Rick Warren, former pastor of Saddleback Community Church in Southern California, shared his son Matthew’s struggle with depression that led to his suicide. Rick related that Matthew struggled with this his entire life, even though they sought extensive treatment, counseling, and prayer over the years. Rick shared how he continued to believe God for a miracle, but also encouraged Matthew, that failing to receive complete freedom, that he would continue to pray for God’s strength, that he could manage the challenges he was facing. Despite all these efforts, Matthew ended his life after twenty years of struggle. This catapulted Rick and Kay into a ministry that they never wanted but God certainly called them into which was to minister to others who are struggling with the loss of a loved one. Six months after the death of their son, Rick and Kay Warren expressed the following sentiment in an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan: “We intend to spend the rest of our lives comforting others with the same comfort we have been given by God. …Your deepest life message will come out of your deepest pain.”[i]
Not until the first heaven and earth pass away, and God’s eternal kingdom is established will God wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death, mourning, crying, or pain will be no more, for the old order of things will have passed away.
As we begin our journey through the most autobiographical sketch into the life of Paul, we discover the nature of the gospel, the challenges, the sorrow, and the ultimate hope that God’s gracious message brings into our lives. In the introduction of this second letter to the Corinthians, where we discover Paul’s greatest pastoral challenge. Linda Belleville, in her commentary on 2 Corinthians explains that itinerant minsters were challenging Paul’s credentials and his authority and even distorting the nature of the gospel.
The central theme of 2 Corinthians is divine power in weakness. It is a theme that the church in the West has tended to shrug off as appropriate only for Christians living under oppressive political regimes. …Not so with Paul. He defines the role of the gospel preacher in terms of the trials and hardships through which God’s power is seen and appropriated. It is the same for the church, which, Paul says, must suffer “the same sufferings we suffer” before it can experience the same “comfort” we experience (1:6–7).[ii]
Paul’s focus on visions, revelations and the miraculous suggests that at issue was what constituted an appropriate witness to the gospel. A mistaken emphasis on the miraculous by these so-called super-apostles resulted in a misconstrual of Jesus as a wonderworker rather than a suffering servant, and a misrepresentation of the Spirit as a miracle empowerer rather than a guarantor of the gospel message. In so doing they effectively put forward “a different gospel” (11:4). For Paul, the role of the miraculous was to validate, not displace, the gospel. This is clear from the recurring thought in his letters that his preaching was one of word accompanied by power, conviction and the Spirit (1 Thess 1:5; see also Rom 15:19; 1 Cor 2:4; Gal 3:5).[iii]
In Paul’s greetings to this congregation, he appeals to three important aspects regarding the nature of the gospel. This gospel of Jesus has the power to comfort us in the hours of darkness where suffering and pain at times seem to overwhelm us.
PAUL’S GREETING APPEALING TO HIS AUTHORITY AND AUTHENTICITY OF HIS MESSAGE
Generally, letters in the ancient world included at the beginning both who the sender was and who the recipients were. This is generally followed by some expression of greeting and stating a desire for their wellbeing.
- Paul’s apostolic authority expressed.
Paul, however, gives a very simple yet very descriptive greeting which includes his spiritual authority. He is “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” He also includes Timothy as a fellow co-author.
“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:”[iv]
What is an apostle? “An apostolos is an emissary who is authorized and commissioned to carry out a personal mission on someone else’s behalf.”[v] Paul is saying that he was commissioned by Jesus. We know from his amazing conversion to Christ when he was confronted by the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, that Jesus called him. This was according to God’s will and plan for his life. What Paul was saying was that he was sent by Christ as his representative. That as Christ’ representative, he spoke the message of Christ, and therefore this message was one that had divine authority. In Paul’s commissioning there is the human equation. Blinded by the light of Jesus, he is led into Damascus where Jesus explains that he will be told what to do. Then Jesus tells Ananias to go and lay hands on Paul that he might recover his sight and give him a message.
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. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’[vi]
He is not an apostle by virtue of his own abilities, powers, or self-assertion. The Corinthians were looking for a genius. God sent them an apostle, who was theirs in weakness and suffering.[vii]
The issue, simply put, is that to reject Paul’s message is in reality to reject God’s message, which some of the Corinthians were doing. How it applies to us today is that when we reject Scripture, what we are doing is rejecting God’s message to us. So, what was the gospel message that Paul preached and how did it differ from the false messages coming from these false apostles (2 Cor. 11:4-5)?
- The Blessings and challenges of the gospel.
Paul understood that the gospel that brought such amazing benefits such as forgiveness, peace, joy, hope, and eternal life also created times of persecution and hardships. In returning to an area where Paul had suffered persecution he encouraged these new believers with these words of hope, but also a warning to have a mind prepared to suffer, which we also need to take to heart. Notice how Paul preached that the gospel is incredibly good news, but the journey through life as a believer is difficult.
