What does the Bible say about giving?

If this is wrong, all is wrong, no matter how much may be given. Giving must spring from the right source; it must draw its motive force from a worthy direction. What that direction is the apostle indicates in 2 Corinthians 8:9: "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." The grace of the Lord Jesus working on our hearts produces its own effects in the grace of giving and every other Christian grace.

God is a Giver Himself, the Giver of the best and indeed of all good, and He loves that His own keep up the family character in this respect as in all others (2 Cor. 9:7).

Their giving was magnificent. "Their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity" (2 Cor. 8:2). We read the secret of it all. They "gave themselves first to the Lord." They gave THEMSELVES. These poverty-stricken Macedonian believers put their rich Corinthian brothers in the shade. First giving themselves, everything else fell into line… It was not a question of a tithe, however handsome ten percent might be, as under the law. The Lord gave Himself for them. What an Example!

A definite tenth or fifth is not enforced in the New Testament, but liberality is required. "God loves a cheerful giver"; whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully; "whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord." Paul told the saints to lay aside for the special collection he was making for the poor "as God had prospered" each. God required of them according to what they had, and not according to what they had not.

In verse 2 systematic giving is advocated, as opposed to haphazard. Proportionate giving is also what God expects — in proportion to the prosperity which God Himself may have given. In Jewish days God fixed the proportion at one tenth. He has not fixed any proportion for us who are under grace; but depend upon it, we shall hear something fairly serious at the judgment seat if we fall below the standard set by the law. If all believers practised giving that is both proportionate and systematic, there would be no money problem in connection with the work of the Lord.

The money that passes through our hands is not ours but the Lord's, and we are responsible to Him for how we dispose of it. The Scripture "And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?" would indicate that there is a very definite link between Christian giving and progress in spiritual things — the things which are our "own"… "Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God" (Heb. 13:16). These Scriptures show the large and important place that giving has in the sight of God.

They are not called on to make an unrewarded sacrifice. He for whose sake they are giving from their present store is not unrighteous to forget any work of loving-kindness to His saints (Heb. 6:10), and He is able to repay abundantly the blessings given in His Name. If, for the love of Christ, they poured out their souls for His afflicted brothers and satisfied His hungry poor with bread, He knew how to enrich them tenfold, both in this world and the next.

Since it can be practised with so little personal sacrifice, and yet meets needs so varied and so obvious — it has so much the form of kindness — that it seems like cynicism to question whether the spirit is there. It is in itself so right, and puts one so plainly in the company, at least, of those who do right. All this makes it of enormous value to those who seek the praise of men. Perhaps in no other way can they so easily reach their object — but then, sadly, "they have received their reward." It is all they will ever possess.

The fact that the widow had two coins and parted with them both proves how complete her purpose was. Zacchaeus said to the Lord, "Half of my goods I give to the poor," but this woman gave, not half, but all her goods. If she had had one farthing instead of two mites, she would then have had to give the whole or nothing; but having two coins, it was in her power to divide her living — to keep one and contribute the other.

The law said, "You shall not covet." Paul, in his address to the elders of Ephesus, says, "I have shown you all things, how that by working hard in this way we must help the weak, and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). What a contrast between the negative act of "not coveting" and the positive act of "giving."