They Gave Themselves First: 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 on Grace, Generosity and Finishing What You Promised

The Macedonian churches were poor and under pressure, yet they begged to give. Here is what 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 teach about grace, generosity, finishing what you promised and handling money in the open.

The Poorest Givers in the Room

Paul had a problem in Corinth. A year earlier, the church in that busy, prosperous port city had been first to say yes to a collection for the poor believers in Jerusalem. They were eager. They made a promise. Then the promise stalled.

So Paul wrote two chapters about money, and he began in an unexpected place. He told the Corinthians about the churches to the north, in Macedonia, in towns like Philippi and Thessalonica. These churches had been born under opposition (Acts 16 and 17), and they had little. Nobody would have blamed them for sitting this one out. Instead, they gave more than anyone thought they could.

The Question Under the Offering

Most of us have a quiet rule about generosity. We will give more when we have more. When the debt is paid, when the business turns, when the kids are grown, then we will be generous. It sounds responsible, and sometimes it is.

But these two chapters will not let that rule stand unexamined. They set a poor church beside a comfortable one and ask what actually produces a generous life. Paul's answer has very little to do with income. So the question for us is not how much we have. The question is who has us.

Lesson One: Generosity Starts With Grace

Paul does not open with a budget or a goal. He opens with something God did. "And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity." (2 Corinthians 8:1-2, NIV).

Before anyone gave a coin, Paul calls the whole thing grace. The Macedonians' giving was something God had worked in them before it was something they did. The Greek word for grace, charis, runs all through these two chapters. Paul keeps using it for the collection itself, as if he cannot talk about this offering without talking about what God has done.

Now look at the strange arithmetic in verse 2. Take a very severe trial. Add extreme poverty. Add overflowing joy. The result should be collapse, or at least a very good excuse. Instead it is rich generosity. The joy and the poverty mix together and spill over.

That tells us something about where generosity comes from. It does not rise from surplus. A surplus can sit in an account for forty years and never become a gift. It rises from people who have received something so large that the numbers on their bank statement no longer get the last word.

This also means guilt is the wrong fuel. Guilt can get a check written once. It cannot produce overflowing joy in a hard season. If your giving has become a grim duty, you may not need a stronger push. You may need to go back to what God has already given you.

Lesson Two: They Gave Themselves First

Next Paul reports something no fundraiser would dare to invent. "For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord's people." (2 Corinthians 8:3-4, NIV).

Paul did not plead with them. They pleaded with Paul. It seems he had not even planned to ask them, and they treated the chance to give as something they might miss. The word translated privilege is that same word, grace. They were asking for the grace of taking part.

How does a poor church come to think like that? Paul gives the reason in the next verse, and it is the heart of this whole passage. "And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us." (2 Corinthians 8:5, NIV).

There is the order. First themselves, then their money. The Macedonians did not begin by asking what percentage they could afford. They began by settling who they belonged to. Once that was settled, the money was only a detail following the larger decision, and so was the time that came with it.

This is why two people can drop the same amount into the same plate and be doing entirely different things. One is paying a fee to keep God at a comfortable distance. The other is handing over a little of what already belongs to Him, because the giver already does. God has always wanted the person more than the payment. A steward who has given himself first does not ask how little he can give. He asks what his Master wants done with what is in his hands.

Lesson Three: The Rich One Who Became Poor

Paul now turns to the Corinthians directly, and he handles them with care. They were proud of their gifts, so he appeals to that. "But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving." (2 Corinthians 8:7, NIV).

Then he makes a striking move. He refuses to give an order. "I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others." (2 Corinthians 8:8, NIV). An apostle could have commanded. Paul knew that a gift taken by force would not be the thing he was after. Generosity is one of the places where love shows whether it is real.

And when he reaches for his strongest argument, it is not the need in Jerusalem or the example of Macedonia. It is Jesus. "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 through his poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9, NIV).

Those few words hold the whole gospel. The Son of God had everything, and He stepped down into a manger, a carpenter's life, borrowed rooms and a cross. He did not give from His surplus. He gave Himself. Everything the Macedonians did was a small echo of what He had already done.

Paul says you know. He is only asking them to let what they already believe reach their wallets. We do not give in order to make ourselves rich toward God. We give because we have already been made rich by a poverty that was not ours.

Lesson Four: Finish What You Started

Now Paul comes to the thing that prompted the letter. Good intentions had gone quiet. "And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means." (2 Corinthians 8:10-11, NIV).

Every church and every leader knows this drift. The moment of inspiration passes. The pledge is made, the plan is announced, everyone feels good, and then the months go by. Paul honors the Corinthians' early desire, and then he tells them that desire is not the finish line.

He also keeps the standard fair. "For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have." (2 Corinthians 8:12, NIV). God is not measuring you against someone else's means. But He does expect the promise you made with what you have to be kept with what you have.

Paul even sends people ahead so the matter will be settled before he arrives. "So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given." (2 Corinthians 9:5, NIV).

