During the season of Christmastide, we give each other gifts in celebration of the greatest gift ever given to the world: Jesus. The advent of Jesus into the world is the greatest demonstration of God’s grace. However, we often misunderstand God’s grace when we think of it as a ‘one-way, unilateral donation.’ As we see in Romans 15 and II Corinthians 8, the apostle Paul thought about grace very differently. For him, grace creates a new social bond and reality, making the giver and receiver relationally connected. Relational ‘debt’ language strikes Western ears as threatening, but for Paul this was an essential part of how God’s grace works. In this message, Pastor T. C. will draw from Paul’s teachings on grace and from contemporary scholars Jackson W. (Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes) and John Barclay (Paul and the Gift).