2 Corinthians 1:1-7 Suffering and Strength

Last week we began our study of 2 Corinthians with an introduction, background information about what had happened since Paul first walked into Corinth to the time of his writing this letter, 2 Corinthians, which in actuality is at least his fourth letter to the church. This morning we’re going to take a look at the first seven verses, but before we read them I want to share something that I think is important with all of you. Since Connie and I arrived here at BCC I have always taught through entire books of the Bible. I know there are other ways to teach and there are preachers/teachers who do a great job using other methods. I choose to teach through the entire book, from the first verse to the last for a selfish reason and that is I need to learn. I’m not up here at the pulpit this morning as an authority on the Bible, but as a student of God’s Word who is hungry to learn along with you who are hungry to learn. This past week I began studying and praying through the first seven verses of Paul’s letter. I’m not looking for sermons, but I’m looking to learn what God is desiring to teach me. On Sunday morning, I stand in front of all of you and share with you what the Lord has taught me in hopes that what He has taught me might benefit you in some way.  That is my prayer. With that said, let’s read 2 Corinthians 1:1-7.

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy people throughout Achaia: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. (2 Corinthians 1:1-7 NIV)

This is such a powerful opening to Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. There is so much for us to learn from in these seven verses. It is super important to remember something that we talked about last week in our introduction and that is the tension that existed between some of the people in the church and Paul. Remember, after Paul spent eighteen months in Corinth he moved on to Ephesus before traveling to Jerusalem. In the months after he left some false teachers slipped into the pews and began to whisper in the ears of those who had become followers of Jesus because of Paul’s proclamation of the Gospel. They were planting seeds of doubt: “If Paul was sent from God then why was his life filled with so much suffering? Why was his preaching so boring compared to the ‘super apostles’ who had recently come around?” They even questioned his taking up a love offering for the brothers and sisters who were suffering in Jerusalem. Someone said, “He won’t allow us to pay him so is he really going to take the offering to Jerusalem?” And then there was the problem of their willingness to listen to the false teachers teach a “different Jesus” and “another gospel.” Paul writes, 

3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. 5 I do not think I am in the least inferior to those "super-apostles." (2 Corinthians 11:3-5 NIV)

With this background in mind we need to go back and read the opening of Paul’s letter once again. Look at verse 1 with me. Paul writes,

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy people throughout Achaia: (2 Corinthians 1:1 NIV)

Paul was not self-appointed. He didn’t decide one day that he was going to be an apostle. He wasn’t on a power-trip and needing the church to stroke his ego. Paul was “an apostle by Christ Jesus by the will of God.” What does it mean that Paul was “an apostle by Christ Jesus?” The word “apostle” comes from the Greek word "apostolos" and it means “a delegate, messenger, or one sent with orders.” If Paul was a delegate, or if he was sent with orders, who sent him and what were the orders he was given? These would be important questions to answer for those who were questioning Paul’s authority in Corinth. They are also important pieces of information for those in our day who question the validity of the Bible. To find the answers to the questions we need to go to Acts 9. Paul was determined to go to Damascus and arrest all of the followers of Jesus he could find. While he was on his way, he was thrown from his horse, struck blind, and he heard a voice say, “Saul, Saul why do you persecute me?” He said, “Who are you Lord?” The voice said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” After the encounter, Saul was led into Damascus. At the same time, Jesus appeared to one of His followers, Ananias. He told Ananias to go to Judas’ house on Straight Street and when he found a man named Saul of Tarsus he was to lay his hands on him and God would restore Saul’s sight. Ananias had heard of Saul and he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to go and restore Saul’s sight. Then, in Acts 9:15-16 we read,

15 But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." (Acts 9:15-16 NIV)

Now, can we answer the question of who sent Paul and what orders he was given? Paul was an apostle of Christ Jesus, sent by Jesus, and his orders were to proclaim the gospel, the good news of Jesus “to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.” Pretty straightforward don’t you think? And back in 2 Corinthians 1:1 we find that this was by the “will of God.” Paul was not only sent with orders from Jesus by the will of God, but when he wrote he was not representing his own will, but the will of God. The people of Corinth needed to be reminded of this and we who live in Oklahoma City so many years later need to be taught this about what we read in God’s Word. I’ve been so blessed by a commentary on these verses this past week written by Scott Hafemann. He writes,

In studying this letter, we are studying God’s Word, and in studying God’s Word we are obligated to submit to its truth and relevancy for our lives. Paul’s apostolic authority  was not the product of his own initiative, cleverness, people skills, political savvy, or education. In 2 Corinthians Paul is not the CEO of a corporation fighting to keep his career or a personnel manager struggling with administering his human resources…Paul is not on an ego trip. He is defending himself so vehemently not for the sake of his own career or reputation, but for the sake of the truth of the gospel that he preaches and embodies–and hence for the sake of the eternal welfare of the Corinthians (cf. 5:20-6:2; 10:8; 12:19; 13:9-10) (Hafemann, Scott. The NIV Application Commentary: 2 Corinthians. pg. 56). 

