INTRODUCTION
Every now and again, one of our politicians expresses a view that cuts to the heart of Australia’s social conscience. Sometimes these phrases come back to haunt them during the next election campaign. Occasionally their words will be immortalised as famous words of a great leader. Generally the former is the case. Looking back over my relatively short time of political awareness, some of these pearls of wisdom have included:
- Gough Whitlam’s words from the steps of Parliament House on November 11, 1975. Not too many people have been able to maintain the rage for 20 years.
- Another was Bob Hawke’s faux pas that no child would live in poverty by the year 1990. He obviously wasn’t a prophet.
- Paul Keating came out with one a number of years back with his reference to the banana republic.
- Alexander Downers public life was full of them.
- And Bob Carr has stated that he will resign if hospital waiting lists aren’t halved within 12 months. Whether those words prove to be his downfall or a social and political tour de force won’t be known for another 10 months.
- But my favourite is a comment made by one John Malcolm Fraser - that "Life wasn’t meant to be easy." Was he right? Is life meant to be easy? Sometimes our lives go along relatively smoothly and yet at other times they are anything but easy.
But these words of Malcolm Fraser could just as easily have been the words of Paul as he wrote to the Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians Paul goes into some detail describing the sufferings he has endured and draws some conclusions as to the nature and purpose of comfort.
1. HISTORICAL SETTING
CORINTH - 55 AD
But before we approach the beginning of Paul’s letter, it may be helpful to get a feel for Corinth in 55 AD. During Paul’s lifetime, Corinth was one of the most important cities in the Roman Empire. It was a commercial bridge between East and West. It attracted immigrants, merchants and visitors from all areas around the Mediterranean. The inhabitants of the city came from a diversity of backgrounds and retained many of their social customs and religious beliefs that were peculiar to their places of origin.
Thus the church at Corinth was exposed to an amazing variety of customs and beliefs as well as a corrosive atmosphere of public immorality. Each of these factors encouraged moral laxity and divisiveness within this predominantly Gentile Christian community.
BASES FOR PAUL’S LETTERS
The church in Corinth had been established by Paul in around 50 AD. He sailed for Syria after staying there for around 18 months on his second missionary journey. Following his departure, the church began to divide based upon the various leaders’ styles - whether Paul, Apollos, or Peter. The Corinthians also raised some questions and issues for Paul to address. His response to them is what we now know as his first letter to the Corinthians.
At about this time; a group of teachers apparently came to Corinth from Palestine. They claimed to be Christians, emphasised their pure Israelite descent, and presented themselves as true "servants of righteousness". Basically, they persuaded some of the Corinthians that the Mosaic law was still operative. This obviously didn’t go down too well with Paul, who referred to them as "false apostles" and "deceitful workmen masquerading as apostles of Christ". As a result, he was attacked by them in terms of his personal, spiritual and professional capacity.
Paul despatched Timothy to look after this trouble, but was unsuccessful. As a result, Paul found it necessary to make a "very painful" visit to Corinth that also did not resolve the crisis. To make matters worse, Paul’s authority was further challenged by some unspecified act of disobedience.
Following this confrontation, Paul then wrote a particularly severe letter to Corinth in which he passionately defended his apostleship and demanded that the disobedient person be punished. A follow-up visit was put on ice as he was waylaid by an unspecified affliction. He sent Titus to deliver the letter who subsequently returned with news of the Corinthians repentance.
When he was informed that the Corinthians had received and essentially obeyed this angry or severe letter, Paul wrote from Macedonia what we now know as the second epistle to the Corinthians. In this letter, which we will start to look at today, Paul expresses his gratitude and joy for their repentance, asks forgiveness for the punished disobedient person, and generally elaborates on the proper relationship between an apostle and his congregation. The beginning of the letter is an attempt by Paul to reinforce his apostolic authority to the congregation because he writes as "an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God".
Thus, Paul’s letter is a direct response to a series of generally unpleasant events. The importance of this letter lies in its details concerning Paul’s life and ministry; and his personality and character under stress. He shares his experience of suffering with the Corinthians and speaks of how and why God’s work is expanded in the process.
2. PAUL’S HARDSHIPS
The first 11 verses of 2 Corinthians contain a number of significant ideas.
- Paul refers to the hardships that he has endured,
- he writes about the place of suffering in our lives, and
- he writes of God being the God of comfort.
He makes reference to his hardships in verses 8 & 9 when he says "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death." There is some debate as to what these hardships consisted of. Popular opinion is the riots in Ephesus resulting in the charge of sedition being levelled at Paul which caused him to leave that city. But no matter what they were these words are not words of defeat, but words of victory.
In chapter 11 Paul goes into some detail to describe for the Corinthians what he has endured. He compares his own life to that of the false apostles in Corinth when he says "I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 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. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches."
These are not the words of one who has given up, instead they are words that reflect great hope. They are written by a man who could have retired comfortably from the proceeds of selling his story to "New Idea" and "60 minutes" and probably get a contract with News Limited into the bargain. The life he relates is a what’s what of suffering. Would Paul say that life was meant to be easy? He’d learnt the hard way! But he had learnt much more which he shares with his readers!
3. COMFORT FOR GOD’S PEOPLE
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?
We’ve seen that, certainly in Paul’s case, life was not meant to be easy. Paul had no expectation that life would be easy - which was lucky for him. For him, physical, emotional and spiritual attack was the norm. Shipwrecks, floggings and itinerancy were part of his territory.
