2 Corinthians 9:8-11

Butler's Commentary

SECTION 5

Confidence (2 Corinthians 9:8-11)

8And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work. 9As it is written, He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever. 10He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your resources and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be enriched in every way for great generosity, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God;

2 Corinthians 9:8-9 Ability of God: A most important motivation for giving is the Christian's trust in the ability and willingness of God to supply everything the human being needs to live and serve his Maker to the best of his capacities. Jesus dealt extensively with this factor in the Sermon on the Mount. The Heavenly Father knows what his children need before they ask! (Matthew 6:8). The Heavenly Father stores and protects eternally every treasure his children lay up in heaven (Matthew 6:19-21). The Heavenly Father provides abundantly and gloriously for all the lesser beings of his creationare not his human children of more value than these? (Matthew 6:25-34). Jesus proved that God is not only able, but passionately eager, to provide whatever is necessary to fulfill God's purpose in every person who asks! But what God is able and willing to do, and what human beings expect him to do, may be as different as daylight and darkness. Jesus fed some hungry people, but not all. He healed some ill people, but not all. He restored some dead to their loved one's on earth, but not all. God makes some people rich, but not all. God gives some people multiple talents, but not all. Paul's point in this passage is that God is able to provide every believer with every blessing in abundance, so that the trusting child may always have enough of everything to accomplish every good work God wants him to accomplish. Wealthy people are rich not because they are more righteous or fortunate than others, but in order that they may administer those riches as wise and faithful stewards in the service of God. Poor people are not poor because they are unpleasing to God or less talented than others, but in order that they may administer their poverty as wise and faithful stewards in the service of God. Every child of God has been given enough of everything that he may do every good work God has for him to do. It is not what the child of God could do if he had moreit is what he is doing with what he has now!

2 Corinthians 9:8, in the Greek text is literally, And is able, the God, all grace (charin) to cause to abound (perisseusai, aorist, infinitive) unto you, in order that.. Again, Paul uses the word grace as a synonym of the material (and the spiritual) goods or means given by God to human beings for a stewardship. Whatever any human being has he has by the grace of God and for the service of God. Whatever any human being has is all the grace, at that moment, God has caused him to have for holy service. God forgets nothing, omits nothing, and is never incapable of providing all the grace needed for his purposes. Paul wrote to the Ephesians that God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3). Peter writes that Christians have been given all things that pertain to life and godliness by the knowledge of Christ through his great and very precious promises (2 Peter 1:3-5). It is not God who is inadequate. The man with a bountiful heart finds that God supplies him with something to bestow (Plummer).

The phrase, enough of everything is literally, all self-sufficiency (Gr. pasan autarkeian). The Greek word autarkeia is translated contentment in 1 Timothy 6:6, and is the word from which we get the English word autarchy, absolute sovereignty. When God supplies, it is absolutely sufficient, and we should be content with it! Too many Christians are not giving proportionately (and some not at all) because they think they do not have enough to give. Emphatic teaching needs to be done on these verses (2 Corinthians 9:8-11) so believers will understand that whatever they have is enough for them to give something which will please God. Notice, Paul says willing, cheerful-hearted men will always (Gr. pantote) have enough to give. Self-sufficiency for the believer is caused by God, but the believer must cooperate to make it a reality. It is the believer's responsibility to trust and be content. The less a Christian desires for his own hedonistic pleasure (see James 4:1-4) the more he will be content, self-sufficient and able to minister to others. Usually, those who do not have enough to give for every good work are those who have insisted on too much for themselves! Let every Christian be honest to himself and to God about this, and the foregoing statement will be correct. The Greek word perisseuete is, as earlier in the verse, translated abound and means, overflow, over and above, more than enough, affluence, super-abundance. God is able to give us grace overflowing so that we may always have enough to overflow unto every good work. This does not mean that we are to give only our overflow or our abundance (this is what the Pharisees did Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4). It means that we will be able to abound, to sow bountifully (see 2 Corinthians 9:6). Believers do not give left-overs to God (see Malachi 1:6-9), they give the best and the most, taking the left-overs for their own usestill counting the left-overs as a stewardship to God.

