I speak not by way of commandment, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity also of your love. [Paul here speaks of liberality as a grace or gift of the Spirit. Paul testifies that the Corinthians abounded in spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 4:7). He here reminds them of some of these prominent gifts, and exhorted them to add thereto the gift of liberality, and to make it conspicuous among the other gifts by its perfection. He does not command them to give, for the very virtue or value of giving lies in its spontaneity, but, using the case of the Macedonians as an example or means of comparison, he measures or tests the love of the Corinthians by it.]

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Old Testament