Close Menu X
Navigate

Pastor Jay's Blog

Giving Beyond Your Ability

 

There is a question in my mind that haunts me, and I don’t like to be haunted. Have you ever been haunted by a thought? There, in the back of your brain it lingers, rising up at unexpected times to torment you with conceptual lashes. There is some overlap with the job of the conscience, but whereas the conscience doesn’t let up in its convictional demands for righteousness, some thoughts don’t rile the conscience so much as press a question that doesn’t have a solid answer. While some questions are mere curiosity, others are of the type that could change your life. It is those questions that can haunt a person. Is there more to life? Am I settling? What if I made this or that change?

The question that haunts me is this: “What does 2 Corinthians 8:3 mean?” Specifically, what does Paul mean when he said of these Macedonians that they gave “beyond their ability?”

Giving According to Your Ability

Randy Alcorn says it well that there are three types of giving; giving less than our ability, giving according to our ability, and giving more than our ability. Let me touch on the first two, so that the third type can have its biblical context. The giving standard of the church is not a tithe. The Old Testament tithe can teach the church much, but it was basically a tax within a theocratic nation. Instead, the New Testament giving standard is “according to our ability” and is expressed at least four different times. Below are the first three. The fourth I will deal with separately.

2 Corinthians 8:12 (NASB95) — 12 For if the readiness is present, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.

1 Corinthians 16:2 (NASB95) — 2 On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come.

Acts 11:29 (NASB95) — 29 And in the proportion that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea.

Far from the shameful “less than our ability”, the New Testament standard of “according to your ability” is taught and demonstrated. The question here is what does “according to one’s ability” mean? What it does not mean is 10%. Hordes of Americans have the ability to give 30%, 60%, 90% of their income for gospel ministry. They have the ability to pay their bills, have modest shelter and clothing and food, enjoy some fun activities, and still give far more than 10%. Some could live on $50,000 and give away $800,000. Yet, for others, their income is so meager that after meeting their basic needs 5% would be a real burden. The real question to ask here is how much do you dare keep for yourself. Also, make sure not to confuse needs with wants; especially wants you have to borrow to satisfy. Foolishly going into debt for the bigger house, bigger car, and the latest technology is not being a good steward. Most have the ability to trim the debt out (even if it costs them), live more simply, and give far more generously.

Some people have the ability to play incredible basketball, but because they have loaded themselves down with overeating, lead weights, and a fur parka it is no mystery why they no longer can play well. Get rid of all that stuff and play according to your ability. The same applies with your spending and giving.

Giving Beyond Your Ability

Now we come to the biggest question, the one that haunts me. What does “giving beyond your ability” mean? After getting grounded in the above three verses, we read the fourth verse where Paul mentions giving according to ability, but then adds that they went further, “beyond their ability.”

2 Corinthians 8:2–3 (NASB95) — 2 that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. 3 For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord,

What haunts me is the praise that this receives. This is clearly a work of grace in the Macedonians that creates godly giving. Am I doing this? I have to answer “no.” My giving has been more or less “according to my ability.” So what am I missing? What blessing could be mine if fear and selfishness were not undercutting me?
One reason this is such a question for me is that I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer as to what this kind of giving actually was. Even the most respected Bible teachers I know only seem to lightly touch it and move on. I’m sure someone out there has developed a specific answer and I look forward to reading it. Send it to me if you know of something.

So, in the paragraphs below, I am going to show you how I have wrestled with this verse and developed the start of a conclusion.

First, let me deal with an untenable solution. Since “ability” is parallel with “what a person has” and “as he may prosper”, I conclude “giving beyond your ability” has to mean sacrificing to such a degree that a person’s own real and true needs are not met because of overflowing generosity to others. What is untenable is for this to be the norm in the Christian’s life. I say it is untenable because there are so many passages about meeting your own needs.

1 Thessalonians 4:11–12 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, 12 so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.

2 Thessalonians 3:12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.

1 Timothy 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Ephesians 4:28 He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.

Acts 20:34 You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my own needs and to the men who were with me.

Clearly the biblical mandate is to work hard and meet your own needs. If you are normally giving beyond your ability, you are simply creating a new need (your own) that someone else has to meet. This simply doesn’t comport with the full teaching of Scripture.

My solution basically revolves around the idea of Spirit-led responses to exceptional situations. The Jews in Judea faced a severe famine and lack of resources. This was a unique need for a group of people who were the spiritual forerunners of those saved in Macedonia (Rom. 15:27). The need was such that some in the Macedonian churches were compelled to give so sacrificially that they themselves had to go without in unsustainable ways. Grace, mentioned 4 times in 2 Corinthians 8, produced this compelling love, happy sacrifice, and unflinching faith. For these people, like the praying saint George Muller of old, God would sustain them in surprising ways. He Himself would meet their generosity-caused need. He would bless this act in a special way, because it was a special sacrifice for a special need at a special time.

Lastly, I say “Spirit-led response” meaning that not everyone in the church did this. Only certain people took such a drastic step of loving sacrifice. I believe this is the case because in verse 3, before Paul says “beyond their ability,” he says “according to their ability.” That seems to say that many in the churches (who were in poverty, mind you) were simply operating by the standard Christian giving guideline of “according to their ability.” Others, however, were going beyond.

So that is my basic conclusion. This verse still haunts me, though. I am haunted by the blessing I may miss because of a biblically irrational self-driven fear. The question floats there in my mind, “When some special time comes and I am stirred by the Spirit to give in ways that actually break the budget, will I trust God, or retreat to my safe and familiar giving ability?” In that moment, my prayer is for the same grace that worked in the Macedonians to be at work in me as well, and for God to get all the praise.