NOTES for Co2 9:7

We always think that before we can give, we must first receive something. The apostle Paul reverses this logic: it is given only to the one who gives. In this he follows Christ perfectly: in the Gospel of John, Jesus says very similar things. Do you want eternal life? Give up the life you have. Do you want the Father's reward? Begin by serving.

Continuing the discussion of mutual help and donations, Paul turns to the spiritual experience reflected in the tradition of the Lord's poor, for whom poverty was not so much a material condition as a spiritual one. It was in their circles that the saying found in the book of Psalms arose: "the one who has spent everything by giving to the poor, his righteousness will remain forever" (v. 9). Apparently, the saying meant not simply almsgiving, but help for communities of the poor and donations for communal needs. And Paul, it seems, sees precisely such donations, whose practice may perhaps have roots in deep antiquity, as a model of mutual help for Christians. The members of the communities of the Lord's poor donated not only out of a sense of purely human justice. In the fact of donation, in a person's readiness to part with what belongs to him for the sake of his neighbors, they saw a sign of that complete entrusting of oneself to the will of God without which full spiritual life is impossible.

What matters to Paul above all, it seems, is this spiritual readiness of the Corinthian Christians to give. He does not want them to perceive the donation as a simple religious duty that must be fulfilled insofar as one is a member of one church or another. In that case it would already be a kind of compulsion, to which a person, of course, agrees because he considers such agreement his duty, but such a donation would be deprived of spiritual meaning (vv. 1-5). The apostle especially emphasizes that from a spiritual point of view, from the point of view of those relationships that unite a person with God and with his neighbors, only truly voluntary donations have meaning: those a person makes with joy and complete willingness (vv. 6-8).

Of course, a donation made from a sense of religious duty is not useless either. But for it to become truly useful spiritually, it must become part of the Kingdom, and that is possible only if the donation is accompanied by the proper attitude toward the one for whom it is intended. Meanwhile, the relationships of the inhabitants of the Kingdom cannot be based only on duty; their true foundation can only be love, trust, and gratitude. In the Kingdom no one owes anyone anything, but each person, out of love, is ready to share everything he has with his neighbor and to thank his neighbor for the readiness to share with him. It is no accident that Paul pays special attention to the gratitude that connects those receiving donations both with God and with those who give (vv. 12-15). He understands that precisely in it are embodied the relationships that unite the inhabitants of the Kingdom with one another. They are united not by mutual obligations, but by mutual love.