He Became Poor

Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift. They begged him to take their money, and Paul has to explain why he agreed, because on the face of it he should have refused.

Consider where the letter is going and where the money came from. Corinth is a wealthy port and the collection is for poor believers in Jerusalem. The Macedonians are up the road in Philippi and Thessalonica and Berea, and the state Paul reports them in is this: in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. And of the same people, beyond their power they were willing of themselves. He watched them give past what they had, and then had to argue with the richer congregation about finishing what it began a year ago.

Into that, with no ceremony and no build up, he drops your verse. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. It is the largest sentence in the letter and it is doing accounting. No excursion attached, no defence, nothing suggesting he expects an argument. He assumes they know it and puts it to work on a collection.

Then he shows what he means by it, and it is not a call to be destitute. But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want. He settles it out of the wilderness, where the manna was measured and nobody could hoard: He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack. The richest thing anyone has ever done is quoted here as the reason for a transfer between two churches. Paul thought that was the obvious use for it.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 332 is Love Because He Heard (Psalm 116:1-2).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two