| Summary: | At a time when Christian preachers employ all forms of gimmicks to persuade
people to give, examining Paul’s model of appeal in the collection for the saints,
particularly 2 Corinthians 8:7–12, would prove helpful. Paul avows that he is not
commanding the Corinthians and takes pains to demonstrate that. This paper,
therefore, employed a lexico-grammatical method of exegesis to explore Paul’s
preferred approach and what it portends for the church’s rhetoric at fundraising
towards ensuring results, on one hand, and integrity, on the other hand. It discovered
that for Paul and Christian giving in general, sounding authoritative while calling
for funds would inadvertently compromise the ethics of freewill giving, which
is at the core of Christian generosity. Rather an appeal to the people’s gracious
endowments, the earnestness of their love, free will and proportionate giving would
be more fruitful and girded with integrity; the kind of giving acceptable to God.
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