The last chapter of the epistle is local and personal. In the first sentences important principles are revealed as to the true method of Christian giving. It is to be regular and systematic rather than occasional and spasmodic. It is to be personal and alone, for laying by in store does not mean placing in a collection basket in a meeting, but privately apportioning and guarding.
There follow references full of suggestive beauty to Timothy, and Apollos, and injunctions which are epigrammatic and forceful, 'Watch ye," "Stand fast in the faith," "Quit you like men," "Be strong." These four injunctions are really but two, the first two being complementary and correlative, and also the last two.
The letter ends with matters of a personal nature, all of which breathe the same spirit of love and fellowship. Finally, the apostle took the pen into his own hand. Let it be noted at once that the character of what he wrote is defined by the opening, in which he declares that he is writing a salutation; and by the closing, which speaks of the grace of the Lord Jesus, and Paul's love to all. Between these lie the words which some have thought of as malediction. As a matter of fact, they have nothing of the spirit of anger. They contain the solemn statement of an established fact, something from which there is no more escape than from the certainty of death to any who are deprived of sustenance; or from the necessity for penalty to those who violate the laws of nature. Paul's view of the Lordship of Jesus is such as to drive him to declare that if any man love not the Lord, there is no alternative other than His anathema.