For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord’s people in Jerusalem. Romans 15:26
“Paul has not been shy about exhorting these churches to participate in the collection. But their participation is, nevertheless, of their own free will: they were “pleased”; they “freely decided” to make a contribution. Paul suggests something of the significance of this contribution by calling it a koinōnia, literally, a “fellowship.” Here the word clearly means “that which is readily shared,” “contribution,” but there is certainly an allusion to the word’s common use in Paul to denote the loving intimacy of the Christian community.”
Douglas J. Moo in The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids, 1996) 903.
I am sitting in this verse for a few days with commentators because the language is so powerful. Are you “pleased” to fellowship with others through sharing? By calling it a fellowship, Paul implies how giving knits us together in God’s work.
We actually grasp deeper communion with God and each other through giving and receiving. In sharing freely and willingly we send message to God that our trust is in Him and, in turn, we forge relationships that can only be gained by this experience.