2 Corinthians9chapter 9

2 Corinthians 9:1-2

For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you: Paul says the same thing he has just spent a chapter saying, and the bench reads the seeming contradiction as rhetoric, not redundancy, praise offered so publicly that the church can hardly fail to live up to it. I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago, and your zeal hath provoked very many: Corinth's early willingness had already stirred Macedonia to give in chapter 8, so the two provinces are now spurring one another on, a chain of generosity Paul openly uses as leverage.

2 Corinthians 9:3-5

Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf: Paul explains the errand of the couriers named in chapter 8, sent ahead so that the boast he has already made in Macedonia is not embarrassed by finding Corinth unready. Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we should be ashamed in this same confident boasting: the bench notes the practical wisdom, a collection promised long in advance needs advance men, not a last-minute scramble that looks forced. Verse 5 states the point of sending them early, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness, a planned gift rather than one wrung out under pressure, and the word for bounty here is eulogia, blessing, the same term Paul will use again at verse 6.

2 Corinthians 9:6-7

But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully: the agricultural proverb sets the chapter's central law, common to Proverbs 11:24-25 and Christ's own measure-for-measure teaching, and the bench is careful that the harvest promised is God's to give and on God's timing, never a claim that giving buys a fixed return from men. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver: hilaros, the word that gives English cheerful, used nowhere else in the New Testament, and the commentators across every era read the verse as the whole doctrine of giving compressed into one line, the manner mattering to God as much as the amount.

2 Corinthians 9:8

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: autarkeia, sufficiency, the word Paul will use again of his own contentment at Philippians 4:11, promised here not as personal wealth but as enough for every good work, the giving that empties the hand refilled so the hand can give again. The bench holds the verse's own shape carefully: the sufficiency promised is God's ability and grace, stated to encourage cheerful giving, not a formula guaranteeing material increase to whoever gives, and the text itself names the purpose of the abundance as more good works, not accumulation.

2 Corinthians 9:9-10

As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever: Psalm 112:9, describing the righteous man's generosity, applied by Paul to the church's own giving, the scattering of seed becoming a lasting righteousness rather than a loss. Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness: Isaiah 55:10 stands behind the figure, God who supplies both the seed to sow and the bread to eat, and the bench reads the compound promise as assurance that generosity does not deplete the giver's own resource, since the same God who gave the seed replenishes it.

2 Corinthians 9:11-12

Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God: the enrichment named in verse 8 finds its purpose here, wealth existing so that generosity can flow through it into praise, the giver becoming a channel rather than a reservoir. For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God: diakonia, the same word used of Paul's own ministry, applied to money handed from Gentile believers to Jewish ones, and the bench notes the double effect the apostle keeps naming, a practical need met and a spiritual thanksgiving multiplied, the gift working on two planes at once.

2 Corinthians 9:13-14

Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men: the recipients in Jerusalem will read the gift itself as evidence, proof that Gentile believers genuinely submit to the same gospel, and the bench notes that Paul lets the money argue a theological point the collection was always partly designed to make, the unity of Jew and Gentile in one body. And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you: the gift returns as intercession, Jerusalem's saints praying for the very Gentiles their own tradition had long held at arm's length, a bond of prayer running back across the gift's original direction.

2 Corinthians 9:15

Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift: the chapter's last word turns from the Corinthians' gift to God's own, anekdiegetos, a word found nowhere else in the New Testament, indescribable, and the bench reads the doxology as the same move made at 8:9, every human generosity finally referred back to the gift of Christ that makes it possible at all. Two chapters spent urging a collection close not on the sum raised but on the Giver behind every gift, and the exposition notes the fittingness of ending an appeal for money with the one gift no money could purchase.