Lectionary Commentaries for June 30, 2024
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Mark skimps on detail and storytelling flourishes—except when it doesn’t. This passage offers us one of the Second Gospel’s best-told stories, all while ramping up our estimation of how great Jesus’ power is. Thus far in Mark he has healed people with words or a touch, commanded unclean spirits, and controlled the weather. Now the energy that radiates from him heals a woman without him willing it, and he brings a young woman back from death. He extends the power of holiness to (re)generate life wherever he goes.

Comparing and contrasting the two women opens our imagination to the wide range of Jesus’ ministry. No one is invisible or too far gone. Although both women remain anonymous, they are quite different. One is out of money, bankrupted by her healthcare options; the other one has a father (Jairus) who possesses a measure of status because of his leadership role. One approaches Jesus surreptitiously, while Jairus prostrates himself before Jesus with a crowd’s full awareness. The woman with a hemorrhage has endured her ailment—and failed attempts to cure her—for 12 years, matching the age of Jairus’s daughter. For the former, 12 years marks a very long time to be ill. For the latter, her age probably puts her on the cusp of betrothal.

Mark provides no details about what sort of hemorrhaging is occurring. It does not have to be a menstrual disorder or the result of a pregnancy-related injury. That inference is nevertheless reasonable and ingrained in the passage’s interpretive history. If that is her condition, presumably it makes her infertile. Given ancient understandings of anatomy, menstruation, and ritual purity, Mark’s implicit point would therefore be that her womb is no longer a source or a site of life.¹ That could be an instigator of shame in her culture and a cause of particular grief for her and her family. A challenge for preachers is describing those ancient norms while acknowledging what’s similar and different today.

Touching Jesus’ cloak stops the hemorrhage. It cures her ailment. But a more holistic healing, or restoration, comes when Jesus hears her story and publicly commends her faith, even calling her “daughter.” She enters the scene alone, in secrecy. She departs it having been dignified and praised by Jesus, all while her neighbors witness.

Jairus’s daughter dies, perhaps because Jesus cannot reach her in time as a consequence of his decision to linger with and elevate the woman who touched his cloak. It must be agonizing for Jairus to have to watch and wait. Jesus nevertheless urges him to hold on. He coaxes him back from the cliff of fear and encourages him to “continue believing.”² When Jesus reaches the house, the healing transpires in a way that resembles the story of Elijah reviving the widow’s son (1 Kings 17:17–24). Jesus’ deed proceeds more simply, however; all he has to do is instruct the young woman to get up while taking her by the hand.

Interpreters sometimes claim that this passage portrays Jesus as unconcerned with or even dismissive of Jewish purity rituals. Those interpretations are incorrect and have no basis in Mark’s narrative. Neither does Jesus violate Torah, either consciously or unintentionally, when the woman suffering from a hemorrhage touches him or when he touches Jairus’s dead daughter. To make oneself ritually impure was not a sin or moral transgression. Most people in Jesus’ world were in a state of ritual impurity frequently. Cleansing rituals were performed easily and often.

Even more misguided are interpretations of this passage that take Jesus to be liberating people from oppressive rules or superstitions based on patently intolerant, misogynistic, or elitist assumptions concerning ritual purity. Those interpretations distort what we know about Jewish law and practice in the first century. Those anti-Jewish interpretations attempt to magnify Jesus by diminishing Judaism. They essentially remove Jesus from his Jewishness.

You can consult the work of Amy-Jill Levine³ and Matthew Thiessen⁴ to investigate matters of ritual purity in more detail. I recommend in particular Thiessen’s argument that the Gospels depict Jesus as more powerful than death and the death-related powers that create ritual impurity. The holiness within him is contagious and overwhelms any power considered contrary to divine holiness. Jesus, the Gospels proclaim, utterly reshapes the world as he and his fellow Jews understood it.

Preachers might focus on the characteristics of faith in this passage. Neither the woman of the first story nor the synagogue leader of the second one refer to Jesus as “Messiah,” “Son of David,” “Lord,” or anything like that. They don’t recite the Apostles’ Creed, explain the Trinity, or pledge money to Jesus’ movement. They simply come. If we want to know what they believe, we can say that they believe Jesus can help them. Or they hope he might. It’s about trust. Maybe mere desperation.

