Bible Verses About Beneficence

Every week, on Motza’ei-Shabbat, each of you should set some money aside, according to his resources, and save it up; so that when I come I won’t have to do fundraising.

And when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the people you have approved, and I will send them to carry your gift to Yerushalayim.

Now, brothers, we must tell you about the grace God has given the congregations in Macedonia.

Despite severe trials, and even though they are desperately poor, their joy has overflowed in a wealth of generosity.

I tell you they have not merely given according to their means, but of their own free will they have given beyond their means.

They begged and pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service for God’s people.

Also, they didn’t do this in the way we had expected, but first they gave themselves to the Lord, which means, by God’s will, to us.

All this has led us to urge Titus to bring this same gracious gift to completion among you, since he has already made a beginning of it.

Just as you excel in everything — in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in diligence of every kind, and in your love for us — see that you excel in this gift too.

I am not issuing an order; rather, I am testing the genuineness of your love against the diligence of others.

For you know how generous our Lord Yeshua the Messiah was — for your sakes he impoverished himself, even though he was rich, so that he might make you rich by means of his poverty.

As I say, in regard to this matter I am only giving an opinion. A year ago you were not only the first to take action but the first to want to do so. Now it would be to your advantage

to finish what you started, so that your eagerness in wanting to commence the project may be matched by your eagerness to complete it, as you contribute from what you have.

For if the eagerness to give is there, the acceptability of the gift will be measured by what you have, not by what you don’t have.

It is not that relief for others should cause trouble for you, but that there should be a kind of reciprocity:

at present your abundance can help those in need; so that when you are in need, their abundance can help you — thus there is reciprocity.

It is as the Tanakh says, “He who gathered much had nothing extra, and he who gathered little had nothing lacking.”

There is really no need for me to write you about this offering for God’s people —

I know how eager you are, and I boast about you to the Macedonians. I tell them, “Achaia has been ready since last year,” and it was your zeal that stirred up most of them.

But now I am sending the brothers so that our boast about you in this regard will not prove hollow, so that you will be ready, as I said you would be.

For if some Macedonians were to come with me and find you unprepared, we would be humiliated at having been so confident — to say nothing of how you would feel.

So I thought it necessary to urge these brothers to go on to you ahead of me and prepare your promised gift in plenty of time; this way it will be ready when I come and will be a genuine gift, not something extracted by pressure.

Here’s the point: he who plants sparingly also harvests sparingly.

Each should give according to what he has decided in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Moreover, God has the power to provide you with every gracious gift in abundance, so that always in every way you will have all you need yourselves and be able to provide abundantly for every good cause —