01 Suffering, Comfort & Prayer: What Paul Teaches about Ministry (2 Corinthians 1:1-11)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome back to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the first talk in my new series on the book of 2 Corinthians. Today we'll be studying 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 1 to 11. Show notes with an outline and links for everything mentioned in the talk are on my website. You can find those at WednesdaytheWord.com slash 2 Corinthians 1. Thanks for making Wednesday in the Word a part of your day, and I really hope you enjoy this series. Well, welcome to a new podcast season with a series on 2 Corinthians. As we go through this letter, I'm going to argue that knowing the background is essential to understanding it. Now, of course, you can read the letter and get a basic understanding of what Paul is saying. You can learn a lot about God, reality, and truth, and apply those truths to your life. But it's hard to see the flow of the letter from just a surface reading. Knowing something about the relationship between Paul and the Corinthian church provides another, deeper level of understanding. The flow and the argument begin to make sense if you know the history between Paul and the Corinthian Church. In 2 Corinthians, Paul seems to dive into a subject out of the blue, and you might find yourself wondering, okay, Paul, thanks for addressing that, but why now? What does that topic have to do with the rest of the letter? But if you know the background and what's been going on between Paul and the church in Corinth, you can see that now this seemingly new topic makes a lot of sense. Rather than giving you a long background talk up front, I'm going to bring most of the background information in while we're talking about the various passages where it makes a difference. If you're interested though, I do have an episode on Acts 18, which details Paul's relationship to the Corinthian church prior to writing this letter. And I will put a link to it in the lecture notes in case you'd like more background information on the city of Corinth and Paul's relationship to the church there. But for our purposes in this series, there are three pieces of information that I think everyone needs to know to understand this letter. One of them is grammatical, and the other two are historical background information. Let's talk about the grammar issue first. Paul frequently refers to himself in the first person plural. He says we, and in the context, he usually means I Paul, and we're going to run into that right in the very first chapter. In specific context, he can mean either I Paul or we Paul and Timothy, or we apostles, or we all believers. But usually he means I Paul. Now sometimes the distinction between whether he means I Paul or say we apostles, it doesn't really matter. What he's saying is true for all the possible meanings of we. But in other places, it is crucially important that we make sure we understand that he means I, Paul. Now we did run into this issue in my series on 1 Corinthians, but I think it's even more important in 2 Corinthians. We modern readers often read ourselves into that we and we think, oh yes, Paul means me, all believers, because God comforts all believers in affliction. Well, it is true that God comforts all believers in affliction, but in the context, Paul is not talking about you, he's making a different point. And as we'll see, the first chapter is one of those places where Paul says we and he is referring to I, Paul. Now often we can tell who the we is by looking at the contrasting pronoun in the section. For instance, he will talk about we and then he switches to you. And sometimes it's easier to figure out who the you is, and then once we know that, we can figure out who the we is. Some places, understanding the pronouns is going to make a big difference in how we understand the text, and at other places, it won't make very much difference at all. And we'll be talking about that as we go along. But as Bible students, we want to make sure we first understand what Paul is saying, particularly if he's saying it about himself, and then figure out if and how it applies to other believers. Now, one more point. Just because Paul may be referring to himself in a particular passage, that does not mean that what he says does not have any application for us. It does have application. I'm not arguing that it doesn't. I'm saying we need to understand what Paul is saying about himself before we can properly apply it to ourselves today. And we'll be looking at those places when we come to them and talking about that. The second piece of information we need to know is that Paul wrote another letter to the Corinthians after writing 1 Corinthians and before writing this letter. In this letter we're studying now, 2 Corinthians, he is responding to how they responded to a missing letter that came in between. And in the next podcast, we'll go over that timeline in more detail. For now, you just need to know that after writing 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote another letter to the church in Corinth. It's a letter that didn't survive. We don't have a copy of it. This missing letter was about some serious issue that Paul needed to address. Titus took that letter to Corinth. After delivering that letter, he met Paul in Timothy in Macedonia. Titus has reported back to Paul about how the Corinthians responded to this last missing letter, and that response was mostly positive. After hearing the report from Titus, Paul sits down and writes this current letter. Now Paul really wants to visit Corinth again. He doesn't want to send letters, this one included, but he is writing this as an intermediate step between the previous