Slices
Prepare
Think of a time when you experienced God’s comfort. Did that help you to offer comfort to others?
Bible passage
1 Paul, 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:
2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise to the God of all comfort
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If 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. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, 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. 9 Indeed, 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. 10 He 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, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favour granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
Explore
Those of us of a certain age, me included, may remember the Beatles lyrics ‘Speaking words of wisdom, let it be’ (1970). Paul begins his letter speaking words of comfort – over and over again. The word has the meaning of standing alongside, giving strength. Not so much being wrapped in cotton wool, more being gently prodded. We tend to prefer cotton wool, wanting to be shielded from hardship and sheltered from difficulties. But God’s comfort operates in the midst of troubles, enabling us to stand and to know his presence. The Holy Spirit is the Comforter who stands alongside us (and prods us!) (John 16:7).
Moreover, we are not the centre of the picture. Comfort flowed from God to Paul, and then from Paul to the church. There was a cascade effect, and the catalyst was suffering (v 7). In Paul’s case it was not just a minor irritation but a life-threatening attack (v 8). So much so that his deliverance felt like a resurrection (v 9)!
Suffering, comfort, awareness of others: it is a life-giving sequence that God wants to develop in your life and mine… speaking words of comfort, let it be. And indeed it will be, because our God is the God of all comfort.
Respond
Are you overwhelmed today? Pray that God will send someone alongside you and then gently prod you into getting alongside someone else.
Deeper Bible study
Pray for grace today to ‘read, mark, learn and inwardly digest’1 the Word of God.
The themes of cross and resurrection permeate the whole of the New Testament. As Christ was raised out of death by God’s power, so we can trust that, whatever befalls us in life, God can bring life from it (v 9). It requires a mighty leap of faith to believe this and the timescale is not for us to determine, but Christ defines who God is and what God can do and so the confidence has a solid foundation.
This is a comforting faith and it is no weakness to acknowledge that all of us need at times to be comforted. We might all share in the sufferings of Christ at some level. Paul could claim that he did so ‘abundantly’ (v 5) and he was not wrong. The precise nature of the troubles of which he speaks in verse 8 are not clear, but he has referred (probably metaphorically) to fighting with ‘wild beasts in Ephesus’.2 Paul was a brave man, but his was not a false machismo. He was emotional as well as passionate, vulnerable as well as resilient. He did not believe that as an apostle of Christ he was exempt from sufferings – quite the opposite: as a servant and apostle he was bound to suffer with Christ (v 5). He had looked into the abyss of death (v 9), but he was delivered and he trusted that God would again deliver him. Moreover, he saw in all of this a divine purpose: he was receiving God’s comfort in Christ so that he might comfort others and they too might endure in the faith of Christ (v 6). This man’s life was defined by God’s overall purpose of salvation.
Let us admit it: in trouble and tragedy, in sorrow and sadness, we need the God who raises the dead. In him we place our trust.
‘Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed are those who take refuge in him.’3
1 Thomas Cranmer, collect for the second Sunday in Advent 2 1 Cor 15:32 3 Ps 34:8, TNIV
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: 2 Kings 8,9; Psalms 62,63
Pray for Scripture Union
Give thanks to God for the opportunity churches have to be safe places where young people can find acceptance, purpose and positive role models that they so desperately need with the uncertainty in the world. (This week's prayers relate to this article.)