Let’s put to rest the idea that in Mark faith is some kind of a prerequisite to healing, if by “faith” we mean an adequate measure of a person’s earnestness or submissiveness. This requires us to pay careful attention to verse 34 (“Your faith has made you well”). There are other occasions in which Jesus heals and feeds people with no explicit mention of faith (examples in the vicinity of this passage include 5:1–20; 6:5, 13, 41–43, 56). Illness is not the punishment for insufficient faith. People who suffer do not need to be implicitly scolded for not believing enough in Jesus.

A preacher might ask a congregation to consider where and how they actively participate in the healing that Jesus extends to the world, in all the many dimensions of his healing. In Anna Carter Florence’s newest book, she ponders Mark’s comment about the woman living with a hemorrhage: “She had heard about Jesus” (verse 27). Florence contemplates what stories or acclamations the woman had heard from others and reminds us that we never know where the things we say about Jesus will end up.⁵ There are people who wonder whether they are beyond reach or doomed to suffer. How might your sermon—to say nothing of the witness of your congregation—plant a seed of hope in someone who finds their way to it, and then finds their way to Jesus, even without your knowledge?

Notes

1. Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism (Baker Academic, 2020), 69–79.
2. The present-tense imperative in verse 36 implies that Jairus already has faith. Jesus says, in effect, “Keep on believing,” not “Start believing.”
3. Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 173–77.
4. Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death.
5. Anna Carter Florence, A Is for Alabaster: 52 Reflections on the Stories of Scripture (Westminster John Knox, 2023), 141–43.

Aaaugh! 

Last week, I invited the preacher to consider counter-testimony and lament from the pulpit as the congregation gathered around Job’s drama. Now, we find ourselves again in lament, specifically the book of Lamentations. As The Inclusive Bible highlights, the title of this book in Hebrew is “‘êkah … an expletive, a cry of anguish … generally used as the first word of a Hebrew dirge.”¹ The title, translated into the English language, and its expression of grief and despair, could alternatively be set as “Aaaugh!”² So why do we hear such hopeful refrains in this lectionary selection?

The many expressions of trauma

Like Job, Lamentations is a book with a chorus of many voices and perspectives. Like Job, these voices are responding to trauma. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylonians in 587 BCE.³ What we read in this book is a poetic, polyphonic response to mass trauma. The city is struggling together to maintain faith in the whirlwind of suffering. According to Adele Berlin, some 35 voices are woven into this short book, ranging from children, parents, to political and religious leaders, prisoners, and widows.⁴ The disaster does not impact all of the community in the same way. Lamentations, as a whole, makes this claim.

If you read the full chapter, you notice that the previous 21 verses reflect the despair of the speaker. Why is the speaker despairing? Because this undeserved suffering came from Yahweh. The speaker is not simply accusing God of ignoring or not responding to their suffering. The speaker directly accuses God of causing the suffering.

“I am the target of God’s arrows,” bemoans the speaker (Lamentations 3:12, The Inclusive Bible).

Scholars do not believe this to be a complete switch-a-roo as our selection for this week (3:22–33) shifts from despair to a voice that sounds strangely familiar to the voices in Job. Nothing has suddenly changed the first speaker’s perspective. Their testimony in verses 1–21 begins and ends in despair. But now we hear another voice, grappling with suffering from another perspective.

God may punish now,
But will show compassion and the fullness of love. (3:32)

I wonder how the congregation might experience this framing of Lamentations, given that many Christians are quite familiar with the verses that begin the lectionary passage:

YHWH’s favor is not exhausted,
Nor has God’s compassion failed.
They rise up anew each morning,
So great is God’s faithfulness. (3:22–23)

We have another opportunity in Ordinary Time to reflect on where the good news can be found when suffering disrupts an ordinary life (see my contribution last week on Job 38). 

Preaching tradition or preaching experience?

According to some scholars, this voice we hear today is the voice of tradition.^[5] In many places in the Hebrew Bible, national trauma for Judah is the result of unfaithfulness. The trauma will not last forever, and God will not reject them forever (3:31).

