2 Corinthians - Chapter 1

2 Corinthians was written by Paul from Ephesus about 57 AD, probably about 6 months after 1 Corinthians. It contains Paul’s message of thanksgiving and love. He then goes on to describe the tribulations he suffered while preaching the gospel of Christ. As we study this book, compare the difficulties he faced with the minimal hardships we endure for Christ. 

If we look at Acts 19:1-20, it tells us about Paul during this period of time. Some of what we learn from this passage follows:

 ·         Paul worked for over two years at Ephesus. Disciples of John the Baptist accepted Paul’s teaching. Some Jews rejected it. Others wrongly thought the ability to heal was magic. 

·         We learn about the patron goddess of Ephesus. The silversmiths who made the silver shrines of the goddess were fearful this new faith Paul was teaching would diminish the reverence for the goddess and put them out of work. They demonstrated against Paul at the theater and a city clerk convinced the crowd to disperse before it got out of hand. This elegant theater could seat 24,000 people for plays, music, and religious ceremonies. It was also used for public political meetings.

·         These are some of the issues Paul faced and wrote about during his 2+ year stay in Ephesus. We covered a lot of this in our study of 1 Corinthians. These two letters were written fairly close together because he was still in Ephesus when he wrote the second one. Ephesus is where he began his third missionary journey.

Paul wrote these letters to follow up in the spiritual growth of the converts he’d left in Corinth.

What kind of ‘follow up’ work do we do for the new Christians in our church and community? Do we rejoice when they are baptized and then leave them on their own? Most of us do. And that is why there are so many who drift back into their old lifestyle rather than grow in spiritual strength. 

It should be common sense for us to help the ‘newborn’ Christian grow. The practice of the apostle Paul to keep in contact with his fellow Christians reveals to us it should be both a spiritual and Scriptural responsibility for us to continue to help those who are won to Christ until they reach maturity.

In Acts, we learn how Paul made it a practice to re-visit the churches he had founded. As we begin this book, the church of Corinth is about to enter its seventh year of existence. It’s 57 AD and Paul has spent a couple of years in Ephesus, keeping in close contact with the church by sending Timothy, and later Titus, to visit them and bring back word from them. Now he feels the need to visit them himself, but writes this letter before doing so. Its main purpose was to give the church the opportunity to straighten things out for themselves before he arrived to straighten them out his way.

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

To the church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy people throughout Achaia:

Evidently, Timothy was with Paul at the time he wrote this letter.

Achaia refers to Greece, as opposed to the northern Macedonia. Although he is writing to those in Corinth, he also intends for this letter to be read by the other churches in that area.

²Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

Some people blame God for allowing tribulations in our lives. Others praise Him for keeping us from tribulations. Most of us see tribulations as something to be avoided at all costs, but Paul saw them as an integral part of Christian life. He didn’t see God’s comfort as his own personal prize. He viewed it as a means to comfort others. If you have been comforted by God, you have an obligation to extend a word of comfort to your fellow Christians who are also going through trials. 

Just as a child needs a parent’s comfort when he is hurt, we go to our Heavenly Father to have Him kiss away the pain so we can be comforted.

 ⁵For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

The sufferings a Christian endures are felt by Christ—he is our head and we the body. He feels our pain. In Acts 9:4, Christ asks “why persecutest thou me?” Just as nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, so our tribulations can be comforted by Him. You cannot “out-suffer” God’s comfort.

  ⁶If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. ⁸We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,^[a] about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. ⁹Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

Without sorrows and heartaches of this life, we would never know what a faithful Father we have. Without dangers we would never know His ability to deliver. So God permits us to come to the end of ourselves to help us understand we should not trust in ourselves, but in Him.

In verse 8, “brothers and sisters” is translated from the Greek word “adelphoi” referring to believers, both men and women, as part of God’s family.

¹⁰He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, ¹¹as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

Paul thanks the Corinthians for praying for him. Whether we understand it or not, we should pray for those who are troubled and in despair. God does hear and answer our prayers.

¹²Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity. We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace. ¹³For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, ¹⁴as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Originally Paul had planned to cross over by sea from Ephesus to Corinth to visit the Corinthians before going on the Macedonia, and then return back to them on his return trip, giving them the benefit of two visits. But he had a change of plans, and those who opposed him tried to convince the church in Corinth that his word could not be trusted because he didn’t follow through with what he had told them—that he was unreliable. In the following verses, he explains his plans to visit them had not been abandoned, only modified. 

¹⁵Because I was confident of this, I wanted to visit you first so that you might benefit twice. ¹⁶I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea. ¹⁷Was I fickle when I intended to do this? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say both “Yes, yes” and “No, no”?

¹⁸But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” ¹⁹For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silas and Timothy—was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.”

Paul says since they have believed, they have learned God is faithful and they have experienced the gospels dynamic power. He also says God has made promises and will always be faithful to those promises. 

²⁰For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.

When we say “Amen” at the end of our prayers, what are we actually saying?  “Amen” means “so be it” because we are to have faith that if we ask for it, it shall be done because God promised to answer our prayers. Whatever His answer, we are to have faith it is taken care of. Maybe not in the way we expected or wanted, but in the BEST possible way—God’s way, through His wisdom.

²¹Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, ²²set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

The Holy Spirit is a deposit from God as a promise of more to come. A deposit is a first installment (of our inheritance) and assures the recipient the rest is forthcoming.

²³I call God as my witness—and I stake my life on it—that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth. ²⁴Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.

Paul says his reason for not returning for his second visit was to spare them the pain he was experiencing. He had gone through something causing him to fear for his life, and he didn’t want them to endure the same hardship. We are never told what he’s referring to. It is possible this was explained in another letter that may have been lost. His change of plans was not because of a fickle and insensitive attitude, but was done out of love and concern for them.