In her book, The Dumb Things People Do with Money, author Jill Schlesinger lists thirteen things that normal everyday Americans do with their money. Jill lists dumb things such as “You Take On Too Much College Debt” (#4), “You Fail to Protect Your Identity” (#7), “You Don’t Have a Will” (#12), and the most enticing “You Try to ‘Time’ the Market” (#13).[1]
Let’s be honest: managing money is hard. Most of us were not taught by our parents how to manage money. Sometimes schools teach money management but we often are not interested to learn at that time. As adults we often have to figure it out on our own.
Our culture tells us that when it comes to money you never have enough of it, when you get it spend as much of it as you have, if you want more stuff than you have money then borrow so you can get it (TVs, vacations, phones, fancy vehicles), and if you can’t afford the education go into debt knowing you’ll get an awesome job to pay for it.
But Scripture, from time to time, tells Christians how to manage money. The apostle Paul devoted two entire chapters to the topic of money in one of his letters to the believers in Corinth. While money is hard to manage for ourselves, it’s often just as hard to know if we should give it to others, how we should give, or what that should even look like.
The book of 2 Corinthians was Paul’s fourth letter sent to the believers in the city of Corinth[2] and is Paul’s most personal and intimate letter. Paul started the church in Corinth on his second missionary journey and stayed there for eighteen months preaching and establishing the church (see Acts 18:1-17).
The city of Corinth was a port city and had a booming economy because it had ocean on both sides of the city.[3] Approximately 300,000-600,000 people lived there. Previously the Corinthians had made a pledge to give and help the poor Christians in Jerusalem (1 Cor 16:1-2). With that context in mind carefully read what Paul wrote to the Corinthians about giving.
“Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints, and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God. So we urged Titus that as he had previously made a beginning, so he would also complete in you this gracious work as well. But just as you abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all earnestness and in the love we inspired in you, see that you abound in this gracious work also. I am not speaking this as a command, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity of your love also. 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 8:1–9).
From this I think we can summarize that giving to God’s people is done abundantly even when in poverty because of the grace we have received. Let’s note that grace is sufficient for giving (vv. 1-2), giving is something we do even when we don’t have much (vv. 3-5), generosity is required of all believers everywhere (vv. 6-8), and God’s gift of salvation requires we give Him everything (v. 9).
While the Corinthian church was far from perfect, they were encouraged to get their giving right. We too are far from perfect as Christians, so let’s pray we can do giving to God’s church right.
[1] Jill Schlesinger, The Dumb Things People Do with Money (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 2019).
[2] We don’t have the first letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor 5:9). The second is 1 Corinthians which was written from Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8). The third was a “sharp letter” Paul wrote and was carried by Titus (2 Cor 7:8-12), but we don’t have it. 2 Corinthians is technically Paul’s fourth letter that was written seven months after 1 Corinthians.
[3] It had the Adriatic Sea known as the “Gulf of Corinth” to the northwest of the city and the Aegean Sea known as the “Saronic Gulf” to the southeast of the city. Ships wanting to avoid the long difficult journey south across the dangerous tip of Greece placed their boats on logs and dragged their ships three and a half miles across the land in which Corinth was located.