For the administration of this service. — The latter word (leitourgia) has, like that for “ministering” in 2 Corinthians 9:10, an interesting history. In classical Greek it stands for any public service rendered to the State. In the LXX. version it, and its cognate verb and adjective, are used almost exclusively of the ritual and sacrificial services of the Tabernacle and the Temple, as, e.g., in Numbers 4:25; 1 Chronicles 11:13; 1 Chronicles 26:30; and in this sense it appears in Luke 1:23; Hebrews 8:6; Hebrews 9:21; and with the same shade of meaning, used figuratively, in Philippians 2:17. That meaning survives in the ecclesiastical term “liturgy,” applied, as it was at first, exclusively to the service of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Here, probably, the thought is implied that a large and liberal gift to Christ’s poor, and for His sake, is the most acceptable of all forms of “service” in the liturgical sense of that word. So understood it implies the same truth as that stated in James 1:27.
Not only supplieth the want of the saints. — Literally, fills up the things that were lacking. The wants of the “saints,” i.e., the disciples of Jerusalem, were, we must remember, very urgent. They had never quite recovered from the pressure of the famine foretold by Agabus (Acts 11:28), and the lavish generosity of the first days of the Church (Acts 2:44-45; Acts 4:32) had naturally exhausted its resources.
But is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God. — More accurately, overflows, by means of many thanksgivings, to God: the latter noun standing in a closer connection with the verb than the English version suggests. Some of the better MSS. give, to Christ.