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📚Paul, an apostle 📖 of Jesus Christ by the will of God 📖, and Timothy 📖 our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia 📖: 2 📚Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.Encouragement and comfort in trouble and suffering
3 📚Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion 📖 and the God of all encouragement 📖,
1:3 Here is truth about God’s nature that Paul learned more deeply because of trouble and suffering.⚜
4 📚who encourages us in all our trouble 📖, that we may be able to encourage those who are in any trouble, with the encouragement we ourselves have from God. 5 📚For just as the sufferings of Christ 📖 are in us in abundance, so our encouragement is also in abundance through Christ. 6 📚And if we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation, which is effective in patiently enduring the same sufferings that we also suffer. Or if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement and salvation.
1:6 Paul was all for others, and both his troubles and his encouragements were for their sake (1 Cor 9:19-23; 10:24, 33; 2 Tim 2:10). Only those who follow his example have any right to expect the same great encouragement he received from God. The result of suffering is “patient endurance” – Rom 5:3-5; Jam 1:2-4; 5:11.⚜
7 📚And our hope for you is firm, knowing that just as you are sharers in the sufferings, so you will also share in the encouragement.
1:7 Believers in Corinth also shared Christ’s sufferings. They, too, were objects of persecution, though not to the extent Paul was. But to be willing to share with Christ and His people in suffering is to be able to share in Christ’s comfort and joy.⚜
8 📚For, brethren, we do not want you to be ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia 📖. we experienced pressure 📖 beyond measure, above strength, so that we even despaired of life. 9 📚But we had the sentence of death 📖 in ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. 10 📚He delivered us from so great a death, and continues to deliver, and we trust that he will deliver us,
1:10 This must have been some miraculous and unexpected deliverance. It gave Paul much assurance for the future. Compare 2 Tim 4:18. See also 1 Sam 17:34-37.⚜
11 📚you also helping together by prayer for us, so that many people will give thanks on our behalf for the gift of grace granted to us through the prayers of many.
1:3-11 Here are two important themes of this letter – “encouragement” (or “comfort”) and “trouble”. The Greek word translated “encourage” or “encouragement” (noun and verb) occurs 17 times. The Greek words behind the translations “afflicted”, “sufferings”, etc occur about the same number of times. Paul is not complaining about his troubles – just the opposite (2 Cor 6:10; 7:4; 12:10; Rom 5:3). He found that his troubles and sufferings were working good for him. Let us consider well what he has to say about them.
Through sufferings and troubles he came into a deeper knowledge of God as the encourager and comforter of His people (vs 3,4).
He experienced such sweet comfort in Christ that it made his sufferings seem worthwhile (v 5).
Because of them he was better able to comfort others (vs 4,6).
He learned to rely more on God (v 9).
He came to understand better that troubles in believers’ lives were actually producing greater glory in eternity (2 Cor 4:17).
And he learned that God’s strength in him became the greater as his troubles (and resulting weakness) increased (2 Cor 12:9-10). See also note at Job 3:20.⚜
1:11 Paul had to rebuke believers in Corinth about the poor quality of their Christian lives – 1 Cor 3:1-4; 5:1-2; 6:1. But he still valued their prayers and was sure they would be a help (compare Phil 1:19; Phile 22). From this let us learn that the prayers of even weak and frequently failing believers are not without power with God. Observe also that Paul wanted thanksgiving to God to abound (2 Cor 4:15; 9:11-13).⚜
Paul’s canceled journey to Corinth
12 📚For our boasting 📖 is about this: the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our behaviour in the world, and more abundantly toward you. 13 📚For we are writing nothing to you except what you read or understand. And I trust you will understand, even to the end, 14 📚as also you have understood us in part, that we are going to be your reason for boasting, just as you are going to be our reason for boasting, in the day 📖 of the Lord Jesus.
1:12-14 Some at Corinth were questioning Paul’s truthfulness and sincerity (2 Cor 13:3). So he writes these words. It was important for them to trust him, not for his sake, but for theirs. His “boasting” was really a defense, not of himself, but of the gospel he preached and of his apostleship. All through this letter the false teachers of 2 Cor 11:13 are in view. They brought a false gospel, and in order to defend it they had to attack Paul. In order to defend the true gospel Paul had to defend himself against their attacks. As far as the Corinthians were concerned the gospel stood or fell with Paul. What he wrote them about himself was for their benefit (2 Cor 12:19). At that time they had no New Testament for guidance, and possibly not even a single written Gospel.⚜
15 📚And in this confidence I intended to come to you first, that you might benefit a second time, 16 📚and to come to you on the way to Macedonia, and to come again from Macedonia to you, and to be sent by you on my way to Judea. 17 📚So when I planned this, did I do so lightly? or in making plans do I plan according to the flesh, so that with me there will be “yes, yes” and “no, no”?
1:15-17 This was his original plan which he had to change (compare 1 Cor 16:5-7). It seemed to them that he kept changing his mind for no good reason, and that he planned in a worldly way, as unsaved men do. They were tempted to think that he was fickle, and didn’t give proper thought to what he said.⚜
18 📚But as surely as God is faithful, our word to you was not “yes” and “no”. 19 📚For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not “yes” and “no”, but in him was “yes”. 20 📚For all the promises of God in him are “yes”, and in him “Amen”, for the glory of God through us.
1:18-20 For the sake of the gospel Paul is alarmed that they should believe any such thing about him as is in v 17. And so he solemnly assures them it is not so. His message and his preaching had always been sure and certain and affirmative. There had been no wavering, no change of mind about those vital matters. And he can assure them that there is never any wavering or change in the Christ whom he preached. Every promise God has made He will fulfill in Christ. Silvanus in v 19 is the same person as Silas.⚜
21 📚Now he who establishes us together with you in Christ, and has anointed 📖 us, is God,
1:21 Paul well knew that in the matter of God’s gospel and God’s truth, all believers should be unwavering and steadfast (1 Cor 15:58; 1 Cor 16:13). Only God can make them so (Rom 16:25; 1 Pet 5:10).⚜
22 📚who has also sealed 📖 us, and given the Spirit as a pledge 📖 in our hearts.
23 📚Moreover I call God as a witness for my soul, that to spare you I did not come again to Corinth.
1:23 See how solemnly he speaks. The reputation of Christ’s gospel was his chief concern. Now he gives the reason why he changed his mind. It was not that he did not care about his word, it was that he cared so much about them. See also 2 Cor 2:1-4. He means that the condition of the church in Corinth was so poor that his coming would mean pain and grief to both them and himself. And this he did not want for them. See 1 Cor 4:21.⚜
24 📚Not that we have power over your faith, but we are working with you for your joy, for by faith you stand.
1:15-24 These verses give the reason why some of the Corinthians were doubting Paul’s truthfulness and sincerity. And here Paul gives his answer to their doubts. Paul had made plans to revisit Corinth, had told them so, then for good reasons changed his plans. His opponents said Paul was unreliable, that this was evidence that even the gospel he preached should be doubted, and that Paul might change his mind about the gospel also. Paul was far more concerned with the reputation of the gospel than his own reputation, but they were bound up together. And so he wanted his reputation to be clear for the sake of Christ’s gospel.
In this he is an example to all servants of Christ. We must all realize how Christ’s reputation and ours are tied together.⚜
1:24 He did not want them to misunderstand. He was not a tyrant who could dictate to them. It was their own faith which caused them to stand, not any authority over them he could exercise (2 Cor 13:10). Compare 1 Pet 5:3.⚜