Title of Abundance
bailout money
The recipients of today's text are the Corinthian church members. Paul had stopped at Corinth via Athens on his second missionary journey. Whereas in other places they usually stayed for a week or two or as long as two or three months, here in Corinth they stayed for a year and a half. Doesn't this mean that this area was very important in Paul's missionary work? It can be inferred from the fact that the proportion of 1 and 2 Corinthians among Paul's many epistles determined as the New Testament is high not only in quantity but also in quality. Athens was originally the main city of Greece, but it is said that Athens in 50 AD when Paul visited Greece was taken over by the Romans and had only 5,000 inhabitants. Corinth, on the other hand, was thriving because it was a stronghold for the Mediterranean Sea Route. Many priestesses were active in the temple of Corinth, and sports similar to the present Olympics were developed. Paul also preached the gospel while working directly in a factory that produced leather products here.
This is not easy. Although the economic situation of the Gentile church is better than that of the Jerusalem church, that does not mean that they are willing to help. In particular, Paul did not have a good relationship with the leaders of the Jerusalem church. If so, you could have pretended not to know and passed on. Paul seems to have been able to distinguish between personal feelings and the work of building unity in the church. This attitude will soon be a living faith.
heartfelt bailout
In today's text, Paul teaches very precisely the religious meaning of almsgiving. First of all, he said that our salvation should be ‘from the heart’. Let's read those words correctly. “Each one should pay according to their heart’s content, not with regret or reluctance. God loves those who give with a happy heart.” (Verse 7) Perhaps the Corinthian church at that time had a lot of talk about this issue. There must have been a lot of talk about why we have to pay for the people of Jerusalem with whom we don't have a very close relationship, why we can't send too much, why don't we need to know how much other churches pay in advance, etc. Humans are not much different now than they were two thousand years ago.
The unity of action and heart is not that simple. Not just bailouts, but in all of our lives, our actions often go unnoticed. In particular, it seems that this tendency is much stronger for those of us who live in the modern age, which is operated by the characteristic of anonymity. Even with my co-workers, I can't have so-called 'open-minded' relationships. Formally, they seem close, but in reality, there are not many cases where they communicate with each other. Isn't the fact that there are so many useless words that are not really necessary is the evidence that the heart and actions are not in harmony? Such a relationship can only be maintained when the interests of each other are aligned, and when they differ, they become jeopardized.
For the past few years, some parts of South Korea's politics and society have criticized the government's support for North Korea as 'spreading'. If you give them dollars, they turn into nuclear bombs, so why are you helping them? Moreover, these days, there are attempts to link the human rights issue in North Korea with this issue. I don't want to talk about these political dynamics at this time. If it's not from the heart, I can't help but think that there are a lot of words and that I have no choice but to catch a tantrum. The same applies to everyday life as well. There are many useless words when helping someone. If you have time to beg, you work. Why are you living like this? I'll help you this time, but think it'll work next time, and so on.
It's not unusual for people to be condescending by helping someone. Perhaps I have had such cases as well. This is because human beings are almost impossible to escape from egocentrism. A little conscientious person will find conflict here. The fact that we need to help each other live and the reality that our hearts do not respond well to such matters is the existence of which we are awake like a sandwich. I don't think these conflicts will ever be completely resolved. There will be some differences depending on your efforts, but you will remain in that state until you die.
So, does this mean that Christians should know such conflicts as their own destiny and live in an appropriate compromise? The Christian faith clearly sees through human limitations, but does not resign within them. We are people who accept our inevitable weaknesses, yet try to enter a whole new dimension of life. That new dimension of life is only given to you in your relationship with God. So Paul does not address the bailout issue in our ethics, but in our relationship with God.
God of abundance
As you may have noticed while reading today's text, the word meaning 'abundant' appears most often. God can give you 'sufficiency' of all the graces, that you can always have 'enough' of everything, that you 'can do' any good deed (8), that you bear fruit 'abundantly' (10). ), you will always be able to 'rich' and 'freely' help others(11), see God's 'abundant' grace for you, and thank God for his 'indescribable' gift ( 15).
The reason that Paul emphasizes the word abundance several times is because he is well aware of what the Corinthians are worried about in reality. If you take away your food, yours will be reduced by that much. But Paul asserts that we don't have to worry about that because God makes us rich. It would be similar to children whose parents give their children generous pockets of money, sharing their belongings with their friends and not worrying too much.
Of course, other ideas are possible here. No matter how much we share in faith, there's no way we can actually get rich. Indeed, yes. You have to eat and live to a certain extent in order to enjoy your own abundance while sharing and saving. People who are always desperate for survival are far from this abundance no matter how hard they try. No matter how hard they try, people from poor countries in Africa or North Korea cannot experience the affluence they do in developed countries. Economics seems like a field that has little to do with faith. That said, first of all, you are right.
Then, is Paul's claim not realistic, but just something like 'Confucius'? Are the Corinthians saying this plausible to mean that they should pay a little more money for relief? It's not like that. Paul is not just a religious idealist. He does not instigate the Corinthian Christians in order to increase his pastoral achievements. He is looking into the spiritual world. Seeing spiritually doesn't mean it's unrealistic, it means being conscious of the real power of life that goes beyond the technical dimension. Look at today's text a little more slowly.
thank God
Paul explains how God's abundant grace is concretely embodied. The almsgiving will not only alleviate the poverty of the Jerusalem Christians, but “will cause many to give infinite thanks to God” (12). Paul reiterates in verse 13 that they will “praise” God. What does it mean for them to thank God and praise God? Don't think of these words as mere religious rhetoric. God is the Creator. It also means that they were moved by the fact that they were able to survive without starvation and realized the preciousness of that life. Where is the greater gratitude than this, and where is the praise? What evangelism could be more precious than helping people who are in crisis of survival sing these songs?
There are a lot of people around us who curse our lives. Foreign workers, homosexuals, North Koreans, the disabled, children of divorced families, they may be marginalized from society in many ways. Together, we must find a way for them to sing their lives again. In such a fellowship of life, we will discover the abundance of God's grace.