2 Corinthians 9:1-5 Have Your Gifts Ready
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: May 7, 2020 2 Corinthians 9:1-5
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
Now it is superfluous for me to write to you about the ministry for the saints, for I know your readiness, of which I boast about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaia has been ready since last year. And your zeal has stirred up most of them. But I am sending the brothers so that our boasting about you may not prove empty in this matter, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be. Otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated—to say nothing of you—for being so confident. So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for the gift you have promised, so that it may be ready as a willing gift, not as an exaction.
(Understanding the Text) Paul seems to use competition to spur on his different churches. He brags about the Macedonians’ generosity to the Corinthians, and he brags about how the Corinthians were ready to donate a year earlier to the Macedonians. He tells the Corinthians to be ready so that they won’t be humiliated in front of the Macedonians. I’m not sure if this is good, but it was Paul’s way. Maybe, it was the way of the cultures that he was working with, and he was using that cultural characteristic to work with the people where they were.
Paul wants to make sure that he is not in the position of standing over the Corinthians demanding money and waiting as they pulled it out of its hiding places. Paul delegates authority and organizes. He plans ahead trying to have the best outcome for everyone. This project is very important to Paul. He wants to help the Christians of Palestine because they need it, but I have watched sermons that suggest that Paul also hoped that this help would heal the breach that he saw growing between the Jerusalem church/Jewish Christians and the Gentile church. If so, he was to be disappointed. The only thing that would have healed the breach would have been if the Jewish Christians would have taken the lead as fellow learners and loving guides who saw Gentile Christians as their equals and brothers in Christ. Instead, they persisted in attempting to maintain their old culture and insular ways leaving the Gentiles to the Gentiles and the Jews to the Jews. The Gentiles needed the wealth of knowledge that the Jews had inherited and had had ingrained in their psyches before they could walk. The Jews needed the Gentiles to expand their thinking so that they could be shaken free from the restrictive traditions that kept them boxed in to their own little insular world. The two groups needed each other, and if they would have mixed, there would have been more protection against the errors that were to creep into the church, but both sides failed. For the most part, the Jews remained with the Jews, and when the Jewish Christians needed help later after 70 A.D. the Gentile Christians didn’t step up to the plate and help them. This is all speculation on my part. I do not know enough history to say that it is so.
(Revelation of God) God wanted His church to be united. Jesus prayed that His followers would be one as He and His Father were one. We fail too often. Someday, we will get it right, but only through the power of the Holy Spirit and out of love for Jesus.
(Application / Prayer) It is interesting that one thing that Paul never berates the Corinthians for is their generosity with money. They have problems with worldly ways and tolerating sin and factionalism, but they are generous with their money. My application for myself is that each of us has weak areas and strong areas in our Christian walk and I cannot judge one person for being weak when I have my own weaknesses. Instead, I need to lovingly reject the weakness while just as lovingly accepting the strengths. I need to pray for the strengthening of their weaknesses and mine. Teach me to value others and to support them. Teach me to accept their support and to look to my fellow Christians to fill in where I am weak.