“Therefore, as ye abound in everything, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also” (II Corinthians 8:7).

In spite of all their faults of carnality and divisiveness which the apostle Paul had to rebuke severely, the Christians in Corinth were exemplary in certain Christian traits. They had an abounding faith and abundant understanding of God’s word, and abundant ability to expound it. They also abounded in diligence and in love for their great teacher, Paul.

There are many other Christian virtues in which believers should abound. They should “abound in hope” (Romans 15:13), and they should “abound to every good work” (II Corinthians 9:8). The apostle Peter exhorted believers to add “virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity,” stressing that their own fruitfulness as Christians required that “these things be in you, and abound” (II Peter 1:5–8).

Even this is not all. Paul prayed for the Philippians “that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment” (Philippians 1:9). But he also wrote: “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ” (II Corinthians 1:5).

A Christian, therefore, should not be just a nominal Christian, but an abounding Christian! Finally our text exhorts us to “abound in this grace also.” In context, this grace is the grace of liberal giving of financial resources, seemingly one of the most difficult of all graces in which to abound, and thus one of the surest measures of an abounding Christian. HMM