A promise left too long turns sour. What would have been a joy becomes a debt, and we pay it with a sigh. That is part of why the church's favorite verse on this subject is about the heart and not the amount. "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." (2 Corinthians 9:7, NIV). Decide it, then do it, while it is still a gift.

Lesson Five: Your Plenty, Their Need

Paul knows what some in Corinth might be thinking. Are we being asked to go broke so that someone else can be comfortable? He answers plainly. "Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: 'The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.'" (2 Corinthians 8:13-15, NIV).

This is not a call to level every income, and it is not a state program. Paul has just said no one is being commanded. He is describing how a family works. Believers in Corinth and believers in Jerusalem belonged to one another, even though they had never met and had different languages, histories and diets.

Paul's quotation comes from the manna (Exodus 16:18). In the wilderness, the people who gathered a lot found it did not last, and the people who gathered a little found they had enough. God's provision came with a built-in reminder that nobody truly owned it. Paul takes that picture and applies it across a sea. Your extra was never meant to be only yours.

Notice the words at the present time. Seasons change. The church that gives today may be the church that receives tomorrow. In Paul's day, the gift also ran in both directions, because the Gentile churches had received the gospel from Jerusalem. "For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord's people in Jerusalem." (Romans 15:26, NIV).

A steward holds wealth with that kind of humility. You look at what is in your hand this year, and you ask whose need it might be meant to meet. You are one household in a very large family, and this happens to be your turn.

Lesson Six: Two Sets of Eyes on the Money

Here is a detail many sermons skip, and leaders should not. Paul did not carry this money alone. He sent Titus (2 Corinthians 8:16-17), and then he added someone else. "And we are sending along with him the brother who is praised by all the churches for his service to the gospel. What is more, he was chosen by the churches to accompany us as we carry the offering, which we administer in order to honor the Lord himself and to show our eagerness to help." (2 Corinthians 8:18-19, NIV).

Paul was an apostle. If anyone could have said, "Trust me," it was Paul. Instead he insisted on a companion chosen by the churches, not by himself.

He tells us why. "We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man." (2 Corinthians 8:20-21, NIV).

Taking pains. That is a phrase for anyone who has handled money that belongs to others. Integrity before God is the foundation, but Paul will not stop there. He also wants the arrangement to be visibly clean, so that no one has to take his word for it.

That is not distrust of himself as much as love for the people who gave. Their money was the fruit of real sacrifice, and it deserved care. It also protected the gospel, because one rumor about a missing offering could have undone years of work.

So the leader who says "I do not need anyone looking over my shoulder" has missed the point. Two signatures on the check, an outside review of the books and an open report to the givers are not insults. They are how a faithful steward honors the Lord in public as well as in private.

For Business Leaders: Build Generosity Into the Books

Generosity rarely survives as a mood. If giving depends on how you feel at the end of a good quarter, it will always wait for one more good quarter. Decide ahead of time, in writing, what share of your profit belongs to others, and treat it as settled before you plan anything else.

Then take the same care Paul took. Let someone besides you see where that money goes.

"The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor." (Proverbs 22:9, NIV).

Your Obedience Step

Set a fixed percentage of profit to give this year, however small, and put it on the books as its own line. Ask one person you trust to review it with you each quarter.

For Community Leaders: Tell the Story and Show the Numbers

People do not give to a fund. They give to a need they can see and a leader they can trust. Tell your people who is being helped, the way Paul told the Corinthians about Jerusalem, and tell them plainly how the money is handled. If a promise your group made has stalled, say so and finish it.

"The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea." (Acts 11:29, NIV).

Your Obedience Step

Find one pledge, project or promise in your ministry that has gone quiet. Report its real status to your people this month, set a date to complete it, and have two people other than you sign off on the accounting.

For Home Leaders: Let the Children See the Gift

Children learn about money by watching where it goes. If the only thing they see is bills and worry, that is what they will learn. Let them see the gift as well. Sit down at the table, name a need you know about, and decide together what your family will do. Keep your household's other dealings straight, too, because a generous home and an honest home belong together.

"Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice." (Psalm 112:5, NIV).

Your Obedience Step

This week, choose one real need as a family. Let everyone, including the youngest, give something that costs them a little. Deliver it together if you can, and pray for the person by name.

For the Everyday Believer: Start Where You Are

You may feel you have nothing worth giving. So did the Macedonians, by any ordinary measure. The size of the gift has never been the main thing to God. What He wants first is you, and from there your time, your skill and your small amounts of money can all be put to use. Hard work has a purpose beyond your own bills.

"In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" (Acts 20:35, NIV).

Your Obedience Step

Pray a plain prayer today: Lord, I give myself to you first. Then choose one gift that will cost you something this week, and do it before the week ends.

Thanks Be to God

Paul ends these chapters a long way from accounting. He ends in worship, and he wants the Corinthians to see where their gift is going to land. "You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God." (2 Corinthians 9:11, NIV).

