Scripture Daily

Context No. 2687 of 4322 · 2 Corinthians

Context · Reflection

2 Corinthians 1:1-7: in context

1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: 2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5For as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, even so our comfort also abounds through Christ. 6But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. 7Our hope for you is steadfast, knowing that, since you are partakers of the sufferings, so you are also of the comfort.

Paul opens his most personal letter not with argument but with blessing: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort." He has been through real affliction, and this is where he starts.

Watch what he says comfort is for. God comforts us in all our affliction, so that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves received. The consolation is not an exit from suffering; it is company inside it. And it is not given only for our own relief. It is handed to us as a supply meant to be passed along, so that the person who steadied us when we were shaking becomes the very steadiness we offer to the next person who shakes.

When God comforts me in a hard season, do I hoard the relief, or let it become comfort I can hand to someone else?

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