Second Corinthians 8: 16-24 Messengers of Generosity
2 Corinthians 8:16-24 · Mike Doyle · Jul 24, 2022
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 117
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261927525822

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So, we're working our way through 2 Corinthians chapter 8. And we've been talking about primarily Paul raising money from the Corinthians and all of the churches in Asia Minor and Eastern Europe to take down to the believers that are in Judea because there was a famine.

So Paul, in order to encourage the Corinthians, he began talking about the way the churches of Macedonia had shared generously despite their abject poverty. Their act of service was viewed as a privilege. And their example provided a standard against which the Corinthians could measure their own earnestness. We saw an example of how the grace of God demonstrated in the Macedonians helped to persuade the Corinthians to help out in this situation, to assist in any way they could. But Paul doesn't stop there. He goes on from there. to show that the Macedonians were not the prime example of grace giving.

The prime example is Jesus Christ and what He did. Jesus demonstrated His grace in that although He was rich, He gave all. He became poor. That through His poverty, we might become rich. So we talked last week about the principles in giving. The first one was that God's grace produces a desire to give.

And I think that there is such an accurate statement here that we must understand that I am what I am as a believer. I function the way I function as a believer because God's grace has an effect on who I am. in what I do. I don't give grudgingly. I don't give because there's a list.

We went through a lot of those reasons on how people raise money. We function as believers not only in giving, but everything we do based on God's grace alone. The second principle was we give ourselves first and then financially. Remember the verse that said we first give ourselves to the Lord and then to the ministry. We don't give grudgingly.

Third, God's grace produces the readiness of mind to forgive, to give and forgive. The amount of giving is in proportion to what God has given us. which really is a great principle because it means that we have to sit down and we have to take a few minutes and figure out where we are financially and what can we do? What can we afford to give? It isn't that we give as little as we can, but what would God have me do as a steward of his property?

And the purpose of grace giving is that there might be equality and Donna told me I should probably talk a little bit more about equality based on how that word is used today in secular society. So, back in verse 13, we saw last week that, for this is not for the case of others, for your affliction, but by way of equity. Paul uses the word equity or equality. at this present time, our abundance being a supply for your need." And then Paul says, so that their abundance at some time in the future may become a supply for your need, and that's what the equity means.

And then he quotes an Old Testament verse that says, He who gathered much did not have too much of the manna, and he who gathered little didn't have a lack. So the point there was that God was in charge of the manna and the adjustment of how much every Jewish family got. And so the supply and demand ratio was by God's wisdom and God's power. And nobody received manna in excess or extravagantly and nobody had a deficiency. He that gave the manna from heaven exactly measured what was proper for every family, whatever the differing measures are.

And that's exactly what he does in the church today. A quote from Constable, he says, two objectives are in view here and was not making the Judean Christians rich at the expense of the Corinthians. It was that there should be a more equality than presently existed. That if you, Corinthian church had a lot, they should share it with other believers who didn't have as much to sort of balance the scales. So in the future, the Corinthians might be in need for help from other Christians who had more than they had.

And that would be their turn to receive. So Paul kind of views the Christian environment as we're all brothers and sisters in a large family, and that it's our responsibility to care for one another. And I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. Now, Constable quoted a man named Hodge, and I thought I'd share this with you. I thought this was very helpful in today's environment. Hodge says the scriptures avoid on the one hand the injustice and destructive evils of agrarian communism.

Agrarian communism means if we were all farmers, we'd have to all work on the same farm and share the wealth. I was going to say share the wealth, but actually share the poverty. By recognizing the right of property and making all almsgiving optional, it's your choice, on the other and the heartless disregard of poor people by inculcating the universal brotherhood of believers and the consequent duty of each to contribute to his abundance to relieve the necessities of the poor.

At the same time, they inculcate on the poor the duty of self-support to the extent of their ability. In other words, no homeless, They are commanded with quietness to work and to eat of their own bread. Could these principles be carried out? There would be among the Christian community neither idleness or want. That's what equity is. So Paul notes that you can't legislate equality. You have to appeal for it. You show the need and you share the need.

So what Paul's going to do today in the verses that we're going to cover, verse 16, and thanks be to God who put the same earnestness on your behalf in the heart of Titus. Chester McCauley called this the message of generosity or the messengers of generosity. So today the focus goes off of who's giving and off of how much and on to those who are going to take the money and deliver it to the saints in Judea. And so there's quite a bit of information in terms of what character should these people be. So the care of administration of the gift to the saints should be above suspicion. not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.

