs both ways:
Those who received it praised God that the givers had been brought to confess the name of Christ, and to act with this practical generosity toward them and toward all. That thought stirred them up to pray with deep longing for the people who met their need in this way, because of the grace of God shown in them. So the bonds of eternal love were strengthened on both sides, and glory went up to God.
- Proof. The word behind "approval" means proof. The gift stands the test and shows itself genuine.
- Confession. What the test proves is not wealth but submission — a spoken gospel backed by obedient action.
- Overflow. Supplying need is where such love begins, not where it ends; it keeps producing after the need is met.
- Reach. The gift goes to them and to all others. It ties together people with no natural bond, and strengthens love on both sides.
- Glory. The praise lands on God, not the donors — the whole chain ends in thanksgiving to Him.
and in their supplication for you, full of ardent desire for you, on account of the exceeding grace of God [which is] upon you.
Paul has been tracing what a gift becomes: relief for poor believers, then thanksgiving, then glory to God. Here he reaches the last stage. The gift comes back to the givers as prayer, and the receivers' hearts follow, drawn by what they see of God in them.
The collection does not stop at the need it meets. One writer follows the whole chain and shows prayer as its final link.
It is an honourable service and a ministry of love. It meets their needs, but it overflows and rises into many thanksgivings to God. It draws out praise from those who receive it in this subjection to His name. Why else would the givers remember them so generously at all? It rouses them to prayer with earnest longing for those who show such grace.
That is why relief is not the finish line. Another writer says it plainly.
Supplying the needs of others is where charity begins; it is not where charity should end. The apostle is thinking about this coming ministry of love. He dwells on the later and lasting fruits of their generosity, not on its immediate effect.
The word behind "they long for you" is strong. One writer traces it across the New Testament and explains how it is built.
The New Testament never uses the ordinary Greek word for longing on its own. It adds a preposition to it, which gives the idea of "straining after" the thing longed for. One writer translates it "yearning;" another speaks of it as "homesick longing." ... the poor saints passionately longed for those who had shown them loving care (2 Cor. 9:14); Epaphroditus passionately longed for his fellow believers at Philippi, because they had heard he was sick and were upset (Phil. 2:26).
The verse names the reason: the surpassing grace of God on the givers. The receivers are not admiring generous people; they are seeing God at work in them.
Besides that, those who received would pray more earnestly for the givers. This is no small thing. The reality of the grace of God in some people draws out the affections of others.
The world has its own kindness. One writer says it pulls the heart in the opposite direction.
How very precious all this is! How different it is — more different than words can say — from the false, tempting kindness of a corrupt and deceitful world! That kindness draws the heart away from God and fixes it on itself.
This gift crossed a deep divide. Jewish and Gentile believers had every natural reason to keep their distance. One writer sees that dislike giving way here.
The third brings glory to God from those who directly receive the blessing. They wholeheartedly recognise His own abounding grace, which showed its beauty in these far-off Jewish believers. It replaced natural dislike with a longing for them in the tender affection of Jesus Christ.
The chapter ends with both sides holding on to each other. Money went one way. Prayer and love came back the other way. God received the glory from both.
This thought stirred them up to pray with deep desire for those who supplied their need in this way. They prayed because of the grace of God shown in them. So the bonds of eternal love were strengthened on both sides, and glory came back to God.
Reading the same chapter elsewhere, Darby calls the whole passage a picture of "beautiful heart exercises," ending in "blessed exercises of heart on both sides, one towards the other."
- Gift. Meeting the need is where love starts, not where it ends. The apostle keeps his eye on the lasting fruit.
- Glory. The supply overflows into thanksgiving to God. The giving is never just between two parties. God is in the middle of it.
- Grace. The receivers do not see generous people. They see "the surpassing grace of God" on them, and grace in some draws out the affections of others.
- Longing. The word means a straining, yearning, homesick love. Scripture uses it of Epaphroditus aching for his friends at Philippi.
- Bond. Longing replaces natural dislike between Jew and Gentile. Love binds both sides, and the glory goes back to God.
Thanks [be] to God for his unspeakable free gift.
Paul has spent two chapters urging the Corinthians to finish a collection for poor believers, and at the last line he breaks into praise. Before he asks anyone to give, he points to what God has already given.
The whole appeal for money has been about grace. The last sentence names where that grace comes from.
Thanks be to God, says the apostle, for His unspeakable gift; for whatever the fruits of grace may be, we have both the proof and the power in what God has given.
Another writer traces the same movement, from cheerful giving back to its source.
He wakes up their souls to the joy of grace in practice. He does not fail to remind them, too, that God loves a cheerful giver, and that He would have us abound to every good work, with thanksgiving to God as the result. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift, the spring of all grace through us.
Paul never names the gift. Commentators agree on the answer. One says a believer should not even need to be told.
Every Christian ought instinctively to answer that it is His grace in Christ. Nothing else is "unspeakable." And nothing is easier to count than a little money given in remembrance of saints who are poor in this world. So, when urging generosity according to God in 2 Cor. 8:9, the apostle points to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who "though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich" — rich beyond all comparison with the world's wealth. Only Christ applied by faith gives us the truth of anything.
Another writer names it plainly and says Paul had no need to spell it out.
This section ends with thanksgiving to God, "for His unspeakable gift." There is no need to add what that gift is, for every saint knows: God's unspeakable gift is His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul was capable of stacking up superlatives elsewhere, so his choice of a word meaning beyond description is striking.
But when he wrote of this gift of God, there were no words that could describe it. Human language had no words to carry the fullness and immensity of it to the human mind. If such words had existed, the Holy Spirit would have known them and given them to him. We try to wrap this great gift in words, and we call it "great," "ineffable," "wonderful," "incomparable," "boundless," and "perfect," but they all fail... The character of the gift overwhelmed him. In one short sentence he tells us that it defies definition and baffles all description: it is inexpressible, unspeakable.
No one can measure the gift, and no one can measure the love behind it. God spoke that love in events, not in words.
The gift is the proof and measure of God's love. We may consider it, but never fully understand it; we may know it, yet it surpasses knowledge; we may speak of it, yet it is unspeakable... The incarnation and the Cross, the rough way that Jesus trod, His sighs and sorrows, His suffering in Gethsemane, and the shame of Golgotha, the darkness, the woe, His death and blood-shedding, were all God's voice to men, speaking with growing intensity. In them God spoke a love that words cannot speak.
Another writer points to the cost of the gift.
What grace to give like that! He gave nothing less than the very best that heaven contained. He gave His Son!
This last line also gives worth to every small gift in the chapter.
In giving like this, the saints were reflecting to others the grace they had received, and Paul delighted in it. His thoughts turned naturally from the reflection to the great reality that produced it. Lifting up his soul, he closes the chapter with the joyful outburst, "Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift." The smallest gift of the humblest believer, if offered in THE NAME, is a copy and a reminder of the unspeakable gift. So it is fragrant, acceptable to God, and it stirs praise in those who see it.
- Gift. Paul does not name it, because he does not have to: God's unspeakable gift is His Son, the grace of God in Christ.
- Unspeakable. The word admits that language ran out. No human words could carry the fullness of the gift.
- Proof. The gift proves and measures God's love. God said it in events — the incarnation, the suffering, the cross — not in words.
- Spring. The gift is the source and power of all grace in us. So giving to the poor is not an added duty but grace flowing back out.
- Reflection. The smallest gift given in Christ's name mirrors the unspeakable gift. That is why a chapter about money ends in worship.