Comfort

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

He comforts us in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

2 Corinthians 1.3,4

Hughes:

Every one of Paul’s epic miseries was attended by God’s comfort. His repeated imprisonments in Asia Minor, in Greece, and in Rome’s dank Mamartine prison were venues of God’s comfort. Through each of the forty lashes administered on five separate occasions, with the final lashes meant to bring him to the point of death, and through the torturous days of healing that followed each of the five beatings, he experienced the comfort of God. When he was stoned in Lystra with the largest stones being hurled upon his fallen body as the coup de grace, he experienced the comfort of God. Adrift like flotsam on the high seas (for the third time!) he knew the comfort of God again. When he was in danger from rivers —God’s comfort, danger from robbers — God’s comfort, danger from his own people — God’s comfort, danger in the city — God’s comfort, danger in the wilderness — God’s comfort, danger from false brothers —God’s comfort. “In toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure” (11:27), Paul always experienced God’s comfort. Never once was he without the com-fort of God. The result was that Paul was able to comfort those “in any affliction” (imagine, any affliction) — and he did so with the comfort with which he himself had been comforted by God.

How did Paul comfort others with the comfort with which he had been comforted by God? Overall by his example — as they observed his attitude and deportment in and through and after his sufferings. And then there were his prayers. And of course there were his gentle words of comfort, graced with authenticity and power, so that God’s comfort was administered through him.

Affliction is essential. What we conclude here is that affliction was the key to Paul’s effectiveness in ministry, and affliction is the key to effective ministry today. How countercultural this is. It even runs counter to so much “Christian” thinking that regards affliction as evidence of personal sin or deficient faith, and sleekness and ease as palpable evidence of divine blessing.

The truth is that God’s comfort always exceeds our afflictions. “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too” (v. 5). Those who follow Christ know the greatest affliction — and the greatest comfort, a flood of comfort. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (v. 3).

 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.

1.6

Paul views both his experience of afflictions and his experience of comfort as contributing to the Corinthians’ comfort. This is a dynamic way of looking at life because it endows all Christian living with elevated importance. The hard things we undergo as well as the comforts are all graces that together authenticate and empower ministry, so that those who truly desire to minister will patiently accept their lot from God and work on.