The Grace of Generous Giving: A Fruit of Joy and Victory in Trials

As I attended the chapel service this morning and listened to the message, I found it personally edifying to take a second look at 2 Corinthians 8 verses 1 to 5. When I first preached this text during my four-year stay in South Korea, even though the theme remains the same, I came up with a different analytical question. The theme is about generous giving. My analytical question then was:

Why God wants you to give generously despite of your financial situation?

The response is as follows:

• Because He wants to provide for you

• Because He wants to prosper you, and

• Because He wants you to be productive

Both the analytical question and the answers are sound and biblical. They are obvious in the text. However, revisiting the passage, the insight this time is about the accomplishment of grace in the churches in Macedonia. Such an accomplishment has been demonstrated by the presence of great joy that made the churches victorious over severe trials and troubles. And such victory was evident through generous giving. All in all, this great joy, victory over trial and troubles, and generous giving all happened because of God's grace. This is what I mean by the accomplishment of grace in the lives of the churches in Macedonia.

Such a message remains relevant for today. Usually, people don't understand grace from the perspective of giving, but from receiving. People love to receive grace. But when it comes to giving grace, this is usually not given much emphasis in the Christian life.

Not only the giving aspect of grace has been overlooked, the financial aspect of grace is also not properly understood. The word "blessing" is usually the one used when we talk of financial matters. When someone says, "I received a blessing from Mr. so and so, the material or financial aspect is usually meant. When it comes to grace, we don't understand it in terms of giving money, but something intangible such as forgiveness, understanding, and other related virtues.

Given this new insight, my question changed to:

How can you know that the giving of someone is a fruit of victory of great joy based on God's grace over severe trials and troubles?

Source

We can know that the giving of someone is of that kind if he or she remains extremely generous despite his or her poverty.

Poverty is usually given as an excuse not to give generously. People in poor condition should be the ones given, not the ones giving. However, the biblical text says otherwise. Poverty is not an excuse to exempt from generous giving. The presence of such a kind of giving is evidence that the grace of God is actively working in the life of that person.

Second, we can know that the giving of someone is of that kind if that person is giving beyond his or her ability, knowing that giving for the cause of God is a great privilege.

We need to take note of additional insights here. One, the cause of God I am referring to here pertains to "helping God's people in Judea." I have no time to search the specific situation of the churches in Judea in the first century. Perhaps, there was a famine or some kind of disaster that called for such a "fundraising campaign" to help them in their situation. Nevertheless, though we don't know the exact crisis that prompted such giving, one thing is clear: helping God's people is a privilege.

Not many think that helping is a privilege; they see it more of an obligation or a duty, and it is up to you whether you will fulfill it or not.

Furthermore, the word "begged" makes this idea of helping the churches in Judea as a privilege even stronger. I could not think of any contemporary example to illustrate. This tells us that generous giving in the New Testament sense of the word is very far from the usual practice we know today. Typically, begging is used when someone is asking for a favor, not when you want to give one. Begging to give a favor is something strange and anomalous in the consciousness of most people today. Is this anomaly also an indication that grace has no place in the minds of most people today?

Lastly, we can know that the giving of someone is of that kind if the giving of that person is primarily based on the giving of himself or herself to the Lord.

Poverty is not the primary reason why Christians don't help churches in need. The primary reason based on our text is the failure to surrender one's self to the Lord. This is another anomaly—a child of God that does not acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus in his or her life? Such a thing should not exist. A Christian means someone who gave himself to the Lord. If this basic truth is real in someone's life, helping those in need will not be a big problem.

In summary, you can know that the giving of someone is a fruit of victory of great joy based on God's grace over severe trials and troubles if he or she remains extremely generous despite his or her poverty, if that person is giving beyond his or her ability, knowing that giving for the cause of God is a great privilege, and if the giving of that person is primarily based on the giving of himself or herself to the Lord.

Grace and peace!