Having expressed renewed confidence in the Corinthian church, Paul now proceeds to a further appeal concerning “service to the Lord’s people” (8:4). The service the apostle has in mind involves the collection of an offering intended to supply the “needs of God’s people” and to be a manifest “expression of thanks to God” (9:12). There seems no doubt that this is the same gift for Jerusalem that was first mentioned in 1 Corinthians 16:3 (see also Rom. 15:26–27). Obviously, in the period between the writing of our two canonical letters, the subject had been put aside because of the strained rela-tionship between Paul and the church. But now it recurs, for the receipt of the collection is a project in which Paul is presently engaged among the “Macedonian churches” (8:1).

Indeed, it is the “rich…