Why is it more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35)?

The Word of God provides an antidote so that we do not succumb to the tendency to do nothing else but save. This is to give to others out of the material means the Lord has entrusted to us. The Apostle Paul passes on an important word the Lord Jesus Himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ (Acts 20:35). Those who give find this principle always holds true in practice: it is much happier for us to give something than to receive a gift. God is a giving God. In His love, beyond our understanding, He gave His own beloved Son to die for us. He could not have given us anything greater. What response will we make to Him? Are we prepared to open our hands and give Him a material sacrifice and help people in need?

Moreover the results of large-hearted and cheerful giving are so very blessed. There is the supplying of "the need of the saints." This in itself is a very good thing. Who, that has seen the comfort and joy of some poor saint, when relief has reached them through the liberality of their brethren, could doubt it. Beyond this, however, God is glorified. The action "is abundant also by many thanksgivings to God." The saint, who has been helped and relieved, gives thanks to God again and again for the gift and those who ministered it to him. Presently too those who gave find themselves so blessed and enlarged of God that they begin to give thanks that they were ever privileged to give. We have, you will remember, 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 what is given by an answering affection and by earnest prayer. The givers reap the blessing which flows from the love and prayers of those whom they have helped.

What a marvellous train of happy results is attached to giving! No wonder it is enumerated amongst the "gifts" of Romans 12, or that elsewhere we read, "To do good and to communicate forget not." What spiritual enlargement flows out of it! And conversely, how often is spiritual poverty the direct result of the neglect of it! If believers are stingy in their handling of material things, the holy government of God will leave them poor and straightened in spiritual things.

There is much of New Testament teaching in this 11th verse of our Psalm. God is presented to us in this attractive, inspiring, strengthening, way. We are led to feel that His giving is spontaneous. He gives because He delights to give. Is it not from His own Son that we have the words, It is more blessed to give than to receive"? Would such words come from the natural heart of man? Its cry is, like the horse-leach's daughters, "Give! give!" To receive largely is the acme of blessedness to the natural man. God says, No, "it is more blessed to give"; and He constitutes Himself the supreme Giver.

"It is more blessed to give than to receive." Brethren in Christ, when shall we awake to the reality of our Lord's words there? Ours is a never-failing spring of perpetual joy and blessing, which if we but come to when we thirst, out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living water. The spring is not limited by the vessel which receives it: it is divine, and yet ours fully — fully as can be! Oh, to know more this abundance, and the responsibility of the possession of it, in a dry and weary scene like this! Oh, to know better the infinite grace which has taken us up as channels of its outflow among men! When shall we rise up to the sense of our common dignity? to the sweet reality of fellowship with Him who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister?" Oh for unofficial ministry, the overflowing of full hearts into empty ones, so many as there are around us! How we should rejoice, in a scene of want and misery and sin, to find perpetual opportunity to show the competency of Christ's fulness to meet and minister to every form of it!

What a summary of that giving life do these inspired words supply. Now, in the form of God, then suffering death, the death of the cross! And He this same blessed Person in each case, though in circumstances how widely diverse. This is the mind that was in Christ Jesus. Let us ponder and meditate thereon. We learn the free and hearty giving of Himself—Himself! True, He left the glory, He refused each earthly dignity, and place, and honour, but besides that which was negative, He accepted the hatred and scorn of man, and He bore the judgment of God against sin—He gave Himself! He found amid all the sorrow and anguish of His path the supreme blessedness of being a giver!

Once more the apostle reminds the elders of his own example. Before their eyes he had lived out the pattern they were to copy. No covetousness had found place in his heart; but rather with his own hands, as they knew, he had ministered unto his necessities and unto those of his companions. He had done this that they might learn the blessed privilege of labouring in like manner to support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Touching reminder! teaching so plainly that unless we are in the power of grace, we cannot truly be servants of Him who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." What farewell words! "And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all." The effect was that "they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed ["ardently kissed"] him," with the kisses of an overwhelming affection, "sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more." With such holy emotions in their hearts they accompanied the apostle into the ship, and there they for ever parted. But inasmuch as God has caused the address they had received to be recorded in His word, we may be sure that it was retained likewise in their hearts; and we may perhaps conclude, from the state afterwards of the assembly at Ephesus, as seen from Paul's epistle, that it moulded their lives and governed their conduct in shepherding the flock, and tending the church of God, over which the Holy Spirit had made them overseers.