They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. ‘We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,’ they said.[viii]
Paul is tying the true message of the gospel to troubles, trials, and tribulations in this earthly life. His authority is being challenged because another message of power and prosperity is being embraced, while Paul is seen as weak, struggling, and suffering. Paul will talk about God’s power being displayed in weakness. Jesus came to earth as a helpless babe and died a disgraceful death as a falsely accused criminal. However, what seemed like human folly, was God’s wisdom. What seemed like human weakness was a demonstration of God’s power as he wrote in his first letter.
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’[ix]
To reject Paul and his message is to reject Christ, as he is simply Christ’s representative bringing the proper message to the church.
- The spiritual standing of the recipients.
The recipients of the letter are the Corinthians, and in particular those who are the church, the Ekklesia, “the called-out ones,” who are described as God’s holy people in the province of Achaia. Once you know the lifestyle and behavior of these people you may question Paul’s choice of words, but the word ‘holy’ means to be separated by God for His purposes. When we think of the word ‘holy’, we have this picture of people living at a higher degree of spirituality than normal Christians, but that is not the meaning. As God’s holy people, we have been set apart from the world to reveal God’s grace. God’s grace is His unearned favor, or favor despite ourselves.
Despite their past problems and recent rebellion, the repentance of the majority of the Corinthians (cf. 2:6; 7:2–16) has demonstrated that they continue to be God’s people (cf. 7:2–16).[x]
Paul’s greeting to them is conciliatory in tone. “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”[xi]
Paul wishes his readers a continuing experience of God’s merciful gifts, from forgiveness and justification to deliverance from the power of sin and eternal life. Paul can do so because Christ’s death on the cross for those who deserve only God’s wrath makes such grace possible. Accordingly, Paul’s desire that they experience “peace” is not primarily a wish for untroubled circumstances. Rather, he wishes them that comprehensive shalom or well-being that characterizes the lives of believers, individually and corporately, when all is right with God, a possibility also granted by the grace of God through Christ.[xii]
Our wellbeing is not defined by our circumstances, but by having a right relationship with God despite our circumstances. Mark Siegfrid explains the nature of God’s grace for our lives and how we appropriate it for all the different aspects of living in a broken world.
Growth is nothing other than growth in the faith that grasps Christ and his saving work again and again in the ever-changing circumstances of life—that is, in trouble and deliverance, affliction and comfort.[xiii]
Whatever our state in life, we are more than conquerors in Christ. We know that our God is with us, and we know our future destination, despite the earthly challenges that we may be facing.
THE PRAISE DUE TO THE FATHER OF COMPASSION AND ALL COMFORT
We are directed to the source of all compassion and comfort in our time of need. It is the Father, who understands suffering as He suffers with us. In the Judeo-Christian worldview we see the revelation of the suffering God. While other religious ideas show God or the gods as absolute, all-powerful, and transcendent. We have a God, who is our Savior, who identifies with us in our pain. We see it demonstrated as the suffering Father in the story of the testing of Abraham, and in the NT in the prodigal son whom the Father is seen waiting for and then compassionately forgiving.
We see the suffering as God took upon himself in the person of Jesus, a human body, yet without a sinful nature. He made himself of no reputation, by taking on the very nature of a servant, humbling himself by becoming obedient to a shameful, criminal death on a cross as a substitute for our sins. The prophet Isaiah explains this substitutionary expression of compassion toward us. “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering (Isaiah 53:4a).”
- Paul’s expression of thanksgiving for God’s compassion and comfort.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.[xiv]
It is easy to talk about divine comfort in the abstract, but for Paul, God’s comfort was very real. It was something he received with Titus’s arrival from Corinth (7:6) and something he experienced on hearing the good news about the Corinthian church (7:4). In turn, the comfort that he gained when “harassed at every turn” (7:5) prepared him to give encouragement to those around him (1:5). Suffering, then, is a training ground for service to the body of Christ. It equips us so that we can better minister to those who, for the sake of the gospel, are going through trials and hardships. In this way we mediate God’s encouragement.
Second, the provision is not deliverance “from” but encouragement in trouble (v. 4). The Christian is not promised release from trouble but help in the midst of it. The implication is that if we are serving Christ, we will encounter hardships. This is a given of the Christian life, as it was a given in Christ’s life.[xv]
- We share in the sufferings of Christ.
Rather than focus our thoughts on ‘why’ in the hour of suffering, Paul brings us to the person who will see us through the suffering and use what God takes us through to bring comfort to others.
