Text for the Week: Seasoned with Thanksgiving

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15

 ⁶What I mean is this: the one who sows a small number of seeds will also reap a small crop, and the one who sows a generous amount of seeds will also reap a generous crop.

⁷ Everyone should give whatever they have decided in their heart. They shouldn’t give with hesitation or because of pressure. God loves a cheerful giver. ⁸ God has the power to provide you with more than enough of every kind of grace. That way, you will have everything you need always and in everything to provide more than enough for every kind of good work. ⁹ As it is written, He scattered everywhere; he gave to the needy; his righteousness remains forever.

¹⁰ The one who supplies seed for planting and bread for eating will supply and multiply your seed and will increase your crop, which is righteousness. ¹¹ You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous in every way. Such generosity produces thanksgiving to God through us. ¹² Your ministry of this service to God’s people isn’t only fully meeting their needs but it is also multiplying in many expressions of thanksgiving to God. ¹³ They will give honor to God for your obedience to your confession of Christ’s gospel. They will do this because this service provides evidence of your obedience, and because of your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone. ¹⁴ They will also pray for you, and they will care deeply for you because of the outstanding grace that God has given to you. ¹⁵ Thank God for his gift that words can’t describe!

Questions

1. What is the harvest that Paul anticipates reaping and how does it relate to the generosity he is expecting from the Corinthians?
2. How do we train our hearts to expect the abundance mentioned in verse 6?
3. How do we train our hearts to be generous without falling into the prosperity gospel trap that we give only to receive more from God?
4. How does generosity produce thankfulness as in verse 11?

Background

Related Scriptures: Deuteronomy 8:7-18, Psalm 112, Colossians 4:2, Hebrews 13:16, 1 John 3

Verse 6 is not simply about the reality of agriculture that planting little seed produces a small harvest it is also about the expectations of the one sowing, “someone who sows sparingly expects to reap a small harvest and the one who sows abundantly expects a bountiful harvest.”

Even though Paul talks about the quantity of the sowing it is not as important as the heart that motivates a person’s giving since God is the one giving the harvest.

Grace in verse 8 is perhaps better translated gift or blessing and refers to God’s ability to give people material gifts as well as spiritual.

In this passage giving stems from a recognition of God’s blessings in a person’s life and leads to greater blessings being given by God. God is both the source of our desire to give and the one who blesses us through the giving.

God’s gifts are meant to give us the opportunity to lift up one another through sharing resources and meeting the needs of others.

Reflection

I forget where I first heard it, but I love the quip, “Only in America can we set aside a day for being grateful for what we have and follow it by trampling people in an effort to get more.” We are all disturbed by stores advertising sales beginning on Thanksgiving and the stereotypical Black Friday riots, but have you stopped to consider what it is that you find disturbing? Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 9 convince us that the issue is a lack of generosity. We think of generosity as the ability to give away money or possessions but that is not the trait that Paul describes here. Paul describes a generous person as someone who understands completely that everything they have comes from God and is meant to ensure that that they have enough. When their needs are met the blessings that we still have are meant to help individuals who may not have enough. This allows us to be the hands and feet of Jesus and to participate in his joy that comes from sharing with others. The joy that we experience in our generosity will naturally, Paul implies, lead to thanksgiving.

The holiday that Americans celebrate next week is inherently a time when we take stock of how much we have, measure the surplus, and use it to provide a feast for friends and family. While it is easy to complain about the work of getting ready, or the commercialization around the holiday, or even difficulties with family, our goal is to be thankful. If the goal is to be thankful, begin by considering has God given you enough? Sit down and consider how God has met and is meeting the basic needs of your life. Once you have taken measure of how your needs are met, consider how much you have above your needs, perhaps there is not much, perhaps there is nothing at all but for most of us there will be something. For me when I take stock like this, I look at my material resources and other blessings like my loving family. After taking stock of our blessings, we should consider where we can display generosity. For the Corinthians it was sending money to Jerusalem, for us it will likely be something different. Whether we are blessed with money, love, or just time we each likely have something which we can use to develop a generous spirit.

Paul encourages the Corinthians to consider deeply what it is they can give, and we should do the same, and then give according to our hearts. The idea of giving according to what we have decided in our hearts is a recognition that at our core we should be moved by the needs of others, this is empathy, and then we should consider what it will cost us to be generous. We all understand this point, we hurt for people and causes and then our logical side tells us that we cannot afford to give enough to solve the problem. It is easy at this point to allow our logical side to completely overshadow our empathic hearts and restrict our giving with the simple phrase, “you can’t afford it.” Paul though wants us to look beyond that to recognize that God is generous and provides and because of this we should trust God to take care of us and provide for us. This means giving from our surplus trusting that with God we will still have enough. This is also where the metaphor of sowing seed comes in, our generosity is us trusting that God will use what we have given to produce a rich and bountiful harvest. Paul wants the Corinthians to see that their giving in a real way corresponds to their faith that God will provide a bountiful harvest in their lives and in the lives of others. Their generosity is casting out the seed trusting that God will provide a plentiful harvest. And in all this their faith in God grows, their character becomes more Godlike and they as they see the benefits in their lives they are able to offer even greater thanksgiving to God for the blessings they have experienced and the cycle begins again.

Takeaway

Generosity comes from a deep knowledge that God wants to, and will provide for me and so I should give richly too, this deep commitment to bless others leads us into praise and thanksgiving as we connect more deeply to God’s Spirit.