This voice is not like the voice of desperation, despair, and suffering that precedes it. Tradition’s voice seeks to correct the voice of lamentation, pointing away from the individual’s torment to the hesed (steadfast love) of God. Tradition says to the one lamenting that they cannot see God’s greater plan and, so, must be patient. God is not a tormentor. God is just and compassionate.

Where will you dwell, preacher? In the voice of tradition (our lectionary selection) or the voice of the suffering (the voices around the voice of tradition articulating their experiences of trauma)? Or both (or all 30+)?

This week’s selection is a chance for the preacher to reflect on their embedded theology of suffering and perhaps to help the congregation do likewise. Do we believe God punishes? That God’s mercy never fails, even when violence, disease, and torment act as counter-testimony? How does the preacher—bearer of tradition—proclaim the good news in the midst of an ever-growing number of deconstructing and doubting Christians without suggesting that this text condones being slapped in the face and submitting themselves to ridicule and insult (3:28–30)?

Of course, we can preach in ways that place experience and tradition into constructive (or deconstructive) dialogue. Another approach to this text could be reflection on how individuals amid a mass trauma do not react uniformly. We can also hold space, perhaps by reading beyond the lectionary, for polyphonic response to dwell side by side without fixing or cleaning up the complexities and inconsistencies of theological articulation (God made this happen! God does not see the suffering we see! No, God doesn’t do such a thing to the people God loves! God might punish now, but not forever!).

This text can be a jumping-off point (especially linked with the Job selection from last week) into a Christian framework for suffering without neat and tidy answers.

One thing I would encourage you to not do is to connect this text to the gospel reading. This is because such a side-by-side reading could imply that while the God of the Hebrew Bible punishes or ignores people who suffer, Jesus sees and responds (Mark 5:21–43). There is plenty of material for the sermon in Lamentations alone that can connect with enduring theological questions and concerns within the congregation and ourselves.

Notes

1. Priests for Equality, “Lamentations,” in The Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 472.
2. Ibid.
3. Balu Savarikannu, “A Polyphonic Reading of Lamentations 3,” in Journal of Asian Evangelical Theology 20 (2016), no. 2: 25–43, accessed April 11, 2024. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=lsdar&
   AN=ATLAiGU0170925002501&site=eds-live.
4. Adele Berlin, Lamentations: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 13-15.
5. Ibid.

Perhaps, Jesus’ command to “love your enemies” was not as radical as you think.

Who are your enemies? Life tends to place enemies in our paths through all our domains of life. They may be at the office, in the neighborhood, at home, even in the same bedroom. In our past, they were our roommates, teammates, classmates, bosses, colleagues, and even clergy. We are all human. The presence of enemies is universal across time and space.

In the book of Samuel, political and military enemies square off between Saul and David. Their relationship was … complex. Saul was Israel’s first king, initially a reluctant one. Yet he was a physical presence and proven military leader. But he was eventually rejected by Samuel in favor of David. The ongoing rise of David seemed to have sparked insecurities in Saul. As David’s military successes grew, so did Saul’s paranoia. Saul eventually made multiple attempts to murder David, driving him to flee for his life and even collude with the Philistines.

Second Samuel opens with the phrase “After the death of Saul” (1:1). Thus, 2 Samuel begins the same way as Joshua, as the death of a leader signals a new phase in Israel’s history. But the Bible does not turn to a royal enthronement psalm nor a fancy coronation ceremony as one would expect in the ancient Near East. Instead, David begins this era by performing a lament. Rather than rejoice at the death of his enemy, he mourns. Second Samuel 1:17 deploys a word play that emphasizes the lament in that “David lamented this lament” over Saul and his son Jonathan (Hebrew wayǝqinen david ’t haqînâh ha’zōt).

The actual lament is completely embedded within the narrative of 2 Samuel 1. The gloss in verse 18 shows that this was not an impromptu creation of David. Rather this is a composition deliberately placed in a written collection called the Book of Jashar, or the “Book of the Upright.” The term “upright” projects a hint of a wisdom composition. Perhaps this is a subtle note that the genuine lament over one’s enemies is a sign of wisdom.

