Bible Verses About Emulation

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.

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.