2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

Through poverty to wealth? Dat don’t make sense for me, and, as a paradox is wont to do, it took me outside of my usual way of thinking.

When I think of riches, I automatically resort to the number of greenbacks I possess or to the value of my estate. Such a poverty driven way of thinking!

When Paul is teaching the Corinthians, he is speaking to a congregation that surely had the same problem. Paul uses this settled mindset and twists it back to correct thinking. He is the excellent teacher, taking his students from where how they think to a better, correct way of thinking, a better focus, a better understanding of reality.

This is the intent of many of the paradoxes we see in the Word, for as the Lord or His apostle provides a paradox, it first off, at least for me, arrests my thinking and causes me to consider what the message is really intended to be.

We must remember that our thoughts (previous to the renewing of our mind) are not necessarily in the proper context or have the correct view. To say that riches equates with greenbacks and estate values is the primary method we earth dwellers have to quantify any riches we feel we have attained, and sadly how many of us see our worth!

Paul is bringing a paradox of wealth and poverty to our mind to realign us into a correct understanding of worth.

What is it that brings value and worth in your life? Who is the One that provides true riches, value that cannot be bought with “filthy lucre”. You can kinda tell I am an ol’ coot, using that ol’ KJV phrase from 1 Timothy 3:3. No matter, this paradox, after I been thinking and ruminating on it for a few moments, flips our concept of wealth and worth on it’s head, and elevates those who sacrifice for others as the ones who are truly rich.

As Scripture always does, this truth is modelled perfectly in the Lord Jesus Christ, who became poor so that He could make others rich.

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