<p>9:12<i> For the administration of this charity not only provides for the wants of the saints, but abounds also through many thanksgivings to God</i>- Paul was clearly the administrator of the charity project, although he sees himself as a 'deacon' or servant of it (NEV &quot;administration&quot;). And yet it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the project and its success had become obsessive to him. He sees it is a way in which poverty could be relieved, but much praise and glory elicited for God and His grace, if orthodox Jewish Christians in Jerusalem could fall to their knees in praise and thanks for their Gentile brethren's generosity to them in Corinth. Visions of Christian unity are likewise not unknown today to become obsessive, and those involved in them become too personally caught up in their success or failure. I pointed out on chapters 7 and 8 that there is no evidence that the famine continued in Palestine as severely nor as long as Paul's passion for the Poor Fund required; to the point that he had to ask others to pray that when he finally arrived in Jerusalem with the food and cash, it would be accepted by the brethren (Rom. 15:31).</p><p>Thanksgiving to God and His glorification can be elicited in multiple ways, and even if the Poor Fund project failed, glory to God could surely be achieved another way. But it seems too much had been personally invested in it. The fascinating story is recorded for our learning, and the lessons are powerful. The truth is that when Paul arrived in Jerusalem with the Poor Fund, the Jerusalem Jewish Christians provoked a riot, were certainly not happy to see him, forced him to demonstrate loyalty to the Jewish law, and I have argued in commentary on Acts- got him arrested and imprisoned. It is fantasy to imagine Paul arriving with those carrying the money and goods, and the saints in Jerusalem falling to their knees in praise to God for Paul's initiative and administration of the Corinthian's generosity. That's just not what happened. Paul's project was intended indeed to elicit many thanksgivings to God, but that was not the outcome. He writes here of what he hoped and dearly wanted to happen as if it had happened. There is in Hebrew and he clearly thought in Hebrew whilst writing in Greek a prophetic perfect tense, whereby God often expresses His hopes for the future in the past tense, as if they have happened. And Paul does the same here, writing of how his project has resulted i.e. surely <i>will</i> result in thanksgiving as a result of Corinthian generosity. The idea that this refers to some previous support of the Poor Fund doesn't really fit with the flow of the argument in this chapter. Paul had been asked by the Jerusalem elders to &quot;remember the Jewish Christian, perhaps specifically Jerusalem poor&quot; in return for not demanding the circumcision of Gentile converts (Gal. 2:10). Paul dearly wished to be acceptable to the Jerusalem elders; for him culturally, Jerusalem was still the centre of the world. Perhaps his obsession with the Poor Fund arose partly from his desperation to be acceptable and pleasing to the Jerusalem elders. It would have been so very hard for Paul to experience a hostile reception by his Jerusalem brethren and perhaps a refusal of what support he had managed to gather for them. He was then forced by them to prove his orthodoxy, and it seems the Jerusalem Jewish Christians were the ones who orchestrated his arrest and imprisonment. The Lord surely worked to correct Paul's desire to please men.</p>