He Became Poor So We Could Be Rich (2 Corinthians 8:8-11)
Today’s Word
[Though He Was Rich, He Became Poor] (NIV)
8:8 I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.
8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
8:10 And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so.
8:11 Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means.
Background
In yesterday’s passage Paul told the story of the Macedonian churches. In the middle of severe trial and extreme poverty, their joy overflowed into generosity beyond their means, and above all they gave themselves first to the Lord (They Gave Themselves First to the Lord, 2 Corinthians 8:1-7). Then Paul urged the Corinthians: you excel in faith, in speech, in knowledge and in earnestness, so excel in this grace as well.
After a story like that, listeners tend to feel the pressure. It can easily sound like, “If a poor church could do that much, why haven’t you?” Paul seems to have known this. So he opens today’s passage with, “I am not commanding you.” Paul was an apostle. He had founded the church in Corinth, and if he had wanted to, he could have pressed the point with his authority. But he does not order them to give. He knew that money collected under compulsion, however large the amount, could never become grace.
Instead Paul sets two things before them. The first is the earnestness of others. The Macedonians were not held up to shame the Corinthians but as a mirror, a way for the Corinthians to see for themselves whether the love they professed was genuine. The second is far deeper: the grace of Jesus Christ. Verse 9 is counted among the most beautiful sentences in 2 Corinthians, and indeed in the whole New Testament. “Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor.”
Paul does not introduce this as a new teaching. He says, “For you know.” The Corinthians had already heard and believed this gospel. Paul is not teaching them something new. He is calling to mind, right here in the middle of a conversation about money, something they already know. It can feel abrupt at first, moving from a fundraising appeal straight into the heart of the gospel. But for Paul, giving was always rooted in what Christ had done first.
When Paul says Christ “was rich,” he means the glory of heaven. In Philippians he tells the same story another way: Christ, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:6-7). The Son of God became human, was born in a feeding trough, lived with nowhere to lay his head, and gave up everything on the cross. That is what it means that he “became poor.” And through that poverty we have been made rich: forgiven, adopted as God’s children, given eternal life, riches we could never have gained on our own.
In verse 10 Paul returns to the situation in Corinth. He calls what he is saying his “judgment,” his advice, a word that pairs with “not commanding” in verse 8. This is counsel, not an order, and Paul says it is for their own good. The Corinthians had started this collection a year earlier, and not because anyone pushed them. They wanted to. But when their relationship with Paul was shaken, the work seems to have stalled. Now that the relationship has been restored, it is time to finish what they began.
The last phrase of verse 11 deserves attention too: “according to your means.” Paul does not ask them to give beyond their ability as the Macedonians had. He asks them to give out of what they have. In the very next verse he adds that a gift “is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have” (8:12). What Paul wants is not a particular amount. He wants a willing heart carried all the way through into action.
For an overview of the whole letter, see the Introduction to 2 Corinthians.
Key Words Made Simple
- Commanding: Greek epitagē. An order handed down from above, something that must be obeyed. Paul uses the same contrast in 1 Corinthians 7, where he says he speaks “as a concession, not as a command.”
- Earnestness: Greek spoudē. Haste, diligence, eagerness. It describes a heart leaning into something and gladly spending effort on it. This is exactly what the Macedonians showed.
- Sincerity: Greek gnēsios. Its root meaning is “legitimate child,” the opposite of counterfeit. Paul uses this word when he calls Timothy “my true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2).
- Test: Greek dokimazō. The word for putting metal into fire to test its purity. To test something so that it is shown to be genuine.
- Grace: Greek charis. God’s undeserved favor, freely given. In chapter 8 Paul uses this one word both for what Christ has given us and for our giving to others.
- Became poor: Greek ptōcheuō. Not merely to be a little short, but to become destitute, as poor as a beggar. The tense points to a single decisive act, calling to mind the whole of Christ’s coming as one of us.
- Become rich: Greek plouteō. To be filled with abundance. In one sentence, Christ’s poverty and our riches change places.