"This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God." (2 Corinthians 9:12, NIV).

Hungry people in Jerusalem would eat, and that mattered. But they would also lift their voices to God. "Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else." (2 Corinthians 9:13, NIV). A gift can be a sermon people believe.

And it would bind strangers together. "And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you." (2 Corinthians 9:14, NIV).

Then Paul looks past every offering to the one that made them all possible. "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" (2 Corinthians 9:15, NIV). The word for thanks here is grace once again. These chapters begin with grace coming down and end with grace going back up.

Questions for Reflection

1. When have I told myself I will be generous later, once I have more?
2. Have I given myself to the Lord first, or am I still trying to give only my money?
3. Does my giving come from joy, from guilt or from habit?
4. What promise have I made to God or to someone else that I have not finished?
5. Who can see how I handle the money entrusted to me?
6. Whose need might my plenty be meant to meet in this season?

Closing Prayer

Father, you gave your Son, and I can never put that gift into words. Lord Jesus, you were rich, and for my sake you became poor. I confess that I have often held my money closer than I have held you. I have made promises and left them unfinished. I have waited for a better season to obey. Today I give myself to you first. Take what is in my hands and use it as you wish. Keep me honest in how I handle what belongs to you and to others. Make me glad when I give, and let the people who are helped give thanks to you and not to me. In Jesus' name, Amen.

The Coffee Can on Fulton Avenue

Ingrid Dahl kept the books for First Covenant, the big stone church on the hill, and she kept them well. In her top drawer was a folder nobody had asked about in fourteen months. It held the pledge the congregation had made, to real applause, after the fire at the Fulton Avenue food pantry: forty thousand dollars toward the rebuild. So far they had sent six.

There had been reasons. The parking lot needed sealing. The organ needed work. The finance committee wanted to revisit the timing.

Then Bernice Hollis called. Bernice was seventy-four, cleaned offices at night, and belonged to Mount Olive Mission, thirty people who met in an old tire shop two blocks from the pantry. In April the river had come up and put two feet of water through the tire shop and most of the houses on the low end of Fulton. Bernice still had the line on her living room wall.

"I need someone to help me count," Bernice said. "Two people count. That's the rule. I don't touch money alone."

Ingrid drove down in her good shoes. Bernice set a coffee can on a folding table and poured it out. Ones, fives and a great many quarters. They counted it twice and came to the same number both times: one thousand three hundred twelve dollars and seventy-five cents. Bernice wrote it on a sheet of paper, signed it, and turned it around for Ingrid to sign.

"What is this for?" Ingrid asked.

"Pantry rebuild."

Ingrid put down the pen. "Mrs. Hollis, you people had the flood. Half your members are in motels. There's a relief fund, and I could get you on it."

"Nobody asked us for this," Bernice said. "We heard the pantry was short. We went to Pastor and asked him could we. He told us no. Said we couldn't afford it. Took us three weeks to wear him down."

Ingrid looked at the quarters. "Who gave these?"

"The Tolbert boys. That's their laundry money. They've been washing out their shirts in the motel sink."

Bernice walked her down to the pantry. The new block walls were up, and a clipboard hung on a nail by the door, with a long form on it. Saturday after Saturday since May, in shaky ballpoint, the same names. All of them were from the tire shop.

"You've been doing the work, too," Ingrid said.

"Well, we came first," Bernice said. "The can came later."

That night Ingrid took the folder out of her drawer and did not sleep much.

On Tuesday she laid two pieces of paper on the finance committee's table. One was the pledge. The other was the sheet with two signatures on it. Howard Stroud, who chaired the committee, said the timing was still a concern.

"Howard," Ingrid said, "those people gave their laundry money. We've got a thirty-four thousand dollar promise in my drawer, and it's fourteen months old. I would like us to stop discussing the timing."

Nobody said anything for a while. Then somebody moved to finish it, and it passed before the coffee got cold. Ingrid made them put two signatures on the check, and she wrote the report for the whole congregation herself, with both numbers in it.

She drove the check down on Saturday morning. She wore old shoes. Bernice took the envelope, looked inside, and closed her eyes.

"Thank you, Jesus," she said. She was not talking to Ingrid.

Then Bernice lifted the clipboard off its nail and held it out. There were two columns on the form, one for a name and one for a donation. Ingrid took the pen and looked at it, a little unsure. She had brought thirty-four thousand dollars, and she had no idea how to write that on a line.

"Which do you want first?" she asked.

Bernice dropped a pair of work gloves on top of the clipboard.

"Honey," she said, "the money's the second column. Put your name down."

Go Deeper

Ready to put this teaching into practice? Two Very Small Coins is a guided workbook drawn from Mark 12, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 1 Kings 17, Exodus 36 and 1 Chronicles 29. Work through four movements at your own pace and finish with one page you build for yourself: Your Giving Plan.

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