Pastor David Jang
The desire to help someone and the worry about this month’s bills meet over a single bank balance. When we prepare an offering, we consider how much to give and ask what our giving means. Pastor David Jang’s sermon on 2 Corinthians describes the collection as an act of sharing that meets the needs of a struggling church and expresses the bond of a common faith. How can people who have needs of their own give joyfully and grow together in maturity? Paul begins to answer that question with the grace they have received from God.
The Meaning of the Collection: Giving to Meet One Another’s Needs
The collection discussed in 2 Corinthians refers to the offering gathered by several churches to help the church in Jerusalem during a time of financial hardship. Paul urged the churches of Macedonia and Achaia to take part. The support sent by believers in different regions expressed their willingness to share responsibility for the difficulties of a distant church. Any understanding of the collection must begin with the people who needed help and the circumstances of their daily lives.
If we lose sight of this, giving can easily come to revolve around the giver’s resolve and sense of satisfaction. Paying attention to what others need and which burdens we can ease gives our sharing a clear direction. In everyday terms, love becomes a tangible source of support when it helps put food on the table and provides what people need to keep going. Giving carries the grace we have received into acts of love that meet the needs of others.
The Corinthian church that received Paul’s appeal also faced conflict and division. Through 2 Corinthians, he sought to restore trust between himself and the believers and to help the community grow in unity. The fact that the same letter includes an appeal for the Jerusalem church suggests that the collection can be understood as a practical expression of how churches welcome and care for one another. Caring for one’s own community and attending to the hardships of another are joined together within the same faith.
In this sermon, giving is connected with spiritual maturity because it brings belief into the decisions of daily life. As believers discover who needs help, consider what that help should look like, and contribute their own share, they learn to practice love in concrete ways. Those who confess God’s grace learn to live in a manner consistent with that confession.
How Did the Macedonian Churches Give Despite Their Own Need?
In the teaching on the collection in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, Paul holds up the participation of the Macedonian churches as an example. They gave joyfully despite their financial hardship. What stands out is that people who needed to attend to their own circumstances also made room for the needs of another church. Their giving reveals how the lives of those who have received grace can open toward their neighbors.
This sermon understands the collection as a way of putting the grace received from God into practice. To remember grace is to reflect on how our lives are held within God’s love and care. When we see what we have as something received from God, faith begins to shape our decisions about how to use it. As we respond to the difficulties of fellow believers who have received that same love, our confession of faith becomes a matter of everyday choices. The joy of the Macedonian churches can thus be understood as the joy of participating: sharing someone else’s burden and helping to strengthen that person’s faith.
Their example also brings our own practical hesitations into view. For those who must pay their bills and care for their families, sharing money is no small decision. Yet an honest assessment of our circumstances can go hand in hand with asking what we are able to do for someone else right now. The Macedonian churches invite us to reconsider the assumption that we can begin giving only after all our circumstances have improved.
What deserves our attention here is the movement of faith within us, rather than the amount another church has given. When we learn of someone’s need, we begin to take that person’s circumstances into account in our own decisions and look for a share of the burden we can carry. Those accustomed to considering their own needs learn to value the needs of others as well. Through this learning, giving becomes a practice that nurtures the faith and love of those who participate.
Shared Responsibility That Unites Jerusalem and the Gentile Churches
Pastor David Jang explains Paul’s ministry of collecting aid as a practice that broke down barriers between the church in Jerusalem and the Gentile churches. By sharing their material resources, churches from different backgrounds showed that they belonged to the same community of faith. When one church responds to the hardship of another, the confession that they share one faith carries a concrete responsibility. The collection turns that responsibility into visible action.
The significance of this solidarity becomes clearer when we consider it from the perspective of the community receiving help. Alongside support that eases the pressures of daily life comes the encouragement of knowing that other believers remember their struggles. Even in a time of need, they are embraced as people who continue to share life within the same faith. That conviction is also expressed in asking what they actually need and respecting their account of their circumstances. Material support and spiritual comfort can meet in this way within a person’s life.
