2 Corinthians 8, 9. The Collection for Poor Christians at Jerusalem. Paul attached the highest importance to this collection, to which he seems to have invited all the Gentile churches to contribute. He valued it not merely for the relief it would bring to the deep poverty of the Christians at Jerusalem, but also as a means of eliciting generosity in the churches to which he appealed, and as a symbol of that binding unity in which all the churches of God in Christ were held together. He thinks of the liberality thus evoked as a grace, a gift of God to man, and a gift of man to God, and also as a fellowship, a common participation in common service which was a precious symbol of participation in common life.