2 Corinthians 1:1

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, unto the church of God which is in Corinth, with all the saints which are in Achaia. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble... (2 Corinthians 1:1–11)

Opening a letter that bares the apostle's soul, we discover the God who comforts His imperfect church in all its tribulation.

Why We Are Here in Paul's Story

If you've been with us a while, you know the story. We began the book of Acts at the end of 2008, and we're still in chapter 20—because we've been pausing to study each of the New Testament epistles chronologically as we meet them in Acts. Acts is a history book, recording the first 35 to 40 years of the church in its 28 chapters. It begins with the ascension of Jesus, who at the close of Matthew's Gospel commissioned His disciples to go into all the world, make disciples, baptize, and teach—promising, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Before He left, Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father. In Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, 120 believers gathered and the Spirit of God came upon them. Jesus had said in John 16 that it was good for Him to go, for then He would send the Spirit of truth who would comfort, guide, teach, and empower them to be witnesses. And so Peter—the same Peter who had denied the Lord three times—stood before a crowd of well over 3,000 and preached so powerfully that, in the middle of his message, they were cut to the heart and cried out, "What must we do?" The church was born.

Persecution and an Unexpected Answer to Prayer

This advance of the gospel did not go unhindered. Very quickly the religious leaders of Jerusalem rose against the church with persecution. Jesus had said it would happen: "In the world you shall have much tribulation." Through Acts 4, 5, and on into Acts 8, the trouble grew, especially after the martyrdom of Stephen. Then one Saul of Tarsus began to come against the church with full force, breathing murderous threats. God even used that persecution to scatter the believers out of Jerusalem into Judea, Samaria, and beyond.

If we had been in a prayer meeting then, I suspect we would have heard prayers like David's: "God, destroy Saul of Tarsus." God did answer prayers concerning Saul—just not the way the church expected. In Acts 9, traveling to Damascus with letters from the chief priests, Saul was knocked down by a blinding light and heard, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" When he asked, "Who are you, Lord?" the answer came, "I am Jesus, whom you persecute." Blind for three days, he was processing everything he thought he knew about God.

From Saul the Persecutor to Paul the Apostle

God then spoke to a believer named Ananias, sending him to the street called Straight to pray for Saul. Ananias protested—this Saul was the modern equivalent of a terrorist against the church. But God said, "Go," and told Ananias to show Saul the many things he must suffer for His name's sake, for he was a chosen vessel to carry the gospel to the Gentiles. For a Pharisee who detested Gentiles, this was a stunning calling.

For some thirteen or fourteen years there is little written about Saul. The gospel was being revealed to him directly by Jesus, as he says in Galatians. Many in the church doubted his conversion was real. It was Barnabas, the son of encouragement, who sought him out, and together God did a great work in Antioch of Syria. There the Spirit said, "Separate unto me Saul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them," and they went out on the first missionary journey, planting churches through Cyprus and into Galatia—Lystra, Derbe, Iconium.

Somewhere in that journey, Saul becomes Paul. "Saul" means one who is desired; "Paul" means little. I wonder if his name reflected a change in how he saw himself. Before Damascus he had it all—on the fast track in Judaism. Yet he counted it all loss, even trash, that he might gain Christ (Philippians 3). He let go of success and laid hold of suffering.

The Road to Corinth

After returning to Antioch, Paul caught the missions bug—anyone who's been on a mission trip knows that sickness. As the gospel spread to Gentiles, conflict arose, leading to the Jerusalem council of Acts 15. Around that time the first New Testament letter, James, was written, and word reached Paul that false teachers had seduced the Galatian believers into a salvation by law-keeping. Heartbroken, he wrote Galatians to call them back to the simplicity that is in Christ.

On his second journey, with Silas and young Timothy, Paul pressed to reach Asia and Ephesus, but God kept closing doors, steering this stubborn apostle into a strategic position. At Troas he had a vision of a Macedonian man pleading, "Come help us." So he crossed the Aegean to Philippi, where—finding no synagogue—he went to the river and preached to God-fearing Gentiles. A church was planted, though Paul and Silas were beaten with rods and imprisoned. From there came Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens, where he reasoned at Mars Hill and met a cold reception from the intelligentsia, as is often the case.