missing letter and the visit he is planning to make next. As I said, we'll go over that timeline in more detail next week. For now, what you need to know is that the occasion that sparked this letter is the report from Titus about how the Corinthians responded to a lost letter that Paul wrote. Some in the church accept Paul as an apostle and they trust him, but many have rejected his apostleship altogether. We saw that conflict in our first Corinthians study. By the time we get to this letter, the situation seems to have escalated. Ultimately, 2 Corinthians is a defense of Paul's apostleship, and the way he defends himself is not only brilliant, but also incredibly gracious and loving. Paul is writing to a church which, like every church, contains a mixture of genuine believers and those who are not believers. As we saw in 1 Corinthians, a noisy, if not large, faction in the Corinthian church didn't like Paul and they have rejected his authority. In Corinth, those who reject Paul seem to have gained a prominent place in the church leadership, and this is creating a lot of discord in the church. As we'll see, many have gone so far as to reject Paul as an apostle, and they are challenging his authority. Now these people would claim they are Christians. In fact, they would probably say they're better Christians than Paul. They think no one should listen to what Paul has to say about anything. As we get into the letter, we're going to see that Paul doesn't just disagree with these people. He calls them false apostles, deceitful workers, and associates of Satan. It's true that Titus brought back a report that was more positive than negative, but Paul still feels like he has to make this defense. He wants to show the Corinthian Christians that he is one of the true apostles and that these other teachers, these other men and leaders, are leading them astray. And again, we'll go into that in more detail as we go through the book, but for now realize Paul's primary purpose in writing this letter is to defend his apostleship. This is a deeply personal letter from a man fighting for respect from a community of people that he dearly loves. So the three things that to keep in mind as we study are one, Paul often refers to himself in the first person plural. When Paul says we, he frequently means I, Paul. Two, Paul wrote this letter in response to a letter we don't have. And three, Paul has a very difficult relationship with this church. Some in the church respect and accept him, but others in the church have rejected his authority as an apostle. So with that in mind, let's start into chapter one. I'll read the greeting in 2 Corinthians verses 1 and 2. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the Church of God that is in Corinth, with all the saints who were in the whole of Acacia. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. New Testament letters typically start with this format. They start first by identifying the author, then there's a salutation and often a prayer. In these greetings, it's often significant how Paul chooses to describe himself. In this case, he describes himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. An apostle is one who has been sent to speak authoritatively for someone else. In this case, Paul has been sent by God to speak authoritatively for Jesus the Messiah. Paul emphasizes God himself decided that Paul would be an apostle of Jesus Christ. Now is that significant? Is there a reason that Paul might choose to emphasize that God chose him to be an apostle? Well, in this case, I think yes, there's every reason to think he would emphasize that. Paul has a very contentious relationship with the Corinthians. Later in this letter, we'll see a kind of sad and sarcastic section where Paul argues that he is indeed a genuine apostle. Some in Corinth view Paul with contempt, they don't think he knows what he's talking about, they don't think he's taught the right gospel, and they don't accept him as an apostle at all. Given that situation, it's not surprising that Paul would start by reminding them God chose him to be an apostle. Paul didn't ask to be an apostle, he didn't campaign for it, he didn't get elected to the job, he was minding his own business when God spoke to him on the road to Damascus and called him to be an apostle. But a significant number of people in Corinth don't believe that. So I think it's significant that right off the bat, Paul reminds them, God chose me to be an apostle. In light of that background, let me use an analogy to describe how we should think about this letter. Suppose the president of a company launches a new branch of his company in a distant city. The company's mission is good, it brings jobs, it brings opportunity and long-term value to the community. But the employees at this branch are disorganized, they're skeptical of the leadership, and they're dismissive of the corporate direction. So the president sends one of his most trusted senior advisors to help. This advisor, this leader, carries the president's full authority. He doesn't come with fanfare or a flashy resume. He comes to serve and to guide and to bring things back into alignment with the company's purpose. But the employees at the branch don't like this man. They say he's not very impressive. He doesn't speak like a leader, he's not charismatic or flashy, and he's not the president, so why should we listen to him? They claim they respect the president, but they don't want to listen to the ambassador, the president sent. They ignore his instructions, they question his credentials, and they even spread rumors about his motives. Well now the leader finds himself in a difficult position. He doesn't want to puff himself up or brag about himself. He knows he's not the president, he's