All Grace Abounding

What would you need to have before you would call yourself sufficient?

The people Paul had in mind when he wrote this had almost nothing. He describes them a chapter earlier. They are "the churches of Macedonia," who were "in a great trial of affliction," and yet "the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality." In plain words, they were very poor and very joyful, and they gave generously. Rome had stripped Macedonia bare: civil wars had been fought across it, and its mines and its money had been taken. Yet Paul says that "beyond their power they were willing of themselves." Then he adds the detail that shows what kind of people they were. They were "Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift." They had to beg Paul to accept it.

That is who stands behind today's verse: "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." The word for "sufficiency" was a word the Greek philosophers used for a person who needs nothing from anybody. Paul takes that word and points it outward. God gives you enough so that you can overflow to others.

Almost everyone who quotes this verse stops at the comma, so here is the warning. Paul's sentence ends with a purpose, "may abound to every good work," and that purpose reaches past you to other people. Plenty that stops at your own front door is not what this verse describes. If you read it as a promise of extra for yourself, you have taken a verse about poor Macedonians emptying their pockets and made it a reason to keep yours full. Read it their way, and you will find what they found: God is able to give so much grace that even a poor church can be rich in giving.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 294 is Me and My House (Joshua 24:15).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna