19 October 2025

Paul on Money: As Discipleship

2 Corinthians 8:1-9

During the first century, a famine struck the land of Judea. Paul, traveling in Asia Minor and Greece, began to raise money among the Gentile Christians to take to Jerusalem to help the mother church there. We read from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 8, verses 1-9:

8 We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia; 2for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 3For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, 4begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints— 5and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us, 6so that we might urge Titus that, as he had already made a beginning, so he should also complete this generous undertaking among you. 7Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. 8I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. 9For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

I sometimes feel bad for Paul. He gets a bad rap. Again and again I’ve heard people who are frustrated with the church saying something like, “You know, Jesus never started a church. That was Paul’s doing.” The implication is that everything that the church does wrong – and, to be fair, it’s quite a list – can be traced back to Paul’s meddling with the pristine teachings of Jesus. (I should point out in passing, though, that Paul never gets credit when the church does something right – which, to be fair, is also quite a list.) But anyway, there is a certain amount of truth in this statement. Jesus did not, in fact, start a church. Oh, he definitely said that there would be one and that he would be with it, but he didn’t give any details about how it should be structured, who should lead it and how those leaders should be chosen, or how it should be supported. He leaves all that stuff unspecified. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he was opposed to churches being organized or having leaders or any of those things. It just means that he wanted to leave the church room to reinvent itself in each new age and culture and context. 

That’s why I sympathize with Paul. As the Christian movement began to spread, and churches began to multiply, it became obvious that there had to be some organization, but Jesus didn’t leave a blueprint. So Paul, having started all those churches, was in the position of trying to come up with an organizational structure and leadership development plan that would be faithful to the teachings of Christ. Did he succeed? Not always. I think he and Jesus leaned differently on the issue of women in leadership, for instance. But I still think Paul did better than most people give him credit for, given what he was working with. Remember, he wasn’t just proposing a theory of what a church should be, he was trying to sort one out in a particular culture, with particular individuals, and taking into account all sorts of practical details that Jesus was silent on.

A good example of this is the quintessentially practical matter of money. Now Jesus actually said a lot about money. He said that it was nearly impossible for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven, for instance. He told parables about selfish and greedy people going to hell. He told the rich young ruler to sell everything he had and give it to the poor. The basic gist is pretty clear: our relationship to God is infinitely more important than earthly wealth, and in fact, wealth can be an obstacle to that relationship. That is a lesson that we should take to heart. But it gets complicated in practice. For instance, many early churches served daily meals to poor widows, and it didn’t take those churches long to see that a few wealthy members were actually quite helpful to a ministry like that. And in our passage, as Paul begins a disaster relief fund drive for victims of the Judean famine, he has to figure how to talk about money in a way that will reflect the spirit of Christ and that will also actually raise money. Does he succeed? Not always.

Take, for instance, the first few verses of our reading today, where Paul tells the church in Corinth, “I’ve just been in Macedonia, and you’d be amazed at how much those churches gave – beyond all expectations – even though things are tough in Macedonia, too! But I told them you’d give even more.” I read that and cringe. Was there nobody in Paul’s traveling party who could take him aside and say, “You know, Paul, you’re not subtle. Doesn’t that sound a little manipulative? Do you really set your churches against each other?” 

Fortunately, Paul does better elsewhere. In verse 7 he says, Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. What Paul does here is remind the church that generosity is one part of their commitment to God. We are called to grow in faith, in knowledge, in commitment, in love – and generosity is part of that package. We are called to grow toward God in every way. Every area of our lives should reflect Christ: our speech, our labor, our relationships, and that includes our financial lives as well. The disciple’s journey is to give a little more of ourselves to God each day, and we give to God most directly by giving to others. As Jesus pointed out, money is part of that.

The second thing I want to highlight is verse 9: For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. Paul started out by comparing the Macedonians’ generosity to the Corinthians’ – which was cringe – but this is better. As we grow in discipleship, the goal is not to do better than someone else: the goal is to become a little more like Christ. And in a sense, as Paul points out here, Christ’s entire life was an example of generosity. Christ doesn’t call us to do anything he didn’t do first, and better. What Christ did was give away something that he didn’t have to give away – he laid aside his status as eternal God – so that we and others could have what we didn’t have: a relationship with our Creator. Compared to what Christ gave up, making a generous donation to help others in need is pretty small potatoes, but it points in the same direction.

So, as I said at the start, after 25 years in ministry, I’m developing a greater appreciation for Paul. Jesus gave us the goal, the beautiful horizon to aim for: a Promised Land where all people have been formed in Christ’s image, loving each other purely and being loved purely in turn, where money means nothing because we all care first for each other and know that we will be cared for. Paul, meanwhile, represents the first generation of people who said, “Yeah, that’s great, but how do we get there from here? We need some intermediate steps.” If Jesus is the brilliant nuclear physicist, Paul is the engineer assigned to build the power plant that applies the physics without exploding. 

And today I stand in Paul’s shoes. Most of the year I can paint pictures of that beautiful horizon of “love your neighbor as yourself” and “forgive seventy times seven” and “turn the other cheek” because we need to not lose sight of that vision. But some of the time I need to remind you that what we do right now, in the intermediate steps, requires time, work, meetings, hard decisions, and money. This is the season when we prepare our budget for next year and challenge you to pledge gifts to support that budget. We mailed pledge cards to you a week or two back – some of you have already turned them in – and we invite you consider your giving and to put that pledge down on paper as a commitment. You can either put it in the offering plate or leave it in one of the baskets by the doors. And I feel like I need to say this: I know you people, and I’m sure you can give way more than those piker Macedonians!

But most of all I want to say this. We are created to grow toward Christ in every area of our lives. Next week, we will be holding a volunteer fair after church, giving you a chance to consider new ways to grow in your service to others, but today I remind you that one of the areas of our lives in which we are to grow toward Christ is our financial lives. That cannot be compartmentalized and kept separate from the rest of our discipleship. 

In advance, thank you.