2 Corinthians 9 Bible study: A matter of generosity

The chapter opens, "It is indeed unnecessary for me to write to you concerning the service to the saints," (9:1) (tap service) "for I know your readiness, of which I boast on your behalf to those of Macedonia, that Achaia has been prepared for the past year. Your zeal has stirred up very many of them." (9:2) (tap readiness, prepared, zeal). Then it says why the brothers are sent: "But I have sent the brothers so that our boasting on your behalf may not be in vain in this respect, that, just as I said, you may be prepared," (9:3) "lest by any means, if anyone from Macedonia comes there with me and finds you unprepared, we (to say nothing of you) would be disappointed in this confident boasting." (9:4). "I thought it necessary therefore to entreat the brothers that they would go before to you and arrange ahead of time the generous gift that you promised before, that the same might be ready as a matter of generosity, and not of greediness." (9:5) (tap generosity). Achaia is named in the letter's opening too, which is addressed "to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia" (1:1). The letter opens with two senders, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother" (1:1); this chapter speaks as I and we and names no one as its I, and these notes don't either. The chapter doesn't name the brothers it sends, and doesn't say whether the plans of 9:3-5 came about. These notes don't either, and say no more of the gift than these verses do.

εὐλογίαeulogiasay yoo-log-EE-ah

Strong's: "by extension, benefit or largess". "arrange ahead of time the generous gift that you promised before, that the same might be ready as a matter of generosity" (9:5): behind both generous gift and generosity is this one noun. The next verse has it twice more, behind bountifully: "He who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." (9:6). The New Testament has it 16 times (counted in RP2018), and 2 Corinthians only these four, in 9:5-6. In most of its other uses the WEB gives it as blessing, as in "Out of the same mouth comes blessing and cursing." (James 3:10). 9:6 doesn't say what is reaped, and these notes draw nothing about it from this word.