But I will tell you what I think about it; it is to your interest to go on with this enterprise, for you started it last year, you were the first not merely to do anything but to want to do anything.

Everyone is to give what he has made up his mind to give; there is to be no grudging or compulsion about it, for God loves the giver who gives cheerfully.

But what I have just said is by way of concession, not command.

By occasion

Now, brothers, I have to tell you about the grace God has given to the churches of Macedonia.

I know how willing you are, I am proud of it, I have boasted of you to the Macedonians: "Achaia," I tell them, "was all ready last year." And your zeal has been a stimulus to the majority of them.

Well, if their lapse has enriched the world, if their defection is the gain of the Gentiles, what will it mean when they all come in?

and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good deeds ??25 not ceasing to meet together, as is the habit of some, but admonishing one another, all the more so, as you see the Day coming near.

Prove

So let them have proof of how you can love, and of my reasons for being proud of you; it will be a proof read by the churches.

with innocence, insight, patience, kindness, the holy Spirit, unaffected love,

Let your love be a real thing, with a loathing for evil and a bent for what is good.

we are to hold by the truth, and by our love to grow up wholly into Him. For He, Christ, is the head, and under him,

My brothers, what is the use of anyone declaring he has faith, if he has no deeds to show? Can his faith save him?

Now that your obedience to the Truth has purified your souls for a brotherly love that is sincere, love one another heartily and steadily.

But whoever possesses this world's goods, and notices his brother in need, and shuts his heart against him, how can love to God remain in him?

General references

If you love me you will keep my commands,

So let them have proof of how you can love, and of my reasons for being proud of you; it will be a proof read by the churches.

Beloved, if God had such love for us, we ought to love one another.