Paul's concerned about doing things in an honest way in front of the Lord and in front of men. And last week, we talked a little bit about Proverbs 3, 1 through 4, emphasis on the fourth verse, but I'll read all four verses. But really, these four verses form the basics for handling of money.

Proverbs says, My son, don't forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. For the length of days and of years of life and peace they will add to you. Do not let kindness and truth leave you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on tablets in your heart.

And verse four, So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and men. So that's what verse 16 is about. And if you take a look at the word earnestness, it's that same word we talked about last week, spode, which means eagerness to care. It's a word that talks about speed. I don't have to think about caring. I just do it.

Paul was sending Titus back to the Corinthians to pick up their gift. And the Corinthians knew Titus because he had been there and he had ministered to them and had been ministered by them. And so he's the perfect person to go back there. And he affirms Titus's love for the Corinthians so that they would happily receive him. The zeal of Titus for the relief fund was really on behalf of the Corinthians.

I want you to get this point. Titus was very zealous about doing this, but he wasn't zealous because he wanted to raise a lot of money and come back with his pockets full for the Judeans. That was part of it. What he really was about, that he knew that the Corinthians, if they weren't generous, they would be the chief losers. They would be the ones that had a problem that wouldn't be blessed by this whole adventure.

So what Paul does is he expresses thanks to God for God's working in Titus' heart to give him such a great heart. And we're thankful. We're thankful because Paul knew the grace of God. He understood the grace of God and he could see it in Titus. And he understood Titus's heart in the sense that he felt like himself about the Corinthian saints about this issue. William Kelly says of this verse how perfectly suited to comfort as well as stir up a holy enthusiasm the saints themselves when such a servant of the Lord as Titus so promptly responds to Paul's heart. Confidence as both were that whatever appearance indicated to those who judged superficially the grace of God, people watching what they were doing about this money, had shaped in them and would yet flow through them to God's glory abundantly. Paul saw that.

Verse 17, For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest, He has gone to you of his own record. I quoted the Weymouth translation here because I thought it was pretty good. For Titus welcomed our request, and being thoroughly in earnest, comes to you of his own free will. I didn't have to say, go back to Corinth and do it now. When I mentioned it before I got the sentence out of my mouth, he was ready to go. So he exhorted him, And Titus on his own part did so with willingness and he did it swiftly.

He didn't count the service to be beneath him or anything like that. So what Paul does is he thanks God that the same care that filled his own heart for the people of God was found also in the heart of Titus. I think sometimes we see that in the hearts of people that we know. In verse 18, he says, we have sent along with him the brother whose fame in the things of the gospel has spread through all the churches. We have no idea who this man was. He's not talked about. He's not identified. He's just referred to as a brother. And he must be well known by both the Corinthians and others because the description of him And yet he is not identified.

Paul works and the brother works for what reason? For God's glory. That's all they think about. And they want to maintain the servitude that they've been called to. Two things Paul's doing. He's not going to expose Titus to work with somebody who wasn't worthy. however unwarrantable the question.

And so he associated him with brothers in the service that had reputations. And then in verse 19, he says, and not only this, but he has also been appointed by the churches to travel with us in this gracious work, which is being administered by us for the glory of the Lord himself to show our readiness. So it's interesting.

The churches of Macedonia and Asia Minor and Galatia had a responsibility here. They, of themselves, got to pick who's going to carry the money. Now notice something. In the church, God picks the elders and the teachers. Look at Ephesians and the deacons. But when it comes to this kind of a thing, the church gets to pick. So they get to choose who are the companions are going to be with Paul and who are going to travel with him and who are to carry this money for the saints from the Gentiles to the saints in Judea. Important principle here.

And we see this back in Acts 6 when the apostles, the 12 apostles in Judea, Acts 6.1 says, and about this time as the number of the disciples was increasing, the church was really growing, complaints were made by the Greek-speaking Jews, which were Jewish people who were raised in Greek environments, against the Hebrew, Christian Jews who spoke Hebrew, because their widows were habitually overlooked in their daily ministration. So what did the twelve do? They called together the general body of believers, of the disciples, and here's what they said.

It does not seem fitting that we apostles should neglect the delivery of God's message, the message, and minister at tables. In other words, feed the poor. Therefore, brethren, pick from among yourselves seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, And we will appoint them to undertake this duty. Whose responsibility? The twelve apostles told the congregation, you pick the seven people that are going to minister to the widows and help out. So they tell the disciples, look among yourselves for men who can do this job, who are of good reputation, full of the Spirit, and full of wisdom.