Then he came to Corinth, around 54–55 AD. While there he wrote 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Corinth was strategic—a world trade center where merchants hauled goods across a narrow four-mile isthmus rather than sailing around the Peloponnese, and where north-south travel through Greece converged. With its wealth came idolatry: the temples of Apollo and of Aphrodite, served by temple prostitutes. "To Corinthianize" became a verb in Greek meaning to live a carnal, immoral life. What happened in Corinth stayed in Corinth. And there God planted a church through Paul, who stayed eighteen months—the longest he spent anywhere to that point.

Four Letters and One Beloved, Imperfect Church

Back home in Antioch, Paul heard that immorality, carnality, and divisions had crept into the Corinthian church. That happens, because the church is filled with sinners—us. There's no perfect church; if you think you've found one here, you ruined it the moment you joined.

Now, this gets confusing: our "1 Corinthians" is actually Paul's second letter, and "2 Corinthians" his fourth. He first wrote a letter we don't have, referenced in 1 Corinthians 5:9 ("I wrote unto you in a letter not to keep company with immoral people"). On his third journey he settled in Ephesus for three years, and there word came from the household of Chloe, along with a list of questions and reports of division—"I am of Paul," "I am of Apollos," "I am of Cephas." Paul answered them in the letter we call 1 Corinthians, beginning at chapter 7: "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me."

During this time Paul made a second, sorrowful visit to Corinth (2 Corinthians 2:1; 13:1) and was devastated by what he found—a church that had gone astray and rejected his leadership. Returning to Ephesus, he wrote a third letter, also lost, describing it in 2 Corinthians 2:4: "Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears." You can feel his passion for a church that had wounded him yet that he could not stop loving.

The Soul of Paul and the Love of Christ

As Paul finished in Ephesus, he traveled through Macedonia gathering an offering for the famine-stricken church in Jerusalem—Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea—where believers gave sacrificially out of their own hardship. From there, around 55–56 AD, he wrote 2 Corinthians, his fourth letter, before visiting them a third and apparently final time.

This letter is less theologically focused than 1 Corinthians; more than any other, it reveals the soul of Saul—his heart for a church he loved. And what we are really seeing is not merely Paul's love but God's love, for Paul said, "The love of Christ compels me." God loved the imperfect church at Corinth in the first century, and He loves the imperfect church in Escondido in the twenty-first.

How do we know? In Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church." The church is the bride of Christ. Many of us men feel a little weird about being called the bride of Jesus—be honest. But consider how God has wired husbands: we show love by giving things of value that reveal our devotion. We work hard, buy something costly, and give it sacrificially because its value reveals how we value our wife.

Now look: Christ "gave himself" for the church. We've never given to that point. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." And did He do this for a perfect church? Read on: "that he might sanctify and cleanse it... that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle... holy and without blemish." The very word cleanse implies we were dirty—imperfect, like Corinth. He gave a costly gift to bring us in and to make us ready for the day we stand before Him face to face, beautified though imperfect. He loves His imperfect church.

The Father of Mercies

So Paul writes: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy our brother." Timothy, whom Paul had sent to Corinth, is now with him in Philippi. Paul asserts his apostolic authority, addresses "the church of God which is at Corinth"—still called saints despite their imperfection—and gives his customary greeting: "Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ"—always in that order, always with God as the origin.

Then verse 3: "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort." We could spend years contemplating God's attributes—His holiness, justice, goodness, love—and never scratch the surface. Yet I believe God exalts His mercy above all. Consider Israel: within the first year of seeing the ten plagues, the Red Sea parted, the Egyptian army destroyed, they were dancing around a golden calf. God is just; He should have destroyed them. In Exodus 32 He says He will, testing Moses, who intercedes—and God relents, giving grace and mercy.