just a servant, someone carrying out orders, and yet he also knows to reject him is to reject the president. He was chosen to speak on the president's behalf. Ignoring him is not just a personal insult, it's a rebellion against the one who sent him. That's the kind of tension that Paul faces in writing this letter we call Second Corinthians. He's not trying to defend his personal honor, he's defending the authority of his message and the authority of the one who sent him. His role as an apostle isn't about ego, it's about being obedient to the job God gave him to do. And he knows that rejecting his authority, rejecting Paul's authority, ultimately means rejecting Christ. So we should think of 2 Corinthians as a letter from a rejected ambassador. And that's basically what it is, the whole thing from beginning to end. Paul even calls himself an ambassador at one point. We see him emphasize, hey, I am just a man like any other man, I have many weaknesses, I have faults, but on the other hand, God appointed him to speak for Jesus, the King of the universe. The Corinthians cannot dismiss Paul and expect to keep the approval of the king who sent him. Now I think that's really important to keep in mind because this informs everything we're going to see in the letter from beginning to end. We did see this issue a little bit in 1 Corinthians, but in 1 Corinthians, Paul addressed some other issues as well. In this letter, though, Paul deals with this issue of his apostleship from beginning to end. Paul's difficult relationship with the Corinthians informs every square inch of this letter. From start to finish, he's defending himself. This is a very personal letter. Paul doesn't enjoy defending himself. He doesn't really even seem to want to talk about himself, but he's concerned for their eternal well-being and he knows he has to speak. He has to explore this issue with them. Because of all that, we see a lot of Paul the man in this letter, maybe more than any of his other letters. Now I don't want to imply that every person in Corinth was set against Paul. He had a difficult relationship with many in the church, and that difficulty has left him hurting, and we'll see that clearly in the letter. But it's not true that he sees the church as a whole as being filled with unbelievers who have set themselves against him. At times, Paul will speak with confidence that there are genuine believers in Corinth. But there is definitely an influential group in Corinth that has rejected Paul. Sometimes he'll make negative comments about them as a group, sometimes he'll make positive comments about them as a group. It just depends on who he has in mind when he's talking. So given that situation, I would paraphrase the salutation like this. I, Paul, am writing this letter to you. Given our troubled history together, let me remind you who I am. I have been chosen by God Himself to be an apostle, an authoritative representative of Jesus, the Messiah. Our brother Timothy is also here with me. We are writing this letter to the church, the gathering of God's people, which I founded in Corinth. I expect that this letter will also make its way to all the churches in the region of Acacia. May God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ grant you grace and peace. And that brings us to the body of the letter. I'm going to read verses three to eleven and then we'll go back and talk about it. So starting in Second Corinthians verse three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in the affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort, for we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia, for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessings granted us through the prayers of many. Now this passage is rightly celebrated as a beautiful description of God providing encouragement in the middle of affliction and of Christians encouraging each other. And that happens, that's true. But in this historical situation, I want to make sure we understand what's going on in this letter. This is one of those passages where Paul uses we to talk about himself. Now, this passage does have application for all believers, and we're going to talk about that a little later on. But as we study this passage, to figure out what it means, we need to realize Paul is talking about himself and his relationship to the Corinthians. And this is going to become clear, I think, by the time you get to verse six. Notice we get the contrast between we and you. Paul is the we, the Corinthians are the you, and we can see that in six through eight. Let me read that again. And if we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort, for we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. This is Paul talking about himself in distinction from the Corinthians. All believers do not experience affliction in Asia, but Paul did. This picture of one person being encouraged for the sake of another is Paul's description of his being encouraged for the sake of the Corinthians. His concern here is his relationship to them as their teacher and pastor. Paul suffers for the sake of the Corinthians' salvation. God encourages Paul so that he can pass that encouragement on to the Corinthians. And the Corinthians are praying for Paul's deliverance, and then they give thanks when Paul is delivered. And that's a beautiful picture of mutual concern. But notice what's interesting is in the very next verse which we didn't read, in 112, Paul says, For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom, but by the grace of God and supremely so toward you. Now in the very next section, Paul insists that when he was in Corinth, he conducted himself with godly sincerity. Well, that's something you say when you have to defend yourself. You only