The actual lament appears at 2 Samuel 1:19–27. The structure oscillates between different forms and themes. Here is one potential outline:

Proclaiming the Glory of Israel; “How the mighty have fallen” (19–21)
Commemorating the greatness of Saul and Jonathan (22–23)

Daughters weep for Saul (24)
“How the mighty have fallen” (25a)
First-person lament for Jonathan (25b–26)

“How the mighty have fallen” (27)

The lament begins with the proclamation “Your glory, O Israel, lies slain upon your high places!” (verse 19). The reference to high places associates the people’s sin with the end of Saul’s kingship. Such a downfall is good news to Israel’s enemies, thus the lament hopes that the major states of Philistia (Gath, Ashkelon) will not know of the news. 

Not only are there political implications, but the defeat of Saul results in an economic curse of drought. Gilboa is the place of Saul’s suicidal end, on the eastern side of the Jezreel Valley, meaning “God seeded.” (Do a Google Image search for the lush Jezreel Valley and reflect on the curse of “no dew or rain.”) This is a failure of obedience with harsh repercussions.

The lament then moves to attributions toward Saul and Jonathan. The lament uses military imagery of “bow” and “sword” (22) and “eagles” and “lions” (23b), alongside descriptors of “beloved” and “lovely” (23a). Although the prior narratives of 1 Samuel show disagreement between the king and his son, primarily in regard to David, this posthumous lament declares them as free from father-son succession challenges.

The lament then moves specifically to Saul, calling the daughters to weep over him. This balances his portrayal as warrior in the earlier verses. David mourning Saul may be surprising as so much of the later part of 1 Samuel narrates the bitter antagonism that Saul had against David. But at the same time, the death of the first king and his prince is a significant tragedy. As the next king, David would have to conduct some public display of lament. But is it authentic? The text suggests that it is indeed a general display of mourning for the loss of Israel’s first king.

But there is no ambiguity regarding the mourning for Jonathan. Suddenly, the lament turns to first-person in verse 26. The mood shifts from nationalistic mourning to a deeply personal sense of loss. David is distressed and deploys the kinship language of “my brother.” In this state, the lament makes the extreme claim, “Your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” This line does not describe the nature of their relationship, though it does note Jonathan’s physical beauty and the devotion between the two. The plain reading is that the line expresses the heightened grief that David experiences at this loss.

The lament closes by again repeating the phrase “How the mighty have fallen,” verbatim in verses 19, 25, 27. The repetition of this phrase likely indicates a liturgical role in the proclamation of the lament. Perhaps the recurring phrase stresses the ambiguity of this psalm. How does one mourn the tragic end of a life that was so antagonistic? Did David sing this with joy that God’s sovereignty prevailed? The human condition and complexities of life lead us to think that both of these possibilities are true. 

As we move through stages of life, perhaps it models a similar movement for us as we face moral ambiguity in our own narrative arcs. Loss is unavoidable. Death is constant. Our relationships, even with our loved ones, are complex. We can do well to express that despair in lament. This is a fitting context for the people to proclaim the sovereignty of God. Even the mightiest fall.

Psalm 30 presents the dramatic ups-and-downs of a life lived in relationship with God.¹

A study in contrasts

This short prayer of thanksgiving contains a surprisingly large number of antitheses: night and day (verse 5), down and up (verses 1, 3, 9), weeping and joy (verses 5, 11), anger and favor (verse 5), absence and presence (verse 7), mourning and dancing (verse 11), sackcloth and party clothes (verse 11). These contrasts reflect the dynamics of a relationship, in this case, the relationship between an individual and a powerful, loving God.

One of the key contrasts in the psalm is that of up and down, high and low. This “vertical axis” is evident from the very first lines, in which the poet suggests that Yahweh has pulled him up (verses 1–3). But in what way had the psalmist been down?

Multiple problems have brought the psalmist low. One problem is that the psalmist has enemies (verse 1). While we don’t know how the foes contributed to his suffering, we do know that because of Yahweh’s activity, these enemies no longer have a chance to celebrate his downfall.

The psalmist may also have been brought low by some sort of illness. Verse 2 suggests as much in its statement “You have healed me.” The Hebrew word for healing (the verb rapha’) can indicate a specific act of physical healing or, more generally, a revival or uplifting.

So we don’t ultimately know if the psalmist’s suffering was somatic or social, or some mixture of the two. All we know is that the psalmist was down and out. In fact, the psalmist was way, way down—in Sheol, the Pit (verses 3, 9)—that is to say, the realm of the dead.

