Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Corinthians 8:2

"how that in much proof of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality." — 2 Corinthians 8:2 (ASV)

In a great trial of affliction.—We do not know what is specifically referred to, but a community of Christians in a pagan city was always exposed to trials of this kind. The temper previously shown by the rulers at Philippi and the Jews of Thessalonica (Acts 16:19–20; Acts 17:5–6; 1 Thessalonians 2:14) makes it almost certain that they would carry on at least a petty persecution with more or less persistence.

The “poverty” at Philippi may possibly be connected with the preponderance of women in the Church there, as indicated in Acts 16:13. In the absence of the breadwinners of a household, Christian women in a Greco-Roman city would find only scanty means of subsistence. In part, however, the churches were also sharers in a widespread distress. Macedonia and Achaia never recovered from the three wars between Caesar and Pompey, between the Triumvirs and Brutus and Cassius, and between Augustus and Antony. Under Tiberius, they petitioned for a reduction of their burdens and were accordingly transferred for a time from the jurisdiction of the senate to that of the emperor, as this involved less heavy taxation.

To the riches of their liberality.—The primary meaning of the word, as in 2 Corinthians 1:12 (see the Note on that verse), is simplicity, or singleness of purpose. That singleness, when shown in gifts, leads to “liberality,” and so the word had acquired the secondary sense in which it seems to be used here. Tyndale and Cranmer, however, give “singleness,” and the Rheims version “simplicity.” “Liberality” first appears in that of Geneva.