Jesus’ words, as quoted by Paul and recorded in Acts 20:35, at first sound counterintuitive. He says that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Not equally blessed, more blessed. Which is either the most liberating financial principle ever articulated or the most inconvenient, depending on who you quote it to.
I did a little research on this verse, and here’s a bit of biblical trivia that you might find interesting.
This well-known, oft-quoted, and oft-plastered on offering envelopes and charity brochures everywhere was, as stated earlier, spoken by Paul, who was quoting Jesus. But, interestingly, Jesus is never quoted as saying it in any of the four Gospels—though he certainly said “blessed” a lot, especially in The Beatitudes, where he says it 9 nine times (“blessed are you…,” blessed are they…,” “blessed are all you’all”—no, not really that one).
This is what Bible scholars call an agraphon, a saying of Jesus that got passed around by word of mouth but never made it into the canonical gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Have you ever really thought about that—that Jesus said tons of stuff that isn’t actually recorded in the Gospels? He probably never told one of the disciples, “Make sure you take this down…”; they just remembered and then were led by the Holy Spirit to include it in the words that He wanted them to preserve for us.
It’s fun to think of Jesus, as the God-Man, having everyday conversations at the town market in Nazareth. “Hey, got any new wine today? Oh, just water? No problem, I can take care of that.” “The weather forecast says what? Storms all week? Concerning, but I may have something to say about that.” “Plenty of bread but no fish, let’s see….”
Reading the gospels, Jesus also seems to have a sense of humor, but it’s usually very wry and targeted and often couched in witty but sometimes absurd hyperboles like a camel squeezing through a needle’s eye (Matthew 19:24). Or, a man with a plank in his own eye offering to remove a speck from his brother’s (Matthew 7:3-5)—that’s almost slapstick imagery, a guy stumbling around with a two-by-four sticking out of his face lecturing someone about a splinter. Straining out a gnat while swallowing a camel (Matthew 23:24) is the same kind of exaggeration he often used to reveal hypocrisy. Jesus’ wit and wisdom are on full display in his parables.
There are other biblical accounts about things Jesus said that are humorous. For example, the audacity of James and John shows up more than once (we all know the “can we sit on your right and your left” question in Mark 10:35-45. We read that and think, “Really?” And in Mark 3:17, we find out about the nickname Jesus gave them. They were the “Sons of Zebedee,” but Jesus called them the “Sons of Thunder.” We later find out from Luke, in another story, how he may have come up with that nickname. They’re in Samaria with Jesus and need a place to stay, and nobody will give them a room. This was their humble, gracious, loving disciples-of-Jesus response:
And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Luke 9:54
What!? These disciples want to rain fire down from heaven because the Samaritans don’t like them? Imagine going to the Holiday Inn Express, and you’re refused a room because you didn’t have a reservation. Would you break out in prayer, “Oh Lord, out of the abundance of your love and mercy, please rain down fire on this hotel and all its employees—they wouldn’t give me a room!” I don’t think so (even though you may be a little upset, especially if you’re a curbic-zirconia-almost-diamond-level IHG Club member).
It’s not surprising that we learn in the next verse that Jesus rebuked them (it was going to take them a while to get the whole grace and mercy thing down), but I can imagine him resisting a grin while he did it. Fortunately, I don’t think they ever offered to call fire down from heaven again, and as we know, John later describes himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:7 and other verses). Things evidently worked out okay for both of them (the Gospel of John, the Revelation, and the Epistle of James).
Okay, enough of that; let’s go back to the “better to give” quote.
We don’t know precisely where Paul got Jesus’ quote; he probably picked it up from people who had actually walked with Jesus, perhaps Peter or James. So the next time someone confidently tells you “the Bible says it’s more blessed to give than to receive,” you can smile and sound like a smartie when you say, “Well, yes, it’s recorded by Luke in the Book of Acts, and technically, Luke recorded Paul telling this to the people in Miletus (a port town south of Ephesus) on his way to Jerusalem.” They’ll probably give you that “too much information” (TMI) look or just silently think you’re acting like a know-it-all.