make that kind of claim. You only claim, I hey, I acted with integrity and sincerity if someone is accusing you of not acting with integrity and sincerity. If we were to read on in the next section, I think it becomes clear a significant number of the Corinthians don't think that Paul has been conducting himself with godly sincerity. In fact, they don't think Paul is an apostle at all. So this picture of mutual concern is not universal. Not everyone he's writing to would say, oh yeah, that's how I see the relationship. In fact, they don't see the relationship that way. Some of them think Paul doesn't really care very much about them at all, and they point to certain of his past actions as evidence that he doesn't. Paul pictures them as uttering grateful prayers on his behalf, but at least some of them have rejected him and aren't praying grateful prayers at all. So remember, Paul is the rejected ambassador for some in the church. So I think behind this picture of mutual encouragement, Paul is urging them to view their relationship a certain way. He wants them to see their relationship the way he sees it. As a minister of the gospel, Paul is suffering for their sake. His ministry and his suffering should mean something to them. It should inspire them to pray for him and to be grateful when God delivers them. This is not just a nice statement by a Christian about God helps us encourage each other. This is a statement about the apostle Paul's relationship to the church in Corinth that he is hoping they will embrace and accept. Okay, so let's look more closely at what Paul says. Go back to verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. Paul praises God because God is the source of all good things. God is the one who gave us our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who brought salvation to the world. But the emphasis here is that God is the one who sent him. God is the one who is responsible for us having Jesus as our Savior. God is also the one from whom we receive mercies. Of course, the big mercy we receive from God is the forgiveness of our sins, and that leads to eternal life. But here he has mercies in the plural, and I think he has in mind, in addition to salvation, God is the source of many individual acts of mercy and compassion toward his people. He is the source of the compassionate acts that help us endure, help us persevere and thrive and ultimately arrive in the kingdom of God. In particular, God is the source of the encouragement which Paul is going to talk about as he goes on. Let's bring in verse 4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Now this is an interesting picture of the mercies and the encouragement of God. If you're like me, I suspect that you would like God's mercies to visit you in the form of avoiding all the trouble. I want God to mercifully take me out of the path of trouble so that I go around it and it doesn't hurt me and doesn't trouble me or touch me. Well, Paul paints a different picture. He says, God showers us with mercies and encourages us right in the middle of those afflictions. He doesn't remove them, he encourages us in the midst of them. Now I'm not saying God never removes afflictions. Sometimes he does, but what Paul is thanking him for here is that in the middle of his afflictions, God has encouraged him. Now my translation has the word comfort rather than encouragement. That's not a bad translation. I'm using the word encouragement rather than comfort because to me, the word comfort sounds like there's someone who is upset and that person needs to calm down. You need to comfort them so they calm down. That person needs to stop crying, take a breath, and think through the situation. That sort of thing. But I think this word is more dynamic than that. I think it has more the sense of urging someone on, of giving someone the courage to keep going. It has more the flavor of don't give up, persevere till the end. I think that's more the sort of thing that's being talked about here. It's not calm down, it's more hang in there. Again, Paul is saying this about himself. As an apostle, Paul has suffered many, many afflictions. And in the midst of those afflictions, God has given Paul the encouragement to persevere. But that encouragement was not just for Paul's sake. Paul has learned lessons that he can pass on to others. He has faced into his troubles and let the truth of the gospel encourage him. He can then talk about those experiences as a way of helping others find the same encouragement. He goes on in five and six, for as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. So here's the picture that he's painting. Just as Christ suffered in this world, so his followers will also suffer. Jesus told his disciples that they would suffer for his sake, and that is particularly true for the apostles. When Paul proclaims the gospel, he receives the same reaction that Jesus himself received. Some people gladly embrace the gospel, but many others reject him and want to kill him, and they have caused him a great deal of trouble. But proclaiming the gospel not only causes trouble, it is the source of his encouragement. Following Christ is what encourages Paul to keep going. Christ is the source of the encouragement that ultimately Paul wants to pass on to others. Now Paul makes it clear that both the afflictions and the encouragement are for their sake. Paul suffers because he proclaims the gospel, and he proclaims the gospel for their sake. After having been beaten in the last town, what motivates Paul to walk through the gates of the next town, knowing they're probably going to beat him too? Well, he does it for the sake of the Corinthians and all of those that he is teaching and preaching the gospel to. That ministry is intended to