The churches that give also learn through this relationship. By listening to news from another community and arranging the help it needs, they come to recognize their connection to a wider community of faith. A perspective once centered on familiar faces and the affairs of one’s own church turns toward believers living in different circumstances. The collection becomes an experience through which churches share the grace they have received and grow together.
When we consider this teaching in relation to our communities today, it also invites us to reflect on the matters we discuss together. As we assess our church’s needs and plans, do we also take a serious interest in the circumstances of other communities facing hardship? Church unity takes concrete form as we identify who needs help and decide together what share we can bear. Reflecting on the unity Paul hoped for leads us to examine where our attention and our giving are actually directed.
Knowing Our Weakness, Giving Our Time and Effort
This attitude toward giving also connects with the way Paul explains his apostleship. Faced with criticism that judged his ministry by outward standards, he points to God’s calling and grace as the foundation of his apostleship. Second Corinthians 12:9 speaks of the Lord’s power being made perfect in weakness. Even in his own frailty, Paul depended on God and carried out a ministry in which the power of Christ was revealed.
The fact that those who give also live by grace brings humility to sharing. Even when we are in a position to help, we remember our own weakness and our need to depend on God. When we have the means to help, this awareness allows us to see the other person as a fellow believer persevering in faith alongside us. This sermon brings together two aspects of Paul’s ministry: the importance he placed on the integrity of the gospel ministry entrusted to him by God, and his willingness to give of himself in helping other churches. Church leaders, too, are called to understand their mission through their relationship with Christ and to value the work of serving believers in need.
The sermon also emphasizes that Paul devoted himself to helping the church even though he knew the dangers awaiting him on the journey to Jerusalem. The task of delivering the collection involved his own time and effort. As someone who urged others to give, Paul gave of himself to put that love into practice. When we rearrange our schedules and take on necessary tasks to help someone, our choices express a willingness to share responsibility. Following Christ’s sacrificial love takes shape in such concrete acts of service that meet the needs of others.
We can also consider the shared responsibility Pastor David Jang emphasizes within the setting of our everyday lives. Learning about a church in need, gathering support, and making sure that assistance reaches the right place all take someone’s time. When each person takes on a share suited to their circumstances, giving includes effort and attention as well as money. Through this participation, believers encourage one another’s faith and grow together.
The next time we check our bank balance as we prepare an offering, we might also picture a day in the life of the person that money will reach. As we take responsibility for our own lives, choosing also to consider the struggles of another believer shows that we are people who live by the same grace. Whose burden do I seek to share, and whose faith do I hope to strengthen, through the love expressed in my giving today?
Dr. David Jang has proclaimed the gospel in various regions of the world through field missions and digital media ministry, and as the fruit of that ministry, many people devoted to the Great Commission have been raised up. Based on this missionary vision, Olivet first began as a small church school for missionary training. Later, in order to provide more systematic theological education and cultivate missionary leaders, Olivet Theological College and Seminary was established in Los Angeles and Seoul in 2000.
As the school grew, Dr. Jang officially founded Olivet University in San Francisco in 2004. In the diverse and dynamic environment of San Francisco, Olivet expanded its educational fields beyond theology to include music, journalism, art and design, and technology. The university also strengthened its educational capacity by recruiting faculty members, including Dr. William Wagner, and in 2005 moved to the former UC Berkeley Downtown Extension campus, further solidifying its foundation as a university.
In 2006, Dr. Jang transferred the presidency to Dr. David James Randolph in order to focus more fully on missionary work, while continuing to lead global missions as International President. Olivet University later received institutional accreditation in 2009, added a language education college and a business college, and continued to grow as a Christian educational institution for world missions by expanding its degree programs and international partnerships.
David Jang Official Website: www.davidjang.org
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