But when we look at the splendid passage just quoted from 1 Corinthians 9, we find that the blessed apostle, after having established, beyond all question, his right to be supported, relinquishes it completely. "Nevertheless, I have used none of these things." He worked with his hands; he wrought with labour and travail night and day, in order not to be chargeable or burdensome to any. "These hands," he says, "have ministered to my necessities, and those that were with me." He coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. He travelled, he preached, he visited from house to house, he was the laborious apostle, the earnest evangelist, the diligent pastor, he had the care of all the churches. Was not he entitled to support? Assuredly he was. It ought to have been the joy of the church of God to minister to his every need. But he never enforced his claim; nay, he surrendered it. He supported himself and his companions by the labour of his hands; and all this as an example, as he says to the elders of Ephesus, "I have showed you all things how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Now, it is perfectly wonderful to think of this beloved and revered servant of Christ, with his extensive travels, from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum, his gigantic labours as an evangelist, a pastor and a teacher, and yet finding time to support himself and others by the work of his hands. Truly he occupied high moral ground. His case is a standing testimony against hirelingism, in every shape and form. The infidel's sneering reference to well-paid ministers could have no application whatever to him. He certainly did not preach for hire.

Very beautiful, therefore, is the apostolic exhortation on the positive side. "But rather let him labour [idleness is neither right nor safe], working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to distribute to him that needs." (Ver. 28.) Thus does the Spirit cheer and direct the man whose hands were once put forth in unworthy ways; thus does He open a happy path where grace can vindicate its power, spite of a dishonest nature and habit; and he who was the stealer before he knew the Saviour's name, may now have fellowship with the spirit and practice of the great apostle (Acts 20:33-35), yea, and of the Master Himself, remembering His words, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. To live is the worldly man's object in labour; to give is the christian motive. It is not a mere question of chance surplusage, but an express object, especially for him who has the consciousness of the mercy that delivered him from covetous sin and its shame and judgment. Only the toil must be about what is good and honest. In vain will you plead a benevolent or religious use of ill-gotten gain! No employment that is contrary to God's will is good for the Christian, but should be given up at once. The covenant of Sinai never enunciated such a motive for toil as this. To talk about the ten commandments as the rule for the Christian's walk now, is to go back from the sun which rules the day to the moon which rules the night; it is to eclipse Christ by Moses under the delusive profession of doing God service. In general, what the law exacted from those under it on the principle of right, the Christian is responsible on the principle of grace to exceed in every possible way. The scope of obedience is immensely increased; the inward motives are searched out and laid bare; the very tendency to violence, corruption, and falsehood is judged in its roots, and suffering wrongfully and withal in love takes the place of earthly righteousness for the disciples. Such is the unquestionable teaching of our Lord and of His apostles; it is darkened, undermined, and denied, by those who insist on judaising the Church by putting the Christian under the law as his rule of life. Truly, they "understand not what they say nor whereof they affirm."

"It is more blessed to give than to receive," as He Himself not only said but acted on, Who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by demons. If we have not that power, as things have long been, we are called to walk, as He walked, in love, and in distinct testimony of separateness to God from the pride of the world and the selfishness of the first man. Hence His exhortation would form our hearts for His path here below, instead of walking as men according to public opinion, which is just the spirit and course of the age. For if we are His, we are "heavenly" even now (1 Cor. 15:48-49); as we are destined by grace to bear the image of the Heavenly at His coming.

In our previous address we have seen God declaring Himself to Moses as a prelude to the deliverance of His people. In that deliverance He is coming forward according to the significance of His memorial name, to exhibit what He is Himself for His creatures. In salvation God reveals Himself and is glorified; not only in the redeemed of earth, but to the principalities and powers in heavenly places, who learn in us His manifold wisdom and His marvelous grace. Thus in revealing Himself God is glorified in the very opposite way from man, who when he glorifies himself only seeks to exalt himself. God, in glorifying Himself, ministers to others, for "it is more blessed to give than to receive."