In Hebrew thinking, Sheol was a quiet, dark, subterranean world inhabited by the deceased. We should be careful not to conflate this place with many modern notions of hell, replete with fire, demons, and the devil with a pitchfork. That view of hell is a relatively new theological idea.

Instead, the psalmist describes himself as in a place profoundly below the thriving, pulsing world of the living. In Sheol, the psalmist would be separated from God. Moreover, the psalmist would be unable to praise God (verse 9) because of the silence that characterizes the underworld.

While some interpreters have understood this text as describing a resurrection from the dead, in its original context such an association is probably not active. Rather, the psalmist presents his suffering as so bad that it has pushed him to the extreme limit of human existence, a position virtually indistinguishable from death.

It’s helpful to remember that ancient understandings of mortality were such that the time of death was seen as a fluid process. Death occurred on a continuum, rather than happening at a fixed point in time. Becoming dead was often considered a slow and ambiguous progression without clear boundaries. And into this shadowy, deathlike existence God has intervened to bring about restoration.

The psalmist’s complete turnabout from death to life prompts him to praise God (verses 1–3, 6–12) and to call the community to praise God (verses 4–5). In this testimony of God’s salvation, remarkably, the psalmist credits God as the ultimate source of both weal and woe.

God’s role in suffering and salvation

The psalmist draws a clear connection between Yahweh’s anger and his own suffering (verse 4), suggesting that Yahweh’s emotional state has had a palpable effect on his well-being. Likewise, the psalmist describes his suffering in terms of the absence of God, the times when God hid God’s face (verse 7).

As such, this psalm engages, albeit briefly, in a complex intrabiblical conversation about the nature of suffering and God’s role in it. To be sure, the Bible does not speak with one voice on this issue. At various points, the biblical texts suggest that suffering arises because of human activity, divine activity, or divine inactivity. Taken as a whole, the witness of Scripture cautions against any totalizing theory of the ultimate cause of suffering.

Whatever one’s doctrinal positions about God’s role in suffering, most of us can recall the experience of suffering so severe that God seems absent from us (verse 7) or angry with us (verse 8). The psalm thus has the power to resonate deeply with many. It can bear witness to the validity of many people’s experiences of severe suffering and lowliness.

It is not clear whether the psalmist thinks that Yahweh’s anger and absence are justified or not, whether he is being punished or simply the victim of divine caprice. We simply hear that, in some way, Yahweh is the cause of his suffering.

Yet it would be missing the point of the psalm to hear this statement as the most important message of the psalm. In fact, the psalm’s major accent is on God’s acts of salvation rather than God causing pain. God’s anger is momentary, while God’s favor lasts a lifetime (verse 5). God’s absence is a deeply painful experience, but God’s presence means joy (verse 5).

Each of the contrasts in the psalm (verses 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11) resolves in a positive direction thanks to the powerful intervention of God. The psalm’s overwhelming theological witness is that God sets wrong situations aright. And that salvation has a powerful effect on the psalmist and the community.

Thanks to God’s work, the psalmist is compelled to praise God. He cannot remain silent (verse 12). At the brink of the silence of death, he found a voice to cry out to God (verses 2, 8). He has not stopped crying out since. Now, instead of pained cries in the context of prayer, he cries out songs of praise and calls the community to do the same (verses 4–5).

God has the power to reach down into the lives of the most lowly and despised people. God can pull us up.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website June 28, 2015.

How is the proclamation of the gospel related to the needs of the poor among us?¹

There is no question that an important aspect of Paul’s apostolic ministry was raising funds for the poor in Jerusalem. Not only would the collection address some very real economic needs—Jewish congregations tended to be poorer than their gentile counterparts—but it would also reinforce unity and reconciliation between Jewish and gentile Christians.² Paul’s apostolic approach to raising funds for the poor has profound implications for how we too might relate the confession of the gospel of Christ to sharing our wealth with the poor.

1. Grace and testing

Paul’s use of the Greek word charis—usually translated as “grace”—provides us with a clue for how to relate confessing the gospel to sharing wealth with the poor. The word occurs quite frequently in 2 Corinthians 8–9 and is used to refer not only to God’s grace and Christ’s grace but also to the generosity that overflows in us as a result of divine grace.

