Show Proof of Your Love

The People of God Set Priorities
Bearing One Another's Burdens
A Community Shares Its Resources

2 Corinthians 8:16-24  The Message

^10-20 So here’s what I think: The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart’s been in the right place all along. You’ve got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it. Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can’t. The heart regulates the hands. This isn’t so others can take it easy while you sweat it out. No, you’re shoulder to shoulder with them all the way, your surplus matching their deficit, their surplus matching your deficit. In the end you come out even. As it is written,

Nothing left over to the one with the most,
Nothing lacking to the one with the least.

I thank God for giving Titus the same devoted concern for you that I have. He was most considerate of how we felt, but his eagerness to go to you and help out with this relief offering is his own idea. We’re sending a companion along with him, someone very popular in the churches for his preaching of the Message. But there’s far more to him than popularity. He’s rock-solid trustworthy. The churches handpicked him to go with us as we travel about doing this work of sharing God’s gifts to honor God as well as we can, taking every precaution against scandal.

^20-22 We don’t want anyone suspecting us of taking one penny of this money for ourselves. We’re being as careful in our reputation with the public as in our reputation with God. That’s why we’re sending another trusted friend along. He’s proved his dependability many times over, and carries on as energetically as the day he started. He’s heard much about you, and liked what he’s heard—so much so that he can’t wait to get there.
^23-24 I don’t need to say anything further about Titus. We’ve been close associates in this work of serving you for a long time. The brothers who travel with him are delegates from churches, a real credit to Christ. Show them what you’re made of, the love I’ve been talking up in the churches. Let them see it for themselves!

 
For Reflection

Today we call it distributive justice or social justice.  Some label it socialism or even communism. What Paul refers to in this passage is neither.  To Paul, Christian stewardship means that we never ignore the plight of the poor.  In today's world, as in Paul's, the glaring gap between the wealthy and the impoverished defined justice.  Paul does not suggest a Robin Hood approach to economic and social impoverishment.  He does suggest that neglecting the needs of others is not good stewardship of your gifts, material or otherwise.  Poverty locks the impoverished into impoverishment just as wealth locks the wealthy into wealth, it just hurts more.

 

Pray

prayers of thanksgiving for those of all social and economic status who share their wealth.  Pray that you will be a good shepherd, and a wise steward of all of God's gifts.