Paul’s message thus stands in stark contrast to the old, unanswered human question of the origin of evil: unde malum? In contrast to the question of suffering that seeks an answer that we might then carry around in our heads to our own satisfaction, Paul speaks of the comfort that God has given in Christ. He understands that we need something more, something larger and greater than an intellectual answer to the question of suffering, just as we need something more than mere outward aid or assistance. He announces a comfort in which the warmth of God’s love and understanding is present, along with the hope of deliverance from evil. …In Christ, God promises to wipe away, not only the questions in every mind, but also the tears from every eye. This comfort—which can come from God alone—cannot be found in an “answer” but only in a relationship of communication with God, in which there is a place for petition and lament, and also thanksgiving and praise.[xvi]
Richard Bauckham sums it up well when he says,
To identify with Paul’s experience, we do not need to be shipwrecked or imprisoned or lowered in a basket from a city wall. Even without the physical dangers of Paul’s career, anyone who throws himself into the work of Christian ministry of any kind with half the dedication of Paul will experience the weakness of which Paul speaks: the times when problems seem insoluble, the times of weariness from sheer overwork, the times of depression when there seem to be no results, the emotional exhaustion which pastoral concern can bring on—in short, all the times when the Christian minister or worker knows he has stretched to the limits of his capacities for a task which is very nearly but by God’s grace not quite too much for him. Anyone who knows only his strength, not his weakness, has never given himself to a task which demands all he can give. (1982:5–6).[xvii]
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. 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. What happens to us is not just for our spiritual growth and development, but for the growth of others.[xviii]
THE DELIVERANCE AND FAVOR GRANTED IN ANSWERED PRAYER
God does hear the cry of our hearts but does not always answer in ways that we fully comprehend. Why does God allow hardships? Why do we experience troubles? Why is it that these troubles are often beyond our ability to endure? Paul’s answer is simply that we will not rely upon ourselves but on God.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.[xix]
Paul explains the proper response to these pressures is to learn to rely on God and seek the prayers of the community of faith. This moves us from self-dependency to reliance upon God and from isolation into community. Whenever we are experiencing trials the worst thing we can do is withdraw. We can also be inspired by the courage and examples of others who have successfully navigated through life’s sufferings.
It also moves us from the focus solely upon our struggles to discover God and then how we can help others. Many believe that the challenge Paul was speaking about at that moment was in Ephesus, when there arose a great uprising and riots. He desired to go and defend the message but was dissuaded by the believers.
When we embrace Paul’s point of view of God, suffering, and ministry, we will rejoice in all things. So, what is Paul’s point of view in a nutshell? God is Sovereign and in control of all things and working all things out for our ultimate and eternal good. Secondly, our suffering is the context for God’s comfort. Scott Hafemann explains the significance of the words interpreted as ‘troubles’.
The words he chooses to refer to his troubles (thlipsis and pathema) were general terms that could be used to signify both physical and emotional distress, as well as the suffering caused by persecution. Hence, Paul’s full-orbed definition of suffering speaks against those who, whether in Paul’s day or our own, attempt to limit the kinds of suffering that can legitimately be experienced by those who are filled with the Spirit. In such a “health and wealth gospel,” those who truly live by faith may be persecuted, but they will not be subject to emotional illness, physical sickness, or financial distress. Yet the general terminology Paul uses in this context to describe affliction, together with his own experiences of physical suffering, persecution, natural deprivations, economic hardships, and the emotional distress of anxiety (see 1 Cor. 4:11–13; 2 Cor. 2:12–13, 17; 4:8–9; 6:4–10; 11:23–28; 12:7; Gal. 4:12–16), makes such a limitation impossible.
At the same time, Paul never glorifies suffering per se.
For Paul, suffering is not intrinsically good, nor is it a Christian virtue. Rather, suffering is a page in the textbook used in God’s school of faith (cf. vv. 8–10). It is not suffering itself that teaches us faith, but God, who uses it as a platform to display his resurrection power in our lives, either through deliverance from suffering or by comfort within it (vv. 4–6, 10).[xx]
Ministry often flows from the comfort we have experienced in our times of suffering, sorrow, and distress. Experience is a profound teacher of God’s grace and goodness in our lives. Comfort in our darkest hours come from God’s presence with us. We should ask:
- What am I learning through this time of distress in my life? What comfort is God revealing to me, that I could help others through their time of suffering, distress, or sorrow?
- Paul’s life, message, and leadership were being challenged by false messengers bringing a false message that appealed to the Corinthians. Can we identify a false gospel message that will not sustain us through the darkest hours?
[i] Rick Warren, taken from a T. V. interview with Piers Morgan, September 24, 2013. Liberty.edu.
[ii] Linda Belleville, 2 Corinthians, Vol. 8, The InterVarsity New Testament Commentary Series, (InterVarsity Academic, 1996).
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] 2 Corinthians 1:1, The New International Version of the Bible, Zondervan, 2011.
[v] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, New International Version Application Commentary, (Zondervan Academic, 2000), 43.
[vi] Acts 9:15-16.
[vii] Mark Seifrid, The Second Letter to the Corinthians, Pillar New Testament Commentary, (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Apollos, 2014), 3-4.
[viii] Acts 14:21-22.
[ix] 1 Corinthians 1:27-31.
[x] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 46.
[xi] 2 Corinthians 1:2.
[xii] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 47.
[xiii] Mark Seifrid, The Second Letter to the Corinthians, 8-9.
[xiv] 2 Corinthians 1:3-4.
[xv] Linda Belleville, 2 Corinthians, Vol. 8.
[xvi] Mark Seifrid, The Second Letter to the Corinthians, 3-4.
[xvii] Richard Bauckham, (Themelios Journal: Weakness-Paul’s and Ours, 1982:5–6), as quoted by Mark Seifrid, The Second Letter to the Corinthians, 8-9.
[xviii] 2 Corinthians 1:6-7.
[xix] 2 Corinthians 1:8-11.
[xx] Scott Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 67.
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