Poor and rich
2 Corinthians 8:8-15
⁸I am not speaking this as a command, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity of your love also.
⁹For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.
¹⁰I give my opinion in this matter, for this is to your advantage, who were the first to begin a year ago not only to do this, but also to desire to do it.
¹¹But now finish doing it also, so that just as there was the readiness to desire it, so there may be also the completion of it by your ability.
¹²For if the readiness is present, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.
¹³For this is not for the ease of others and for your affliction, but by way of equality- ¹⁴at this present time your abundance being a supply for their need, so that their abundance also may become a supply for your need, that there may be equality; ¹⁵as it is written, “He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little had no lack.”
Imagine if someone on the other side of the world can look over your shoulders. He sees you going to school, well dressed, filled lunch box, school bag full of books, fast bicycle, beautiful school building, lots of school materials.
He sees your filled room, what a lot you have, what riches.
Do you know that you are very, very rich!
The other has so much less.
Paul saw the disparity between the rich congregation of Corinth and the poor Christians in Jerusalem.
Paul strongly urges the Corinthian church on love and on the example of the Lord Jesus. Jesus was rich, but became poor because of us, that we might become rich through His poverty (verse 9).
We are to use our abundance to make up for the other’s lack (verse 14).
Paul also cites an example from the Old Testament: the people of Israel were allowed to pick up the manna every day in the desert. God made sure that if you gathered much, you did not have leftovers, and if you gathered little, you did not have too little (verse 15).
God wants no one to be short!
We must share our abundance, you can already do that today through the collections during church services.
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