The tension in the cartoon, and behind most Christian thinking about money in retirement, is that we genuinely hold both things simultaneously. Most Christians sincerely believe it’s more blessed to give (but we sometimes don’t seem to want those blessings very much). We also believe, with sincerity, that it’s good to receive what’s owed to us, whether it’s our paycheck, payback of a loan, or what the government owes us because we paid into the Social Security system for forty years, and we would like it now, please and thank you. Both of these positions are entirely defensible.
The thing is that, sometimes, we feel the receiving more strongly: that it feels better, more blessed, to receive than to give. We feel better when we receive a gift than when we give one. Think about it this way: How do you “feel” when you look at your checking account on your appointed day of the month and see that its balance has increased by several thousand dollars becase your Social Security benefits have been direct-deposited? Do you feel a little “ting” of satisfaction, perhaps even joy? Now ask yourself: Do you feel the same way when you write a tithe or offering check to your church, or to missions, or to help someone who’s struggling to pay their bills? Or when you buy your wife (or even your dog—he wants in on the action too) a gift?
Paul clearly explains this when he talks to the elders in Miletus about what Jesus said. But he makes an even stronger point in 2 Corinthians, chapters 8 and 9. There, he uses the Macedonian churches as an example. These people were going through very tough times and were very poor, but they still wanted to give. They were so happy that they wanted to be generous. This is the opposite of how we usually think. When we get money, like retirement income, it meets a need, but that’s it. It’s just a transaction, and then it’s over. Paul is saying that when we give, it should be because we’re overflowing with joy, not just because we’re trying to get something. This way of thinking is different from what we’re used to, but it’s what Paul is trying to teach us.
Giving, for Paul, opens something: it’s participation in God’s own character (he frames it as an extension of grace, not obligation), it multiplies rather than depletes, and it turns the giver from a passive recipient of blessing into an active conduit of it. That’s why he can tell the Corinthians that God loves “a cheerful giver,” and he uses the Greek word hilaros, which is connected with “good spirits” and an outward cheerful or joyful disposition rather than giving reluctantly. I’ve never heard anyone say they give “hilariously,” but perhaps we should think of it that way. This kind of cheerfulness isn’t a nice byproduct of our giving; it’s both a motivating factor and a byproduct of someone who has understood what giving in light of God’s goodness and grace toward us actually is.
Retiring can be a real eye-opener. It shows us the difference between what we say we believe and what we actually do. When we’re working, giving to others can feel pretty easy. We know we’ll get another paycheck soon, so it’s not as big of a deal. But when we’re not working anymore, things can get more complicated. Suddenly, our money isn’t coming in as it used to, and we have to think more carefully about what we can afford to give. It’s like the safety net of a regular paycheck is gone, and we have to confront what we really believe about giving and generosity.
None of this makes us hypocrites, exactly; it just makes us human. The gap between what we believe in the abstract and what we feel in the moment, in real life, is not a character flaw. It’s the normal condition of people who are still being sanctified and who also may still have a car payment or a mortgage. The question is not whether the gap exists. The question is whether we are honest about it and actively endeavoring, by God’s grace, to close it.
The same financial realities that make giving feel harder in retirement also create giving opportunities that simply didn’t exist during the working years. Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) allow retirees over 70½ to give directly from their IRA as part of their Required Minimum Distribution requirements without the withdrawal counting as taxable income. For charitably inclined retirees in the right circumstances, this is, as Earl has mentioned to approximately everyone he knows, genuinely remarkable. The government established a mechanism that allows retirees to give generously while reducing their tax burden. It’s the closest thing the IRS has ever produced that is “blessed” with respect to giving.
Earl and Dot know that it is truly more blessed to give than to receive, but are also grateful for the receiving part. And Dot just wants to make sure Earl’s theology and his checkbook are on the same page.
Tippy gets no deposit notifications and has no theology (except that he, and he alone, is the center of the universe). He receives everything he needs without asking but still offers unsolicited observations and advice. He also wants in on the action.