2 Corinthians 9:9 is a quotation from Psalms 112:9 and its subject is the believer, the man who fears God (Psalms 112:1), not God. The Hebrew text uses the word pizzair (scatter or distribute) and the LXX translates the Hebrew word into the Greek word (eskorpisen, English scorpion) the same Greek word Paul uses here in 2 Corinthians 9:9. The Greek word penesin is translated, poor, and is the word from which we get the English word, penury which means, last, destitute, abject poverty. The Greek word eskorpisen carries the idea of dispersing or scattering abroad, widely, effusively, as in the sowing of seed, scattering grain by winnowing. The man who fears the Lord is unrestrained, profuse in his giving. That is because he is content with very little for himself and because God has overflowed divine grace to this man to make him always sufficiently capable of sowing bountifully to all good works. That man's righteousness (Gr. dikaiosune) remains (Gr. menei) forever (Gr. eis ton aiona, unto eternity). The man who sows bountifully is like Cornelius, the Roman centurion, whose liberality (and prayers) went up before God as an abiding memorial (see Acts 10:1-4). When such a man dies, his works follow him (Revelation 14:13). They have become a part of his character that shall never die. The Psalmist said, he will be remembered forever (Psalms 112:6). Now God is able to make that happen in every believer's liferich and poor! For, you see, it is not the amount in a comparative sense, but the willingness, cheerfulness and equality of participation that is very well acceptable to the Lord.

2 Corinthians 9:10-11 Aim of God: Confidence (trust) in God's purpose (aim) for giving is necessary. God's purpose for believers in giving is the glorifying of his Almighty name! It is as God said so often through the O.T. prophets when he extended his mercy and grace for the sake of his name (see Ezekiel 20:9; Ezekiel 20:14; Ezekiel 20:22; Daniel 9:18-19). Jesus taught his disciples to pray, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.. We are not to give to be seen and rewarded by men (Matthew 6:1-4).

The God who has never failed to supply seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply the true giver's resources. The word supply is a translation of the Greek word epichoregon. It is a combined word, epi, a prepositional prefix meaning to intensify or pile upon, and choregeo, the word from which we get the English words, choreography, chorus, choral. In ancient Greece, the leader (choregeo) of a chorus, or a dance company (choreography) was charged with the responsibility of supplying all the material needs of his group. The group was to devote all its time to perfecting its performance and should not have to be anxious about the necessities of living. So the word choregeo came to be used as a connotation of all sufficient supplier. These Greeks at Corinth would especially appreciate Paul's use of this word from the ancient world of theatrics. God is not only an Almighty Choreographer, he is also an Infinite Multiplier (Gr. plethunei, the word from which we get the English, plethora. God multiplies our resources. Actually, the Greek word translated resources is sporon and means literally, seed, and the Greek word translated increase is the word auxesei which means to grow. Paul is using these words figuratively. They are words in keeping with the symbolism he has used all through this Chapter words from the vocabulary of the farmer. The growth-cycle in naturefrom the field of the farmeris God's classic lesson on confidence in the Creator to choreograph a magnificent harvest from a bountiful scattering of seed. He does it over and over and over in the farmer's field.

The God who does this in the farmer's field will also do it through the believer's pocketbook! The believer must have the same faith as the farmer and scatter seed (dollars) profusely. What the believer cannot forget is that his harvest (Gr. genemata, fruits) is of the Spirit. The believer must have confidence in the aim of God to produce spiritual ends, not material ends. While the believer uses material things they are not his ultimate goal. Material things are merely means to the spiritual goal he (and God) seeks to produce. God's goal is righteousness, in the giver, in those to whom he gives, and in those who are aware of his giving.

God enriches (Gr. ploutizomenoi, from the Greek word Plutus, god of wealth; the word from which we get the English words, plutocrat, plutocracy) all believers (wealth is relative) in every way for great generosity (Gr. pasan haploteta, lit., all single-mindedness). The word haploteta originally described the action of spreading cloth flat so that nothing was left hidden in the folds. It connotes openhandedness, sincerity, liberality, genuiness, guilelessness, healthiness. Paul is aiming at the spiritual foundations of Christian giving with this word haploteta rather than specific amounts.

God supplies and multiplies, the believer administers his stewardship in a healthy, open-handed, generous, sincere way (no matter what amount he is proportionately able to give), and it produces thanksgiving to God. The Greek word eucharistian is translated thanksgiving. It is the word from which we get the English word, eucharist, so often used as a name for the Lord's Supper because of Paul's use of the same word (eucharistesas) in 1 Corinthians 11:24 in his dissertation about the Lord's Supper. The same word is repeated in the Greek text here (2 Corinthians 9:12). It is significant and indicates that giving and receiving offerings of money in a congregation of Christians should be as worshipful, as important, and as needful of total participation as the Lord's Supper! The offering is as much a eucharist as is the Lord's Supper.

Paul is emphatic in this verse (2 Corinthians 9:11) and the following verses that the primary goal of Christian giving is to produce thanksgiving to Godto glorify the name of God. This is a major problem preachers face in the matter of Christian giving. There is not enough emphasis on God's glory. Too often, when a modern congregation which has produced some extraordinary liberality, the emphasis is put on the faith of the people or their sacrificial generosity. The glory goes to God! And if believers are not able to trust God enough to give him the glory for any and all generosity, they are not giving from the right motivation!