- Judgment: Greek gnōmē. An opinion or considered view. It stands in contrast to a command. It is an invitation to think it through and decide together, not a demand.
- Best for you: Greek sympherō. Literally “to bring together,” and so to be useful or beneficial.
- Finish: Greek epiteleō. To bring to completion what has been begun. The same word appears in verse 6, where Titus is to “bring to completion” this act of grace.
- Eager willingness: Greek prothymia. A heart that leans forward, a readiness to act. It describes a heart that moves first, not one that has to be pushed.
Expressions Worth Noting
- “I am not commanding you” (8:8)
- Paul does not use his apostolic authority to force a gift. Generosity cannot be squeezed out by command.
- God delights in a willing heart more than in reluctant giving. A little later Paul says, “God loves a cheerful giver” (9:7).
- “To test the sincerity of your love” (8:8)
- Love can be confessed in words, but whether it is real shows up in what we do.
- Paul is not suspicious of the Corinthians. He is giving the love that is in them a chance to prove itself genuine.
- “Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor” (8:9)
- This is the heart of the passage. In one sentence Paul gathers up Christ laying aside the glory of heaven, becoming human, and giving himself all the way to the cross.
- “For your sake” is the reason for that poverty. His poverty was not an accident. It was a deliberate choice made toward us.
- “So that you through his poverty might become rich” (8:9)
- Christ’s poverty and our riches are exchanged. Because he came down, we are lifted up.
- When we give, we become a small echo of that great exchange. The riches we received become someone else’s riches.
- “Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so” (8:10)
- The Corinthians had been ahead of other churches not only in doing but in wanting.
- Paul does not scold them. He reminds them of their first desire. Remembering where we began can give us strength to begin again.
- “According to your means” (8:11)
- The measure of giving is not what others have done but what I actually have.
- God does not ask for what we do not have. He asks that, within what we have, we carry our willingness all the way through.
What the Passage Says
- An invitation, not an order (8:8). Paul does not command the Corinthians to give. Using the earnestness of others as a mirror, he invites them to let their own love show itself genuine.
- The root of all giving: the grace of Christ (8:9). Though Christ was rich, he became poor for our sake, so that through his poverty we might become rich. We are able to give because we first received this grace.
- Remember your first desire (8:10). A year earlier the Corinthians had wanted this and started it before anyone else. Paul reminds them of that first desire and counsels them that finishing it is for their own good.
- Willingness carried through, according to your means (8:11). What has been started should be finished. But the measure is not comparison with others. It is what each person has. Paul longs for a willing heart to be completed in action.
Standing Before This Word Today
Read this passage slowly, and it becomes clear that money was not really what Paul most wanted to talk about. The collection was the occasion. What he truly wanted to hold up was verse 9: “Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor.” In the middle of talking about giving, Paul walks straight into the heart of the gospel. Before he tells us what we should do, he shows us what Christ has done. Standing before this word today, let us follow that same order.
Start with the first words of verse 8: “I am not commanding you.” The longer we walk with God, the longer our list of things we ought to do can become. Worship, giving, serving, helping. Before we know it, these can start to feel like duties to be checked off. Duty is not a bad thing in itself. But when the duty remains and the heart drains out of it, our giving easily becomes heavy and dry. Paul knew this. So instead of issuing an order, he holds up a mirror: the earnestness of the Macedonians.
Yet that mirror is not meant for comparison. Once we start measuring ourselves against others, the heart tends to go one of two ways. When we see people doing less than we do, we feel reassured. When we see people doing more, we shrink back or feel resentful. Neither has much to do with honesty before God. The proof Paul is after is not showing that we are better than someone else. It is letting the love that is in us show itself to be real. The word he uses for “sincerity” originally meant a legitimate child. Not an imitation, but love that is genuine all the way through, love confirmed not only in words but in a life. The passage quietly asks us too: where is the love I profess for God and for my neighbor actually being confirmed?
