VIII.
(1) Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit... — Better, we declare, or make known to you. There is no adequate reason for retaining a phrase which is now obsolete. The topic on which the Epistle now touches, and which is carried on through this and the following chapter, was one very dear to the Apostle’s heart. (See Note on 1 Corinthians 16:1.) When he wrote before he had simply given directions as to what the Corinthians were to do. Now he has something to tell them. The churches of Macedonia — Philippi, we must believe, prominent among them — had been true to their old generosity (2 Corinthians 11:8-9; Philippians 4:15), and were now showing it, not, as before, in personal kindness to their teacher, but in the truer way of acting as he wished them to act; and he sees in this a means of stirring up his friends at Corinth to an honourable emulation. There is something intensely characteristic in the way in which he opens his statement. He traces the generosity of the Macedonians to its true source. He is going to tell the Corinthians of the “grace of God” that has enabled them to do so much.