Paul wrote four letters to the Corinthians, two of which survive. Paul planted the Corinthian church and stayed with them for 18 months before moving on to more ministry. Shortly after this, all hell broke loose, and, after writing his first two letters, Paul has to head back to Corinth to deal with them.
They rebuff him and he leaves for Ephesus, writing what is called the “Severe Letter”. This letter shakes them into some form of response, including church discipline on the most egregious offenders.
Paul begins writing Second Corinthians, and midway through gets news from Titus about more bad news – a group has infiltrated the church and is undermining Paul’s teaching and very position as an apostle.
So the letter here is largely Paul validating his apostleship by way of his sufferings. The two key words as he opens his letter are “suffering” and “comfort.”
In that instruction, Paul takes a very Old Testament, monotheistic tack, with God as the source of all mercy and compassion. This is in contrast to the popular religion of the day (and ours) where the power of a god is seen in the material successes of its followers.
God divinely encourages Paul who suffers on behalf of the Son, so that he can be a conduit of comfort for others who suffer on behalf of the Son. There’s a whole lot of comforting going on. God meets Paul with sufficient sustainment to meet his level of suffering. The greater the suffering, the greater the comfort – and the greater comfort he can then provide to others.
What does all this mean for the Corinthians, though? As a result of what is happening in Paul, the Corinthians can take encouragement from it as they also suffer in their own way, and be built up and sharpened more and more into the image of God.
Most of us (probably none of us) will not suffer in the specific ways Paul did (shipwrecks, 30 lashes, imprisonment), but if Jesus is as worthy as God says He is, then we must suffer on His behalf.
Paul then shifts from the general to the specific, recounting what he had Jay endured. God undermined Paul’s confidence in himself in order to build up his confidence in Christ. Just as Christ was led to the cross in order that he might be raised from the dead, so good led Paul to within inches of his life so that his self reliance might be left in the grave and he be raised in himself from the dead.
A key word in this passage is “rely” which has its roots in “persuade” – Paul is no longer persuaded of his own abilities. Meanwhile, the Corinthians saw persuasion as a key value, and the infiltrators sought to persuade them of his unfitness, but the persuasion Paul relied upon was that of Christ, not his own abilities.
Like Paul, we are called to make much of Christ in our American-Corinthian culture, to suffer and be comforted by Christ as we seek to live out the Great Commission. The world does not value the sufferings of Christ, but as we follow and suffer with Him, His sufficiency is revealed in our lives, revealing Him to that world.
– Sermon Notes, Brian Bailey, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, January 14, 2017
2 Corinthians 1:1-11
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