It's exactly what the Gentile churches were doing in Asia Minor. You pick the guys that are going to help. So in verse 7, again verse 19, it says, as the Christian congregations gave money, they were left free to choose the administrators of that money. This was a pretty wise and a pretty gracious decision, I think.

The apostles kept detached from all appearance of favoritism, and they left them of their own work with prayer, the condition of power. The point being that what was the main job of Paul the apostle? It was to establish churches and spread the gospel and to teach those in those churches the word of God. Did he, should he spend time in like waiting tables and washing dishes? No, he spent time building tents so that he didn't have to take any money.

The point being that everybody in the body of Christ, we talked about this this morning in our Sunday school, in the person and work of the Holy Spirit, every single believer in the body of Christ has a spiritual gift. And every single believer is to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus.

And whether you manifest this gift and it's recognizable or not, we still have an obligation to serve, to serve in the simplest things. So. And not only so in verse 19. And not only so this, but as he also been appointed by the churches to travel with us in a gracious work, which is being ministered, why? By us for the glory of the Lord himself to show our readiness.

Where the saints gave, they chose according to their best judgment for the presentation of the gifts. We talked about that. Whether in one church or for all of the churches. But in no case did they infer that the ministers of the, interfere with the ministers of the apostles, ministry of the apostles. The ministers of the Word of the Lord were given by God to the church. And the church, instead of choosing, received those whom the Lord chose.

It's like Roger and I, for four years now, or three and a half years, we're waiting for God to raise somebody up that He chose to come and minister to this body. Well, until He shows us We don't know who it is yet. We've got some suspicions, but we're not sure. God is the one, the Holy Spirit is the one who sends gifted men into a body of believers, as Ephesians says. He prepares them, he gifts them, and he gives them to the body.

In other things, the church gets to pick. That's the whole point here. For they too all rest on the same principle of the Lord's gift and not man's. For this reason, it is confusion to mix up the two things differently. The Lord's sole title to give and send his servants in the word and the church's title to choose those whom the believers have confidence to administer the gift.

The case before us falls under the latter. The brother, unnamed here, was chosen by the churches, our fellow traveler with the grace that is being administered to us by the glory of the Lord himself. Verse 20, taking precaution so that no one will discredit us in our administration of these generous gifts. So there's a moral reason here that he gives.

Constable says Paul was very conscious of his need to guard this project and the people involved in it from any charge of financial mismanagement. Doing what was correct was not enough to Paul. He wanted to make sure that everyone perceived What he did is honest and above board as well. And you know what's interesting about Paul?

He had learned to anticipate the suspicions and the accusations of those who viewed his ministry critically to take the necessary precautions. a quote from a man named Martin from Cicero. Cicero said, but the main thing in all public administration and public service is to avoid even the slightest suspicion of avarice. So it's not lack of faith, but rather faith working by love, which would cut off the opportunity from men, as well as the walk with pure conscience before God. And then he says in verse 21, for we have regard for this, for what is honorable, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.

He virtually repeats in this verse, Proverbs 3.4, because Proverbs 3.4 says, and so we find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and the sight of men.

We want to honor the Lord in all that we do. And by doing that, we earn honor before men. We are well served to pay attention to Paul's wise caution here. In our day when we are so many professed Christians, saints of the Lord have proven to be deceitful and deceptive. We as believers, cannot afford to be naive or careless about doing things that are honorable in the sight of men. We have to pay attention to that. That's a quote from Constable.

The next verse, as well as that which follows, proves that the apostle added another brother, a second brother, to join the group. So verse 22, he says, we have sent them our brother, we sent with them our brother whom we have often tested, found diligent in many things, but now even more diligent because of his great confidence in you." Again, this other brother isn't identified by name or reputation. And it's interesting, when you spend time looking at commentaries, these commenters all speculate on who these two people were with no evidence.

But this man had proved diligent. He had been tested. In other words, he had been observed in his Christian life and he had passed the DocuMas test, a test for approval. And he had great confidence that the Church of Corinth would do well in this adventure.

So it's important for us to determine It's impossible for us to determine who this brother was, because we don't have any clue who the first brother was. But notice two things, two details about this brother. Paul's experience of the brother's proven zeal, it was often, and he did it with diligence. And the exceeding warmth of his own zeal, now by his, not Paul's great confidence in the Corinthians, it was the brother's great confidence.

