When we hear sermons on giving we often feel the preacher making us feel guilty for not giving to church like we should. As a pastor I must admit that I have probably been guilty of making people feel guilty about their lack of giving to the church. But the Apostle Paul took a different approach when addressing the topic of giving in one of his letters[1] to the Corinthians.
When Paul begins his two-chapter section on giving in 2 Corinthians he praises a group of people in Macedonia that have been a good example of giving. He praises the Macedonians because they have been giving in spite of their circumstances and poverty.
Paul says the grace of God was seen in their lives, “Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia” (2 Corinthians 8:1). Macedonia was a Roman province north of the city of Corinth that included the churches Paul had been to in Philippi (Acts 16:2-4), Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-9), and Berea (Acts 17:10-15). Greece was conquered by the Romans in 168 BC, and later in 27 BC the Romans divided Greece up into two provinces called “Macedonia” in the north and “Achaia” in the south. The cities of Thessalonica, Philippi, Berea, Apollonia, Amphipolis, and Neapolis were all cities in Macedonia. Paul preached the Gospel and had begun churches in Macedonia during his second missionary journey (Acts 15:36-18:22). Those churches in Macedonia had contributed to Paul when he was in Thessalonica at least once (Phil 4:10, 15-20).
After telling the Corinthians that grace was seen in the lives of the Macedonians, Paul then explains how the grace of God was seen in their lives, “that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality” (2 Corinthians 8:2). In the first century people did not follow a god, but focused on accumulating gods. This is called syncretism and it was common in the Roman Empire because as the Romans conquered more people they acquired more gods. As a community the people gave things to appease those gods or to patronize those gods. If they needed a good crop of grain, they offered something to the grain goddess (“Demeter” was her Greek name and “Ceres” was her Roman name).[2] If a family wanted another child, they would give something to the fertility goddess (“Aphrodite” was her Greek name and “Venus” was her Roman name).[3] This was a community experience in the Roman Empire in which people would do things publicly and corporately to appease and patronize the gods.[4] We could call the first century a “Religious Stew” because of all the different gods, festivals, and cults that existed everywhere.
But Jesus arrived teaching there was one God, one faith, and one way to heaven: Him (John 14:6). As a result, followers of Jesus Christ were forced to make a hard decision: do I become a Christian and follow Jesus only or do I maintain my place as a participating citizen patronizing the gods of the Roman Empire? When a Christian started following Jesus he or she neglected all the other gods. This caused problems because the Christian abandoned the community obligation to appease those gods and to bring favor from those gods. New Testament scholar Darrell Bock notes, “The idea of a privatized decision for Jesus was almost impossible in the first century.”[5] Because of this Christians were seen as having drawn away from society and were often persecuted because they failed to appease and patronize the many gods of their culture.
It is within this context that Paul writes that the Macedonians are “in a great deal of affliction” (v. 2a). You could translate that phrase in a literal way like this, “in much testing of troubles.”[6] It is within this context of affliction and persecution that Paul writes that the Macedonians are in “deep poverty” (v. 2b). Lots of people lived in poverty in the first century, so to go into “deep” poverty was extreme. And when Paul writes that their giving “overflowed in the wealth of their liberality” (v. 2c) he’s describing the nature of their generosity: opened hearted and opened handed.
As we read about the Macedonian example of giving we learn that grace is sufficient for giving. No matter where we are in life our faith in God provides us the ability to give, and that giving is something we do because of the grace He has shown us. God’s love for us is shown in His grace, and we show that same love by giving to others. We show God’s love for others when we give to others liberally even when we have little, just like the Macedonians did.
[1] The apostle Paul wrote four letters to the believers in Corinth. 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.
[2] Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 154.
[3] Ibid.
[4] See Ferguson’s section on “Civic Cults” (pp. 182-199) in Backgrounds of Early Christianity for how pervasive, institutionalized, and dependent the city and community were on appeasing gods.
[5] Darrell Bock, “New Testament Introduction, ” unpublished class notes for NT 113 (Dallas Theological Seminary, Online Course, 2024).
[6] In America we don’t understand what it means to have “affliction” because of our faith. In America I’ve heard some Christians say that the Charlie Brown “Christmas” show being taken off ABC was “persecution.”