Money collected for poor believers
16
📚Now concerning the collection for the saints, just as I gave instructions to the churches of Galatia, so you should do also. 2 📚On the first day 📖of the week each one of you should put some money aside, as God has prospered him, so that there will be no collections when I come. 3 📚And when I come, I will send whomever you approve by your letters, to take your gift to Jerusalem.16:3 Observe the great care Paul was taking about this money. He wanted there to be no possibility of any kind of wrong use of it, or any suspicion of wrong use – 2 Cor 8:20-21.⚜
4 📚And if it is suitable that I go also, they will go with me.
16:1-4 Acts 24:17; Rom 15:26; 2 Cor 8—9. Evidently believers living in Jerusalem were poor and in need. So Paul arranged for other churches to help them financially.⚜
Paul’s requests
5 📚Now I will come to you when I pass through Macedonia; for I will pass through Macedonia 📖. 6 📚And it may be that I will stay, yes, and spend the winter with you, that you may send me on my journey 📖, wherever I go. 7 📚For I do not want to see you now on the way, but I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. 8 📚But I will remain at Ephesus until Pentecost. 9 📚For a great door 📖 and an effective one has opened to me, and there are many opponents.
10 📚Now if Timothy 📖 comes, see that he can be with you without fear 📖, for he does the work of the Lord, as I also do. 11 📚Therefore no one should look down on him. But send him on his journey in peace, so he can come to me. For I am expecting him with the brethren.
12 📚Concerning our brother Apollos 📖, I strongly urged him to come to you with the brethren, but he was not at all willing to come at this time. But he will come when he has a convenient time. 13 📚Watch 📖, stand firm 📖 in the faith, be courageous, be strong 📖. 14 📚All you do should be done with love 📖.
15 📚I urge you, brethren (you know the household of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints) 📖,
16:15 Achaia was the region in which Corinth lay.⚜
16 📚to submit yourselves to such persons, and to everyone who works and labours with us.
16:16 This means to accept their leadership in their work of serving believers and assist them.⚜
17 📚I am glad about the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, for they have supplied what was lacking on your part 📖. 18 📚For they have refreshed my spirit, and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men.
16:18 It is good to be the kind of people whose presence refreshes others.⚜
Final remarks
19 📚The churches of Asia greet you. Aquila and Priscilla 📖 greet you warmly in the Lord, together with the church that is in their house 📖.
16:19 Paul was writing from Ephesus the chief city in the Province of Asia.⚜
20 📚All the brethren greet you. Greet one another with a holy kiss 📖.
21 📚I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.
16:21 Paul sometimes dictated his letters and they were written down by someone else (Rom 16:22). But he always added a greeting in his own hand (2 Thess 3:17).⚜
22 📚If any man does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Come, O Lord 📖.
16:22 Love for the Lord Jesus Christ is the evidence of spiritual life (1 John 3:14; 4:7-8, 16). Absence of love for Him is proof of spiritual death. If we cannot, or do not, love Christ, we show ourselves depraved, still in our sins, and worthy of a curse from God. Nothing is more important than the state of our hearts in regard to the Lord Jesus.⚜
23 📚The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
24 📚My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.
16:24 Paul had opponents at Corinth, and others there were carnal, proud, divisive, abused spiritual gifts, and complained against him. He had to say some rather harsh things in this letter to correct them. But he sent love to them all. Compare what he wrote in 1 Cor 13:4-7 – Paul was happy to practice what he taught to others.⚜