We are desperately in need of this understanding of God’s Word in our own day. We are not reading just another book off of the New York Times best-seller list or critiquing a classmate's thesis on theological matters–this is God’s Word and it is imperative that we humble ourselves before God’s Word and allow God’s Spirit to teach us. In verse 2, Paul sends “grace and peace” to the brothers and sisters in Corinth from “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is Paul’s favorite way of opening his letters. He uses the same words in the opening of his letters to the Church in Rome, both letters to Corinth, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, both letters to Thessalonica, and to Philemon. For Paul, these spiritual blessings of “grace and peace” can only come only “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” What’s really interesting about this is the word used to describe Jesus, the Greek word “kyrios," which means “master, Lord, or owner.” This is the word used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, what is called the Septuagint, to translate the name YHWH, which occurs over 7,000 times in the Old Testament. The name YHWH is so holy to Jews to this day that they will not speak it, they substitute either “The Name” or “Adonai” for YHWH. No Jew would have ever used the word to describe a mere human and Paul certainly doesn’t see Jesus as that. For Paul and for us, Jesus is YHWH God incarnate, God in the flesh. Let’s move on to verses 3-4. Read it with me.

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV)

First, I want you to notice how Paul describes God to the people of Corinth. He says God is the “Father of compassion” and the God “of all comfort.” He is the One who “comforts us in all our troubles.” This was a radical teaching for the Greeks who were taught that their many gods couldn’t care less about the plight of humanity. Pliny the Elder was a first-century author, naturalist philosopher, and government official in the Roman army and navy. It is said that he wrote seven books, but we only have his book, Natural History. In that book he wrote, 

That a supreme being, whatever it be, pays heed to human affairs is a ridiculous notion.  (Pliny, Natural History 2.5.20)

There is still much of Pliny’s thinking circulating in our day. The late Christopher Hitchens who wrote God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything took one stop further than Pliny the Elder. Hitchens was an outspoken opponent of any idea of there being a supreme being. Christopher Hitchens before he died was part of what was known as the “unholy trinity” of the three most prominent atheists: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitches. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2010 and chronicled his journey in Vanity Fair. In an interview he did with All Things Considered on October 29, 2010 he said he knew he would be confronted with the “dumb question of why me?” Hitchens said he decided his beliefs well before he became ill. Here’s his answer to the question.

‘I'm here as a product of the process of evolution, which doesn't make very many exceptions. And which rates life relatively cheaply,’ he says. ‘I mean, most human beings who've ever been born would have been dead long before they reached my age. And I would think in most of the rest of the world -- well, I know it -- it is still true. So to be relatively healthy at 62 is to be dealt a pretty good hand by the cosmos, which doesn't know I'm here -- and won't notice when I'm gone. So that seemed the only properly stoic attitude to take. (All Things Considered. Christopher Hitchens on Suffering, Beliefs and Dying. October 29, 2010)

He was dealt a “pretty good hand” by the cosmos, a cosmos that didn’t know he was here and doesn’t care that he is now gone. Now that’s comforting isn’t it? Christopher Hitchens' friend, Richard Dawkins, is an evolutionary biologist who was a professor at Oxford for many years and has written more than thirty books.  Think about how Paul described God as I read to you what Dr. Dawkins wrote,

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. (Dawkins, Richard. River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life)

Set against this black, dreary backdrop of the thoughts of Pliny the Elder, Christopher Hitches, and Richard Dawkins is Paul’s reminder that God is a God of action, the One from whom all comfort is made available for all of our trials. When we take a look at the opening of Paul’s letter to the Church in Corinth we can find two words that appear more than any other: Comfort and suffering. Let me share with you what I’ve learned about these two important words this past week. In the first seven verses Paul uses two important Greek words, the noun “paraklesis" and the verb “parakaleo," ten times in the first seven verses of his letter to the church in Corinth. Both words are rooted in comfort. “Paraklesis” is given by those who care enough to come alongside someone who is burdened down, broken, and hurting in their time of need. The “parakaleo” is the person who is willing to bring comfort. These words are used ten times in these seven verses. These same two words are used fifty-nine times in the New Testament. Of those fifty-nine occurrences, Paul uses them twenty-nine times here in 2 Corinthians. This lets us know that “comfort” is a major theme of this letter. But what is the biblical definition of comfort? What is the comfort that God provides? David Garland writes,

For us, the word ‘comfort’ may connote emotional relief and a sense of well-being, physical ease, satisfaction, and freedom from pain and anxiety. Many in our culture worship at the cult of comfort in a self-centered search for ease, but it lasts for only a moment and never fully satisfies… The comfort that Paul has in mind has nothing to do with a languorous feeling of contentment. It is not some tranquilizing dose of grace that only dulls pain but a stiffening agent that fortifies one in heart, mind, and soul. Comfort relates to encouragement, help, exhortation. God’s comfort strengthens weak knees and sustains sagging spirits so that one faces the troubles of life with unbending resolve and unending assurance. (Galand, David. 2 Corinthians. pg. 60)