Then we come to verse 9 and stop. Paul says, “For you know.” The Corinthians already knew this gospel, and so do we. The story that Jesus came for us and died for us can become so familiar that it no longer reaches the heart. We have heard it every Christmas and sung it in countless hymns, and it can fade into background music. Paul takes that familiar truth and sets it down again in the middle of everyday life. Knowing something and being moved by it are not the same thing.
Sit with those words: the one who “was rich” “became poor.” In this world people usually move in the opposite direction. The poor want to become rich, and the lowly want to rise. That is the natural current. But Christ went against it. He came down. He did not cling to the glory of heaven. He became human, became a servant, and went all the way down to the cross. What he laid aside was not some portion of his surplus. It was everything. And Paul gives the reason in three words: “for your sake.”
Here we begin to see giving in a new light. We tend to think of giving as taking a portion of what is mine and handing it to someone else. But the model Paul puts before us is Christ’s coming down. His poverty became our riches. Being God’s children, being forgiven, being free to come boldly before God: all of this we received because he became poor. If that is true, then what we give is not something originally ours that we graciously part with. It is riches we first received, now flowing on to others. People who know how much they have received find themselves calculating less when it is time to give.
That does not mean Paul is asking us to give away everything. The last words of verse 11 make that clear: “according to your means.” This phrase takes hold of us from two directions. The first is comfort. God does not ask for what we do not have. We do not need to condemn ourselves for not matching others, or for not giving beyond our ability as the Macedonians did. God receives according to what we have. The second is challenge. We cannot hide behind the claim that we have nothing. Everyone has something. Time, attention, prayer, a small amount of money: something has been placed in our hands. Paul says to give out of that.
Verses 10 and 11 together raise one more question: am I finishing what I started? A year earlier the Corinthians had wanted this more than anyone. Their hearts moved first, and they actually began. But somewhere along the way the work came to a stop. Many of us know this pattern. We heard a sermon or read a passage, our hearts burned within us, and we resolved to do something. To help someone. To start something. To live a certain way before God. Looking back at how many of those resolutions stopped at the resolution stage can weigh on us.
Paul does not scold the Corinthians for this. Instead, he reminds them of where they began. “Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so.” There is warmth in that. He is telling them that this desire really was theirs. Rather than blaming them for stopping, he reminds them that their first desire was not false. We need the same grace. If we only reproach ourselves where we stalled, we will never find the strength to start again. But when we remember that it was God who gave us that first desire, we find courage to pick it up again.
Wanting and doing becoming one: this is what Paul hopes for in verse 11. A desire without action eventually cools. An action without desire becomes a heavy burden. The grace of Christ binds the two together. Those who know deeply that he became poor for their sake find themselves wanting to respond, and then following that desire all the way through. This is giving that flows not from obligation but from gratitude.
Standing before this word today, we pray: Lord, let me see afresh the gospel that has grown dull from familiarity. Let the truth that you, who were rich, became poor for me move my heart again today. Keep me from comparing myself with others, and help me give with joy out of what I have. Remind me of the desire you first gave me, and help me finish the good work I left unfinished.
Living It Out
- Reread the gospel you “already know.” Slowly read Philippians 2:5-11 today. Trace each thing Christ laid aside, and let it sink in that it was “for your sake.”
- Write down the riches you have received. List specifically what you have received through Christ’s poverty, including what cannot be seen: forgiveness, adoption as God’s child, hope. Seeing it written down changes how we approach giving.
- Set aside the yardstick of comparison. This week, when you serve or give, ask only one question: “What can I do with what I have?” Whenever the urge to measure yourself against others rises, recall verse 11.
- Pick up one stalled resolution. Think of one good thing you once set out to do and then stopped. Remember when you first wanted it, and choose one small step toward finishing it this week.
- Make a list of what you have. Not just money but time, skills, attention and prayer. Choose one item and use it to meet someone’s need.
Questions to Sit With
- In what area of my faith do things feel like duties without a heart behind them?
- What part of “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor” strikes me freshly today?
- Do I think of giving as “handing over part of what is mine” or as “passing on what I have received”?
- Is there a good work I once wanted and began but have since let stall? What would it take to pick it up again?
- What do I actually “have,” and what could I do with it now?
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