NOTES for Co2 8:1-15
In his letters Paul often turns to the theme of mutual help among Christian churches. And in his letter to the Christians of Corinth he mentions the help he received from the churches of Macedonia during his ministry in that province (vv. 1-6). It is clear that he is speaking not only about donations, but also about the participation of the Macedonian Christians in all of Paul's affairs that involved supporting his missionary work in Macedonia. And the apostle, of course, does not emphasize by chance that his Macedonian brothers gave themselves to God and to him himself as God's minister (v. 5). For him, it seems, precisely this attitude toward ministry is the true attitude of the inhabitants of the Kingdom.
From the point of view of our world, not yet transformed, one can invest everything one has, including oneself, only in an absolutely reliable undertaking with a guaranteed return, the kind that does not exist in a fallen world. And if a person decides to devote himself to something without reserve, he is clearly acting no longer according to the laws of this world, but according to the laws of the Kingdom. Yet if in other matters a certain half-heartedness in self-giving may sometimes be possible, following the principle "do not put all your eggs in one basket," in the matter of witness to Christ and to the Kingdom it is impossible and unacceptable. Here it is all or nothing.
And yet, in a way that at first glance seems paradoxical, complete self-giving does not in this case mean that the one who gives himself loses everything. The readiness to give everything turns into its opposite side: it proves not to be as burdensome as it might have seemed. When everyone is ready to give everything he has, it turns out that in material terms no one demands "everything" from him. On the contrary, in this respect a certain balance is eventually established, in which no one lacks anything, though clearly no one lives in luxury either (vv. 11-15). But the issue is not merely a fair distribution of material goods. For the apostle, it seems, such mutual help among the churches is nothing other than a projection of the relationships of the Kingdom into the material sphere. After all, only in the Kingdom, when you give everything, do you receive immeasurably more than you gave. And the fact that the laws of the Kingdom can determine people's relationships in our world, which is being transformed but is not yet fully transformed, was visible proof that the Kingdom truly had, in the Savior's words, "drawn near" - drawn so near that it can already shape people's relationships in our world, if only people themselves want it.