The comfort that God provides might be better described as “strengthening encouragement” instead of comfort as the idea of freedom from pain or emotional relief. This strengthening encouragement that God provides is much needed in our world today, every bit as needed as it was in Paul’s day and in Paul’s life. There is a second theme in Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth that runs parallel with the theme of comfort and that is affliction, hardship, and suffering. The Greek word for “affliction” or “troubles” is “thlipsis" and it occurs forty-five times in the New Testament. Paul uses the word more than any of the other authors of the New Testament and he uses this word the most here in 2 Corinthians. This word, which means, “an oppressive state of physical, mental, social, or economic adversity,” covers a broad range of the troubles that we face in life. In three different places, in this letter alone, Paul lists a catalog of hardships he suffered in his life (2 Corinthians 4:7-12; 6:4-10; 11:23-29). We will only take a look at one of these lists. 

24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. (2 Corinthians 11:24-28 NIV)

Paul had his troubles, some that were unique to Paul because of his assignment as an apostle of Jesus Christ, but each and every one of us knows what it means to suffer hardships in life. Just last Sunday you all stood with Jorgi and Stephanie Eugene when they committed to set a Christ-like example for their son Nathan as his parents. You stood with them and committed to pray for them, encourage them, and walk with them throughout their journey as parents. It was a wonderful moment for the Eugene family and for our church, but there was another story taking place at the same time. Nathan is actually a twin. His twin sister, Stella, was born ten days before Nathan. He only weighed 1 lb 14 oz, but Stella was only half Nathan’s weight. Stella only lived a few hours before she died. I called Stephanie this week and told her that my heart was so full of joy and broken at the same time as we stood together last Sunday. I shared these verses with Stephanie and asked if she and Jorgi have experienced the comfort of the Lord during their loss? Stephanie shared with me many ways they saw God’s hand upholding them, strengthening them, and comforting them even now as they think about Stella when something significant happens in their family. Many years ago John and Cristy Doerner were blessed with a little boy named Matthew. Matthew was born with Down Syndrome. A phone call from then St. Louis Cardinals Head Coach Gene Stallings made a huge impact on John and Cristy. Coach Stallings son, Johnny, who was born with Down Syndrome and was 24 years old when he called John. He told John that Johnny was his best friend and unlike other kids who grow up and move away, Johnny would be with him the rest of his life. That made a huge impression on John and Cristy. Doctors discovered that Matthew had a heart condition that would require open heart surgery when he was seven months old. Matthew was on the operating table for eight hours, he spent twenty-four more hours in ICU before he died. Connie and I drove up from Plano to see John and Cristy when Matthew died. I called John on Wednesday and we talked about Matthew. I asked John if he and Cristy felt God’s comfort during that time? John said, “Mike, that had nothing to do with me. I wasn’t the one on the operating table for eight hours. I wasn’t the one who was in ICU. I’m still alive. Matthew is the one who died, but I know that Jesus comforted Matthew at that time.” The situations and circumstances that you have faced and that we will face again in life can be gut wrenching, absolutely crushing. There are many today who will try and answer the “Why?” question. I’ve heard some of the most hurtful things shared with those who are in the crucible of pain and affliction–“You are going through this because there is sin in your life. You need to confess your sin and God will deliver you out of this trial.” “You need to have more faith. God can heal you if you only have faith.” “God needed another little angel.” That’s not what people need. What we need is to know the God of all comfort and the “Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” What people need is to know that He can and will comfort us in all our troubles…”  There is one final thing I’ve learned this past week that I’d like to share with all of you and it is found in verse 4 where Paul writes,

4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Corinthians 1:4 NIV)

Paul didn’t take his seat at the philosopher’s table and join in the discussion about whether or not a Sovereign, All-Powerful God is able to do anything about human suffering or if He is incapable or just disinterested. Paul didn’t try to explain the details of why people suffer like Job’s friends (boy were they wrong!) Paul was a man of action and the action he took was to allow the comfort and strength he had received from God and allow it to flow through him into the lives of those who were troubled and weary. Paul would tell you and me, “God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters.”I’m no prophet, but I know there are many of you who are here this morning who are weary. Your health is declining, your marriage has fallen apart, your son or daughter is heading down a dead-end road, someone who was so important to you has died and now you feel so alone. Maybe you are surrounded by supportive caring friends and family. I pray that is the case, but you need to know that the comfort offered by people can only reach so far. What you need is the comfort of the God of all comfort whose comfort can bring strength, healing, and hope to the deepest, most broken places of your life. Will you invite Him in this morning? Mike HaysBritton Christian Church922 NW 91stOKC, OK. 73114September 25, 2022