The following verses extend the analogy to include a chain of results, some of them surprising. The passive participle “being made rich”
(ploutizomenoi; NRSV: “enriched”) hides the presence of a divine actor, focusing instead on one way of being rich—namely in “generosity” (v. 11).
The generosity, however, comes through divine prompting or even divine benevolence. The surprising result of this generosity is not, as one might expect, to express the thanksgiving of the Achaian believers for God’s grace but “through us,” i.e., Paul and his Achaian addressees, to “produce [or elicit] thanksgiving” in the “saints” in Jerusalem.
In v. 12 Paul introduces a vision of the offering with practical issue: “for the ministry [administration] of this public service (leitourgia, offering) not only makes up for what the saints lack but also abounds through [their]
many thanksgivings to God” (AT). The rendering of the secular term leitourgia, “liturgy,” as “public service” carries multiple meanings. Persons of means were expected to use their wealth for the public good. In a famine, for example, a wealthy family might buy grain from Egypt and have it distributed among the needy in Corinth, Athens, Jerusalem, Tarsus, or Rome. Some cities would come to the aid of other urban areas in distress, and other groups would assist other circles in need.
But from Paul’s pen the word liturgy carried also a special religious nuance. In Rom 15:16, for example, written just months later, Paul employs the same language to describe his role in the offering project. He speaks of being a “minister [or liturgist (leitourgsos)] of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service (hierourgounta) of the gospel of God. . . .” This association of priestly language with Paul’s performance of a liturgy in delivering the offering of the Gentiles to the “saints” in Jerusalem shows that he drew no sharp line here between the sacred and profane worlds. That
liturgy of Rom 15:16 is thus here played out in 2 Cor 9:12 in the reference to the “offering” or “ministry (diakonia) of this liturgy” (AT), and that
“ministry (offering),” Paul predicted, would inspire many “thanksgivings”
among the “saints” in Jerusalem. (I take this to mean the offering from the Gentiles to the “poor” in Jerusalem, not the offering of the Gentiles themselves as evidence of God’s final eschatological moment.)
Fed on the language of the prophets and inspired by their vision, Paul’s mind races on to imagine what will happen in Jerusalem when the offering is presented (vv. 13-14). His heart is so full he does not bother to fill in the gaps with the scripture informing his vision. Doubtless, that authorization played a role in his initial offering proposal to the Corinthians. In Paul’s grand vision, we hear echoes of an offering pilgrimage that harks back to Isa 2:2-3 and 60:5, when the Gentiles (not “nations” as in the RSV and NRSV) stream up to Zion to learn God’s ways and to bring their wealth as an offering to Israel’s God. The offerings of the Gentiles betoken the final days and the union of Jew and Gentile in subservience to and praise of the God of Zion (Isa 45:14; 60:1-22; Mic 4:1-2, 13). The Septuagint of Isa 23:14–24:1 also images a future when Gentile believers would bring gifts to Jerusalem, gifts that would be holy and acceptable to God.
Paul points his Achaian readers to a marvelous scenario when the
“saints” in Jerusalem would break forth into spontaneous and joyous praise
“for your [i.e., Achaian] submission of your confession of the gospel of Christ [mentioned only here in chapter 9] and for the generosity of your contribution to them and to all [in the mother church]” (v. 13, AT). In some ways Paul’s account of the imagined rejoicing set loose by this eschatological pilgrimage of Gentiles echoes the excited response of the watchmen in Isa 52:7-9 who see the advancing column of returning exiles and break forth into joyous singing. Caught up in the excitement of this apocalyptic and almost ecstatic moment, Paul shifts the gaze of his Achaian readers to Jerusalem and sets them in the midst of that eschatological host offering up their “thanksgivings” to God (vv. 12-15). As he gives play to his imagination, he improvises a plot of apocalyptic proportions in which they praise and glorify the God of Israel whom they came to know through Christ, and their voices of praise blend with those of the “poor among the saints” in Jerusalem to rise up in harmonious exultation. Thus Gentile and Jew join together to glorify and praise the God of Israel and celebrate the redemption of the world—the Jew as God’s elect, of course, and the Gentile
as “honorary Jews” through Christ. The excitement generated by this vision is almost overwhelming.
Paul thus viewed the offering as a window onto a vision so grand it almost takes the breath away. In that singular captivating moment, Gentiles adopted into the people of God join the people of Israel in praise of God. In the eschatological drama Paul constructs, he himself is caught up in the story he tells. All of the past quarrels with the leaders of that mother church are swept aside. The painful memory of his angry exchange with Peter fades away. Instead, he hears the “saints’ ” praying, longing for the Gentiles, and giving thanks for “the surpassing grace of God that he has given you” (i.e., the Gentiles in Achaia, v. 14). The prospect of this happy outcome on the near horizon brought Paul total joy, and he breaks forth into a soaring spontaneous cry of gratitude for this moment: “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift” (v. 15). One can almost imagine the hush that would settle over the little cells of believers in Achaia as they heard these words read and how they set this offering of gifts, small or great, in a grand scenario of cosmic proportions.
Just months later when Paul is in Corinth, probably for the winter, he offers a fuller description of the dynamics of the offering in his letter to the Roman churches. He described how the offering would symbolically forge a partnership. The Gentiles had received a spiritual gift, the gospel, from the Jewish believers in Jerusalem; now they were reciprocating with “material [or fleshly] things” (Rom 15:27). And so they were able to transcend the barrier separating them and enter a bold new age. The superior moral position the giver assumed in the cultural habit of being would be removed for both parties, for both have given and both were recipients of generous gifts. So from being caught up himself in this drama he conjured, he offered the ejaculatory prayer of thanksgiving noted above.
Unfortunately, we are deprived of the final imperatives, greetings, and grace that normally come in a letter closing. We can, however, safely speculate that they would have gathered into themselves some of the energy, passion, excitement, and emotional depth of this transcendent vision.