2 Corinthians 1:1-11--God of All Comfort

2 Corinthians 1:1-11
English Standard Version

Greeting
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

God of All Comfort
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 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. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

​8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 11 You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

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Paul opens 2 Corinthians with a greeting that might surprise us if we are familiar with Paul's other epistles, because Paul usually likes to refer to himself simply as a servant, or bondservant or slave of Christ.  If he does ever refer to himself as an apostle, he usually refers to himself as "the least of the apostles," but there was an issue in the Corinthian church where Paul's apostleship is being questioned and challenged.  There have been a series of letters back and forth of which we only have two of them recorded in the Bible.  There was at least one letter before 1 Corinthians (Paul refers to that letter in 1 Corinthians to say that he's already written them about some things), then we have 1 Corinthians, then there is at least one letter between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians as reference is made to another letter, and we finally have this letter.

What is standard about this greeting is that Paul takes some time to mention the co-author the letter, Timothy, to address the letter not just to that particular congregation but to all the saints in the region--meaning the letter wasn't just for them and they were to pass it around to the other local churches and read it aloud to each other--and Paul's standard salutation of "Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."  We see Paul open or close his letters with "grace and peace" quite often, and this has become a standard greeting among Christians.

The purpose of 1 Corinthians was that of rebuke and condemnation for the open and flagrant sin that was in their midst that they were either winking at or giving hearty approval to that were things that not even the pagan Gentiles would be doing, as they abused the grace of God and assumed that they could name the name of Christ and live like the world or worse than the world because it was all under grace.

So then what is the purpose of 2 Corinthians?  Most notably it appears that Paul is concerned about giving this church encouragement and comfort in their time of affliction and reminding them that like Jesus, we suffer greatly, but there will be an even greater victory and a greater glory to come so that we can endure our present sufferings knowing that Christ knows what we are going through and that it's all part of God's plan to make us more like Christ and to make us long for the day when we shall be like Him when we see Him face to face.  We can have  a sure hope--something we talked about already in the book of Hebrews.  Our hope is not something we wish for with an uncertainty the way that we use the word in the English language, but it is something we long and look forward to with a knowledge of certitude as we are sure that it is going to happen because God has declared it, and nothing and no one can stop, slow or thwart God's plan.  We just simply need to wait patiently for God's timeline to be fulfilled.

After Paul points to Christ, he points back to himself and his co-workers to say that they too know what the church in Corinth is going through.  They too have been subject to severe persecution to the point of desiring to die so that this present suffering would end and they would be united with Christ, but that God had more work for Paul to do.  Paul also faced multiple threats of death and there were even a point in Paul's missionary journey where he would be stoned and left for dead and God would seemingly raise him from the dead because he was not finished with him yet.  God delivered Paul and his team from evil men, storms, harsh winters, food poisoning, snake bites, prison, beatings and floggings, and much more and yet it seems that the greatest pain the Paul bore was seeing these friends (his spiritual children) suffer as like any father figure, he'd rather suffer in their place if he could.

Paul says that the only way that he made it through everything was to fix their hope on God who we know as Deliverer.  He will not always deliver us from the trial, but He is always faithful to deliver us through the trial and we know that the Spirit is working to preserve us to one day present us as the Bride of Christ and that He is faithful to bring to completion and fulfillment the work which has been begun in us.  (See Philippians 1:6),  Paul then says they devoted themselves to prayer and that knowing that others were praying for them helped them keep their focus in the right place, and he asked the saints to continue to life him and his co-workers us in prayer and I'm sure it was understood that Paul and his team were joining together to lift up the Corinthian church in prayer as well.