But what do you expect from life? Do you expect suffering and hardships or do you expect an easy run through life? If you drove from here to Sydney tomorrow morning at 8:00am, would you expect to get an easy, relaxing drive without any holdups? No - you expect to find traffic in Sydney at 8:00am on a Monday morning. But if you had come to Sydney for the first time ever and were instead used to driving on country roads where the closest thing to a red light is a brown cow, then you may be in for a shock. It all relates to our expectations and our experience.
Our society and our culture have softened our attitudes and expectations. We expect the good life and get irritated when things don’t go our way. Life was not meant to be easy. We can reasonably expect suffering and hardship because we follow Christ and this world is not perfect. God wants us to enjoy life, but we cannot legitimately expect everything to go our own way. Peter writes "rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed ... if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name."
THE SOURCE OF COMFORT
Yet throughout his suffering, Paul developed a new insight into the power, compassion and grace of God. He shares that insight with his listeners in verses 3 and 4 when he calls God "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." Paul uses the terms God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble.
For Paul during his hardships and recent affliction, God was the final, absolute source of comfort. Rather than crying into his beer, Paul sought and found solace in our God.
If we view God as the source of all comfort, then we can view Christ as the channel through which God’s comfort is made available to us. In verse 5 Paul writes "For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows." God is the source, but Jesus is the agent.
Where do you go for comfort? Sometimes, we can talk to family or friends, sometimes complete strangers seem to be the answer because we can pour our heart out to them knowing we don’t have to live with them knowing anything about us. Sometimes, we just want and need to be by ourselves. But for Paul, maybe after trying all of these alternatives, God was the only source than provided real consolation. He says in verse 9 that "this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead." After all of our own reserves have been exhausted, God is still there. If God can raise people from the dead, then He is our hope for eternal comfort.
THE REASON FOR COMFORT
So what sort of comfort can we expect from God and what are we to do with it? Paul tells us that we obtain comfort "so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." The comfort we get is one that is to be shared.
We can only really empathise with someone when we have gone through similar experiences to them. It’s like when you meet someone for the first time and discover that you share a similar experience. You can talk for ages about the experience because you have common ground and can understand where the other is coming from. Likewise with comfort. We are comforted by God so that we can comfort others in turn. We can identify with them because we’ve been there; done that, and survived! Likewise, Jesus is able to fully identify with us and our condition for the same reason. The writer of Hebrews says that "we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin." Jesus can identify with us in our temptation and in our needs.
But Paul also says in verse 6 that "if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer." So suffering can also breed endurance. Knowing that we will be comforted gives us a light at the end of the tunnel. It makes suffering bearable and it produces in us endurance and patience.
One of God’s aims in redemption is the comforting of His people. A significant number of Old Testament books have comfort as a significant theme including Job, The Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations.
Isaiah 40 begins with "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God" and in Isaiah 66:13 God addresses the Jews saying "As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you." Psalm 119:49 and 50 echoes our own thoughts "remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life." And the Psalmist continues in verses 76 and 77 "May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant. Let your compassion come to me that I may live, for your law is my delight."
But Paul also points out that, if our hope is that God will always deliver us from pain and alleviate our suffering on earth, we are in for a shock. As he points out in this opening part of his letter to the Corinthians "We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death." These are not the words of someone relaxing by the fire with a pair of slippers and the good book. Obviously, comfort is not a mortal condition that we can expect!
CONCLUSION
But Paul does not leave it there. He asks the listeners to join with him in his ministry by prayer. The power of prayer is one means whereupon God’s comfort can flow through us. In this letter to the Corinthians, Paul makes particular mention of the power of prayer - "you have helped us by your prayers ... many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favour granted us in answer to the prayers of many."
Paul believed in the power of prayer, and he knew the power, grace and compassion of God. He also came to realise that we cannot boast in ourselves, but in the strength of God. We cannot rely on ourselves, but only on the one who has gone before us and can comfort us.
Looking back at this idea of comfort, the Macquarie Dictionary defines comfort as:
- consolation in grief
- relief for affliction
- a state of ease
- freedom from pain and
- the capacity to strengthen.
But as we have seen, comfort is not an end in itself. Paul’s life was certainly not "comfortable" as we would probably think of it. It is not the type of life people was advertise to fill spots in a retirement village or as the holiday of a lifetime. But comfort seeks to bring comfort to others. We have and can continue to find comfort in our God so that we can show others where eternal comfort can be found. The comfort we can and will receive from God is eternal comfort. For Paul, God provided a measure of deliverance on earth as well as hope for future deliverance as well. He is a man who knows the value of comfort.
But how far away from Corinth 55 AD are we today? Not really very far. Ask yourself these questions ...
- What do I expect from life? An easy road or hardship and suffering?
- Where do I think is the best place to seek comfort? Is it in God or somewhere else? and
- What sort of comfort do I expect? A comfort to console only me or a comfort that I can share with others when they too need comfort!
But if life wasn’t meant to be easy, what was it meant to be? Paul had endured suffering to the point that he had given up on seeing a new day. At one of these times he hears God telling him that "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Paul responds with "I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
No! Life is not meant to be easy. It is meant to be an opportunity for us to start relying on the grace of God as we seek to know His Son better and become more like Him. For when we are weak, then Christ’s power can rest on us.
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© Gary Bennett
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version.
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission.
