2 Corinthians 8:3

For according to their power, I bear witness, yea and beyond their power, they gave of their own accord, beseeching us with much entreaty in regard of this grace and the fellowship in the ministering to the saints: and this, not as we had hoped, but first they gave their own selves to the Lord, and to us through the will of God.

"These three verses constitute one continuous sentence in the original ... a long and characteristically Pauline sentence."[9] The verb "gave" governs the whole statement.

Beyond their power ... not as we had hoped ... Their giving was above what Paul had expected, and even beyond what their extreme poverty indicated as possible.

Beseeching us with much entreaty ... It is clear from this that Paul "had urged some restraint in their giving, in view of their dire poverty."[10]

Fellowship ... ministering ... The fellowship refers to their participation in the collection, and the ministering to the service which the money would render to the poor Christians in Jerusalem. Filson pointed out that "for no other church, or churches, was a collection ever taken, as far as we learn."[11] It is wrong, however, to make this mean that only "the mother church" had a right to be so helped. In fact, "mother church" is not a New Testament concept at all, such remarks as the following from Barclay, having no support from the Scriptures. He said:

The Church of Jerusalem was the Mother Church of all Churches; and it was Paul's desire that all the Gentile Churches should remember and help that Church which was their mother in the faith.[12]

As a matter of fact, Antioch, a Gentile congregation, was "the mother church" of all the churches founded by Paul. It was Antioch, not Jerusalem, which sent him forth with the gospel; and it was the "so-called" mother church in Jerusalem which opposed receiving any Gentiles at all, except upon the basis of their prior circumcision; and, added to all this, Paul himself flatly contradicted the notion that the Jerusalem of earth was in any sense a mother church, saying, "The Jerusalem that now is in bondage .... The Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother" (Galatians 4:25,26).

They first gave themselves to God ... If understood as a reference to their "first" becoming Christians, this would have the meaning of "in order of time"; but, as Wesley said, "It is better to understand it of `the order of importance,' `above all.'"[13] Of course, in point of time, all Christian graces are derived from the first decision to give oneself to the Lord.

[9] Philip E. Hughes, Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), p. 289.

[10] Raymond C. Kelcy, Second Corinthians (Austin, Texas: R. B. Sweet Company, 1967), p. 49.

[11] Floyd V. Filson, The Interpreter's Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1953), Vol. X, p. 365.

[12] William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954), p. 254.

[13] John Wesley, One Volume New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1972), in loco.