When Moses asked to see God's glory, God placed him in the cleft of the rock and passed by, leaving His afterglow. Greater than what Moses saw was what he heard. In Exodus 34:6 God defines His own name: "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful." Of an infinite array of attributes, the first He chooses is His mercy. Are you not grateful He did not say "the LORD God, just"—though He is? Wherever you see any mercy in this world, it came from Him. He is the God of all comfort.

Comforted So We Can Comfort

Paul uses the word "comfort" ten times in five verses—he is trying to say something. God "comforteth us in all our tribulation." Circle that word all. The same word Jesus used in John 16. Some today say a real Christian never faces trouble, but that contradicts both Jesus and the very nature of the God of all comfort. God does not take us out of tribulation; He comforts us in the midst of it. When the doctor says cancer, when the boss says he can't keep you, when the bank sends the foreclosure letter—those troubles are common to all people. But you, Christian, know the Father of mercies in them.

Why does He comfort us? "That we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble"—circle any. A coworker loses a child though you never have. You don't say, "I totally understand"—you'll get punched. You say, "I may not know your exact situation, but I know the God of all comfort, and I want you to know how He has comforted me." We comfort others by being comforted by God.

"For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ." With Christ's sufferings comes Christ's comfort, also abounding. God even orchestrates opportunities for us to suffer—some say that can't be God, but the Bible says it is—so He can reveal Himself as the Father of mercies. Paul said in Philippians 3:10, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings." We love quoting the first half; the rest is, "being made conformable unto his death."

Whether afflicted or comforted, Paul says, it is for the Corinthians' comfort and salvation. As they see God comforting Paul in his suffering, they are assured He will comfort them, for they too will suffer. Paul's gospel was never "Come to Jesus and never suffer." It was, "As many as desire to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Verse 7: "Our hope of you is steadfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation."

Don't Waste the Trial

Remember Paul's backstory—nearly killed in Galatia, beaten in Philippi, driven from Thessalonica, almost torn apart in Ephesus. In verse 8 he says, "We would not have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life." Have you ever been in such a trial that you despaired even of life and said, "Just take me home"? Paul went there. We sometimes exalt Paul so high he seems almost a god—a super-saint who never struggled. But there were times he said, "I can't handle this. It's heavy."

Then verse 9, where our theological brains trip: "But we had the sentence of death in ourselves." God placed this on us. Why would God put me here if He could take me out? "That we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead." He put Paul in a situation that was crushing because He wanted Paul to know Him. Don't waste your trial—find God in it.

Notice the tenses in verse 10: God "delivered us from so great a death"—He has saved us; "and doth deliver"—right now; "in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us"—the promise of future deliverance. Our God delivered us, continues to deliver us, and has promised to yet deliver us. So get to know Him. James says, "Count it all joy when ye fall into various trials"—because you meet God there.

Finally, verse 11: "Ye also helping together by prayer for us." Paul, in God-ordained trouble so burdensome he longed to go home, asks the Corinthians to pray—that through the gift God is working through many, thanks may be given by many. He's gathering that offering for Jerusalem from believers already suffering, and he asks the church not to let him be derailed from the mission. Even when it's hard, even when there's trouble, the mission must be done. So pray—God will comfort, He will deliver, He shall yet deliver.

Church, we will go through trouble. Don't let anyone lie to you from a pulpit and say a Christian never faces difficulty. You will—Jesus said it, and Paul told Timothy the same. But in the midst of it we meet Jesus, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. That is what we'll see in this book. And it matters for us in twenty-first century America, where so much has gone well that even a little wind and waves—a little thlipsis, the tossing of a boat—sends people reeling. God wants us to know Him. Don't waste the trial.

Closing Prayer

Father, Your word is truth, and it is convicting and encouraging at the same time. Help us, Father, to receive Your word today, as we see You revealed in this passage, and to go from this place seeking the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort. We want to know You and the power of Your resurrection and the fellowship of Your sufferings. We want to know You—work this into our lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.