Give Generously
SCRIPTURE: 2 Corinthians 9:1-5 
Read the passage
BIO: I’m Case. My beautiful wife, Jodi, and I have two precious little ones: Alexandra (5) and Charles (3). I’m from Atlanta and she is from Baton Rouge. We love a great party with friends and good food. She is an excellent cook, and I love to drum up a crowd…so we make a great team.
KEY VERSE: 2 Corinthians 9:3 I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove hollow, but that you may be ready, as I said you would be.
CENTRAL TRUTH: Give generously.
DEVOTIONAL: In typical Paul fashion, the apostle both flatters and threatens the Corinthians towards Godly behavior. Perhaps Paul’s own brand of Pharisaical Judaism and its strict observance of the rules (Acts 26:5) is coming out in this passage as he suggests, expects, almost demands generosity from the Corinthian Christians. Yet, a Christ-filled Paul knows that legalized giving is contrary to the very freedom Christ affords through His death and resurrection. It wouldn’t be generous. So, while not clamping down on hard and fast rules for giving that might very well snuff out the essential nature of a generous heart, it is as if Paul is winking at us while he heavily encourages and cajoles the Corinthians to give an offering. Paul adds the additional pressure of sending his own emissary, Titus, and other innocent Macedonians who have already proven their generosity. (The Macedonians are Christians from northern Greece who possibly resided in Philippi or Thessalonica).
In my own life, giving with generosity has certainly been a learned habit. As I have recently begun to do with my children, my parents encouraged me at an early age to give some of my allowance to God’s work through the church. However, as sad as it is, tithing was not a fundamental teaching given to me as a young man, even a young Christian feeling called to full time Christian ministry. It wasn’t until a peer in ministry at First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge influenced me to the point where my wife and I learned the true joy, and discipline, of tithing. To give generously on top of that with one’s offering is ironically also both a joy and discipline, two seemingly incompatible experiences that parallel Paul’s literary approach as he explicitly praises, but subtly pressures the Corinthians with their generosity.
QUESTION 1: In your life, are there some basic disciplines you need to practice, or be pressured, to enact to get your giving in line with God’s design and desire?
QUESTION 2: How have you experienced the joy that comes from investing in Gods’ kingdom or do you long to feel it once again? Wink, wink…
QUESTION 3: If there is a reason for not giving generously, what would it be?
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