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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 2 Corinthians 8:24 - 8:24
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
24. ἐνδείξασθε (אCD2D3KLP, f Vulg. Syrr. Copt. Arm. Aeth.) rather than ἐνδεικνύμενοι (BDFG, d e g): but the reading is doubtful.
CHAPS. 8, 9. THE COLLECTION FOR THE POOR SAINTS AT JERUSALEM; THE PALESTINE RELIEF FUND
This subject is treated in “the ablest and most convincing section in Paley’s Horae Paulinae” (chap. ii. 1). On the raising of this relief fund S. Paul bestowed immense trouble; not merely because the need was great, but because he regarded it as a proof of the corporate union existing between all Christians, Jew and Gentile, and as a tie likely to strengthen that union. The Gentiles had shared the spiritual blessings of the Jews, and it was only fair that they should share the temporal necessities of the Jews by giving them a share of their temporal blessings. He was resolved that he must himself carry the proceeds of the collection to Jerusalem, even if to go there cost him his life (Chase, Hulsean Lectures, 1900–1901, pp. 257–260). Besides these two chapters, he speaks of the collection in 1Co 16:1-3 and Rom 15:26-27; and S. Luke records some important words of the Apostle on the subject Act 24:17. Paley shows how these four passages mutually explain one another, and especially how Rom 15:26-27 dovetails into the other three, thus giving strong evidence of the genuineness of Romans 15, which is sometimes disputed, and of the Epistle as a whole.
S. Paul uses eight words in connexion with the relief fund, and six of them occur in these two chapters: 1. κοινωνία (2Co 8:4, 2Co 9:13; Rom 15:26): 2. διακονία (2Co 8:4, 2Co 9:1; 2Co 9:12-13): 3. χάρις (2Co 8:4; 1Co 16:3): 4. ἁδρότης (2Co 8:20): 5. εὐλογία (2Co 9:5): 6. λειτουγία (2Co 9:12): 7. λογία (1Co 16:1): 8. ἐλεημοσύναι (Act 24:17, in the report of the speech before Felix).
No doubt there was poverty at Jerusalem before the first converts made their limited and temporary attempt to have ἅπαντα κοινά (Act 2:44). Among the Jewish Christians poverty had been produced or aggravated by famine (Act 11:28), by the paucity of wealthy converts and the persecution of poor converts by the wealthy Jews, and by converts’ own unwillingness to work, in consequence of the belief that Christ’s Return was at hand, a fault which S. Paul had to rebuke in other Churches (2Th 3:10; comp. Didache xii.). All these may have contributed to produce poverty. In the condition of society denounced by S. James in his Epistle there must have been many indigent persons who were not relieved by their richer neighbours; and to whatever extent there was community of goods, this would in the long run aggravate the evil, for community of goods without organization of labour must fail. See Rendall, Expositor, Nov. 1893, p. 322.
The contributions of the Galatian Churches (1Co 16:1) had possibly already been sent to Jerusalem. What is said here perhaps refers exclusively to the bounty of Corinth and Macedonia. This relief fund, so anxiously worked for by S. Paul, was not the first thing of the kind in the Christian Church. Some years before (c. A.D. 47), the Church in Antioch had spontaneously sent relief to their poorer brethren in Judaea ‘by the hands of Barnabas and Saul’ (Act 11:30); and this act may have been suggested by the fact that the Jews of the Dispersion were in the habit of sending money to their countrymen at home: cum aurum Judaeorum nomine quotannis ex Italia et ex omnibus provinciis Hierosolyma exportarl soleret (Cic. Pro Flacco xxviii.). Comp. Joseph. Ant. XVI. vi. 2–7; B. J. VI. vi. 2. It has been conjectured that Jewish Christians at Jerusalem continued to have a share of these offerings from the Dispersion, and that it was Gentile Christians for whom S. Paul’s fund was required. But there cannot have been many Gentile Christians in Jerusalem, or even in Judaea, to need relief. And would the Jewish authorities at Jerusalem have given anything to Jewish Christians? Moreover the Apostle nowhere makes the appeal that Gentiles must help Gentiles. In Rom 15:26-27 the argument rather is that Gentiles must help Jews; and S. Paul tells Felix that he came to Jerusalem ‘to bring alms to my nation’ (Act 24:17).
Here a marked change of tone shows the anxiety of the Apostle in urging the claims of this relief fund upon the Corinthians. The overflowing enthusiasm of the previous section is checked, and the style becomes laboured. He feels his way, as if not quite confident of success; and he presses his appeal with carefully chosen and carefully worded arguments. There is more at stake than the relief of distress. His influence over the Corinthians, and his reputation with unfriendly critics at Jerusalem, are at stake also. That Christians helped Christians promoted goodwill. That Gentile Christians helped Jewish Christians promoted unity. That Christians of Corinth, where his authority had been challenged by Judaizers, should be induced to help Christians of Jerusalem, would be evidence both of his authority to work among the Gentiles, and also of his loyalty to the Mother Church in so working.
2Co 8:1-7. THE EXAMPLE OF LIBERALITY SET BY THE CHURCHES OF MACEDONIA
‘Macedonia’ at this time meant the Roman province of Macedonia, including Thessaly and Epirus, as well as Macedonia proper. But the Apostle perhaps means Macedonia proper, for the Churches which he had founded in Macedonia,—Philippi, Thessalonica, and Beroea,—were situated in the ancient kingdom. His “first visit to Macedonia was the dawn of a new era in the development of the Christian Church.” This “and the visit to Borne are the two most important stages in the Apostle’s missionary life, as they are also the two most emphatic passages in the historian’s narrative—the one the opening campaign of the Gospel in the West, the other its crowning triumph” (Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, p. 237).
S. Paul calls attention to two facts about these Macedonian congregations; (1) their deep poverty, and (2) their rich liberality. The Romans had seized the mines and imposed heavy taxation; which explains the poverty. Macedonian liberality was shown by their contributions to the relief fund (2Co 8:3-4), by their sending support to the Apostle himself at Corinth (2Co 11:9), in his travels (Php 4:15), and at Rome (Php 2:25; Php 4:18). See J. A. Beet on “The Gift from Philippi” in the Expositor, 3rd Series, IX. p. 68. Several gave themselves as fellow-workers, as Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, and Epaphroditus.