The word charis, however, is only translated as “grace” in 2 Corinthians 8:1 and 9:14. Elsewhere it is translated as “privilege” (2 Corinthians 8:4), “generous undertaking” (8:6–7, 19), “generous act” (8:9), “blessing” (9:8), and “thanks” (8:16; 9:15). But what if we translated all these instances of charis with the English word “grace,” allowing Paul’s own use of this word in these chapters to determine what the word means?

Paul begins his discussion of the collection by referring to the grace of God granted to the Macedonian churches who, in spite of their affliction and poverty, “overflowed” (eperisseusen) with a wealth of generosity for others (2 Corinthians 8:1). The Macedonians had begged Paul and his coworkers for the grace of sharing in this ministry of the saints (2 Corinthians 8:4) and affirmed as well that Paul should send Titus to complete the grace of collecting the funds he had already begun to collect from the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 8:6).

Paul now urges the Corinthians as well to follow the Macedonians’ example and “overflow” in this grace as well. They already “overflow” with everything else—faith, speech, knowledge, every eagerness, and the love fellow Christians have for them—so why not also overflow in this grace (2 Corinthians 8:7)?

Paul makes clear that this is not a command but a “test” of the genuineness of their love against the eagerness of others. Throughout 2 Corinthians, Paul uses the word for “test”—as a verb (dokimazo) and a noun (dokime)—to refer to the way our true character—who we really are—is discerned, examined, or proven when we are faced with difficulties or challenges.³

2. Christ as example

The main warrant for Paul’s appeal is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though rich, Christ became poor for our sakes so that by his poverty we might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Earlier in the letter Paul has depicted how Christ, in spite of being sinless, was made to be sin so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13, 14). And in Philippians, he describes how Christ, though sharing equality with God, emptied himself—even to the point of death on a cross—so he might be exalted and we too might share in his life with one another (Philippians 2:1–11).

3. Desiring and completing

So how might God’s and Christ’s grace, which is already overflowing in the Macedonians, also overflow in the Corinthians? Continuing with his point that this is not a command but merely an “opinion,” Paul says that it would be appropriate for them at this time not only to desire to do so, but also to complete the collection they have already started. Their gift’s acceptability is based on two things: their eagerness to give and that they give only what is within their means to give—what they have, not what they do not have (2 Corinthians 8:10–11).

4. Equality in abundance and need

How does this overflowing grace and generosity get lived out in our lives? Paul makes clear that this is not about relieving some and afflicting others; it is not about letting some off the hook and making others feel guilty. Rather, it is about the equality or fairness (isotes)—the true reciprocity—that God’s reconciliation of the entire world makes possible. One’s overflow or abundance is to meet another’s need, and vice versa, so that both might be there for one another in all instances of abundance and of need—spiritual or monetary. Just as the Israelites shared equitably the bread that rained down from heaven, so we too are called to share our wealth so that some do not have too much and others do not have too little (2 Corinthians 8:15; Exodus 16:18).

God’s reconciliation of the entire world through Christ overflows into our lives—through the exchange of Christ’s wealth for our poverty—so that we too might overflow in the profound “sharing” (koinonia) of all things with one another. This overflow or excess of grace through Christ is an overflow and excess that spills out into all aspects of our lives. Abundantly supplying all our needs, God’s grace gives us power not only to forgive and be reconciled with one another, but also to share our wealth with one another.

Paul’s insights into the overflowing import of God’s reconciliation of the entire world through Christ continue to have profound relevance for our day when grave inequalities between rich and poor only continue to deepen in our country and throughout the world. Like the Corinthians, we too undergo the “testing” of our ministry—and reveal who and whose we really are—in all that we are and do. We too glorify God by confessing the gospel of Christ even as we also generously engage in sharing (koinonia) who we are and all that we have with one another, especially in times of need (2 Corinthians 9:13).

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website June 28, 2015.
2. In addition to 2 Corinthians 8–9, see Romans 15:25–32; 1 Corinthians 16:1–4; Galatians 2:10; also Acts 24:17.
3. For uses of “test” in 2 Corinthians, see 2:9; 8:2, 8, 22; 9:13; 13:3, 5.