2 Corinthians 9:15
Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
BSB
ASV
Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.
KJV
Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
He calls "gift" the blessings that come from almsgiving both to those who give and to those who receive. Or: he reminds us of the blessings of which we were deemed worthy through the incarnation of Christ, speaking as if to say: do not think …
It should seem rather that he means Jesus Christ, who is indeed the unspeakable gift of God unto this world, a gift we have all reason to be very thankful for.
Thanks be unto God - Whitby supposes that this refers to the charitable disposition which they had manifested, and that the sense is, that God was to be adored for the liberal spirit which they were disposed to manifest, and the aid which they were disposed to render to others. But this, it is believed, falls far below the design of the apostle.
PAUL had spoken of the liberality of the Corinthian Believers and he had endeavored to stir them up to a prudent preparation for displaying it. "Now, therefore," he said, "perform the doing of it, that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance, also, out of that which you have." He closes his exhortation by this remarkable sentence—"Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!"—intending, no doubt, to thereby give expression to his own hearty thankfulness and also to deliver a master stroke of argument for Christian liberality.
1834–1892
IN the chapter from which my text is taken, Paul is stirring up the Christians at Corinth to be ready with liberal gifts for the poor saints at Jerusalem. He finishes by reminding them of a greater gift than any they could bring and, by this one short word of praise, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift," he sets all their hearts a-singing! Let men give as liberally as they may, you can always proclaim the value of their gift. You can cast it up and reckon its worth, but God's gift is unspeakable, unreckonable!
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
John 3:16For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
leads to
But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.
He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things?
that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.
Through
James 1:17Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow.
leads to
John replied, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven.
So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