Then he comes back and talks about Titus. As for Titus, here's what he says about Titus. He is my partner and fellow worker among you. As for our brethren, they are messengers of the church, a glory to Christ. So it seems clear in verse 23 that Titus probably stood relatively in a higher position than the brothers did. But now we have a group of four men that are going to carry this money from Asia Minor to Jerusalem. It's the two brothers, it's Titus and it's Paul. The four are going. And the way it's set up now, the way Paul has set these men up and set up who they were, if anybody inquired about who these three or four people were, He says, let them note who they are.

First, that Titus was a partner and a fellow helper with Paul in caring for the church at Corinth. And the other two brothers were well known as the messengers of the other local churches. And all of them functioned to the glory of Christ. That's why they did what they did. One that is not only approved of Paul, but also whose praise is in all the churches and chosen by the churches to administer this gift. So it's interesting that not only did Paul decline the sole administration himself, but he had directed and sanctioned the choice of more than one to give the task dignity in all the eyes associated with these brethren and everybody who was paying attention, not only with Titus, who shared the highest confidence. While the needs of the saints is met, the glory of the Lord is maintained, and all occasion for question is avoided.

So that's his purpose here. Verse 24, he says, Therefore, openly before the churches, Show them the proof of your love and our reason for boasting about you." They can with full confidence express their love before these brothers and the churches by the generous giving.

That's how they could do it. And they eagerly, eagerly, would meet the needs of believers who needed it. And Paul could say, see, I told you the Corinthians were really cool Christians. Look what they did. Just like he talked last week about the Macedonians, he couldn't give the Macedonians more praise. He said, not only did they were dirt poor, but they gave what they had and then they gave more.

So notice what form the basis of Paul's handling of the offering is. There's a pivotal point here that God must be first and the focus before all these other things can be developed. But watch the order. Then deal with finding favor with God. That's number one. Two weeks ago, Paul said, give yourself to the Lord and then to the ministry. Secondly, you deal with the issue of finding favor with men.

And lastly, How blessed is the man who finds this wisdom. So why this order? It's interesting. Because it has to line up consistently with Scripture. The vertical relationship this way between us and the Lord has to come before there's a horizontal relationship amongst believers. This is first. We don't emphasize this until this is in place. Because the consistency of scripture, vertical relationships are before horizontal relationships. Favor with God followed by wisdom results in favor with men.

I've spent, Calvin and his family have been staying with us for a couple days and will. And we had another brother over yesterday and the three of us talked all day long. That's why my voice is probably going to die before we're done. We spent all of our time talking about this relationship. All of our time, the three of us. But we did help out. The girls didn't have to do everything.

But it's so cool when you can sit down with a believer and this is what you talk about more than this is what you talk about. Do we talk about the cares and woes of the way or do we talk about the glory of the Lord Jesus? J.B. Stoney in one of his paragraphs said, when's the last time you sat down with a believer and after you got done talking about, well, this is going on in my life and that's going on in my life, the conversation went to the glories of Christ and how glorious a person He is, and that's what you talked about.

That's really cool. That's this. And that's got to come first. These brethren, While beautifully and graciously styled Christ's glory as being active in the display of Christ's excellence, were deputized envoys of certain churches who entrusted them with the contribution for the people in Judea. And having summed up what he had to say of his companions for the Corinthian saints at this time, Paul calls on the saints to give the proof of their love. How? And the proof of the boasting that he is bragging about them so that the other churches can see.

So he says, what is this letter really or this part of this scripture all about? It's really, if you look at it, it's a letter of recommendation, a letter of commendation. He's saying, here are these men, they're going to carry the money, and I recommend them. And here's why I recommend them. And you can trust them.

So he challenged the Corinthians to give the messengers a reception that would demonstrate the Corinthians' love for Christ. For Paul and for the delegates to all other churches in Asia Minor, Paul and the brothers are open hearted towards them and had urged them to be open hearted towards themselves. Their warm reception by the Corinthian of these messengers would confirm the genuineness and their acceptance of Paul and their positive response to the admonition concerning the offering. And believe it or not, other churches were watching. They were watching how the Corinthians were going to respond. And they knew the Corinthian history. And therefore, this positive welcome of this group of men needed to be a public display of any doubts in the minds of others, quote, your love and the reason for boasting about you.

I pray that we as a body of believers, that we can boast about each other because we love the Lord and we love each other. So let's close. Father, how we thank You for Your Word. How we thank You for the grace that we live under. And how we thank You for the opportunity to continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of our dear Savior, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in His name. Amen.