'God is able to make all grace abound toward you;
that ye, always having all-sufficiency in all
things, may abound to every good work.'--2 COR.
ix. 8.
In addition to all his other qualities the Apostle was an extremely good
man of business; and he had a field for the exercise of that quality in
the collection for the poor saints of Judea, which takes up so much of
this letter, and occupied for so long a period so much of his thoughts
and efforts. It was for the sake of showing by actual demonstration that
would 'touch the hearts' of the Jewish brethren, the absolute unity of
the two halves of the Church, the Gentile and the Jewish, that the
Apostle took so much trouble in this matter. The words which I have read
for my text come in the midst of a very earnest appeal to the Corinthian
Christians for their pecuniary help. He is dwelling upon the same
thought which is expressed in the well-known words: 'What I gave I kept;
what I kept I lost.'
But whilst the words of my text primarily applied to money matters, you
see that they are studiously general, universal. The Apostle, after his
fashion, is lifting up a little 'secular' affair into a high spiritual
region; and he lays down in my text a broad general law, which goes to
the very depths of the Christian life.
Now, notice, we have here in three clauses three stages which we may
venture to distinguish as the fountain, the basin, the stream. 'God is
able to make all grace abound toward you';--there is the fountain. 'That
ye always, having all-sufficiency in all things';--there is the basin
that receives the gush from the fountain. 'May abound in every good
work';--there is the steam that comes from the basin. The fountain pours
into the basin, that the flow from the basin may feed the stream.
Now this thought of Paul's goes to the heart of things. So let us look
at it.