provide the Corinthians with encouragement and the message of salvation, and Paul suffers to bring them the gospel. Likewise, when God encourages Paul, Paul can pass on to the Corinthians and those that he's teaching the encouraging lessons he has learned. The ups and downs of his life are meant to teach and bring the gospel to other people. Now, one important result of all this is that it helps those he teaches to patiently persevere through their own sufferings. Perseverance is one of the great goals of the Christian life. In the midst of temptation and trials, we are to remain steadfast in the hope of the gospel. We endure suffering with hope and with perseverance. That's the heart of the Christian life. And this is what Paul believes is happening to at least some of the Corinthians. He is grateful for the hardships because he knows they have value. They have value both for him as a believer and for those he teaches. And he's glad that the Corinthians have been able to benefit from his teaching and his suffering, even though he has suffered a great deal. He is also grateful that God has encouraged and strengthened him in the middle of those sufferings, so that he himself has been able to persevere in the faith and he is able to pass on the lessons he has learned to others. Going on in verse 7, our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. Now here's one of those places that make it clear that at least some in the Corinthian church still respect Paul and still trust him. If this were the only comment we had about the Corinthian church, we might think, oh, the church is doing great. But as we go on in this letter, it will become clear that he does not think they are doing great as a whole. In fact, he suspects some of them are not believers. Later he's going to say, test yourself to see if you are actually a believer. And that is not a bit of kindly advice. It's a warning. He's saying, you better check yourself and see if you're really a believer, because I don't think you are. That's the tone Paul uses later in the letter. His hopeful comments here then can't extend to the entirety of the church because later he's going to say that he wonders if some of them are believers at all. Paul goes on now in a very personal way, talking about the sufferings he has faced. Let's bring in eight through eleven. For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia, for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessings granted us through the prayers of many. Now we know that Paul spent several years in Ephesus, which is in Asia. The book of Acts and Paul himself in these letters tell us something about his time there. We know that there was a near riot there. In 1 Corinthians, Paul describes himself as having wrestled with wild beasts while he was in Ephesus. That's not a recreational activity. He is metaphorically saying he faced many adversaries there. Paul makes it clear just how difficult it was for him. Now, if you just read through Acts and his comments about Ephesus and other letters, you might get the impression that, well, yeah, he had a tough time, but maybe not any tougher than any other place he went. But here he talks about how difficult it was. It was so hard that he seriously thought he was going to die. It was beyond his strength, and he despaired of life itself. He had to trust in God who is powerful enough to raise the dead. He felt so beaten down that God needed to raise him up because he couldn't do it for himself, but still he set his hope in God and God delivered him. Now, why would he go into this kind of detail about the difficulty of his circumstances? I think Paul wants to make a personal connection with the Corinthians. He has said his sufferings are for their sake, he's been encouraged, and that encouragement is also for their sake? I think there's an implicit make room in your hearts for me. I want you to understand how hard this has been for me and appreciate what I've done for you. If Paul's teachings mean anything to them, if his troubles mean anything to them, they should be touched and concerned that Paul is facing such difficulties to bring the gospel to them. And they too will cry out to God to help Paul in his troubles. When God helps Paul, they too will have the opportunity to experience gratitude when Paul is delivered. It's not just Paul who has the opportunity to feel gratitude that God heard his cry for help, but everyone who shared in that cry will have the same opportunity to be grateful. Now let me give you my sort of explanatory paraphrase of these verses that we just looked at, and then we're going to wrap this up by talking about what it means for us. In this section, Paul says, in my ministry as an apostle of Christ, I suffer through many troubles. I praise God who sent Jesus our Savior and who pours out on us his compassion and encouragement because he has greatly encouraged me in my troubles, and I in turn can encourage others in their troubles. The result then is that my encouragement helps you persevere in the faith in the midst of your troubles, and my confident hope for you, at least some of you, as that you will persevere in the faith. Now let me tell you, my troubles have been great. So great that I thought I was going to die. It was more than I can handle. I had to put my trust in the God who is powerful enough to raise the dead, and he delivered me, and I am gratefully confident that he will continue to deliver me in the future. If my ministry is important to you, then you Corinthians have the opportunity to share in my gratitude. By joining me and calling out to God to help and deliver me, when God hears your prayers, you can join with me in being grateful for God's response. But Paul knows not everyone in Corinth is praying for his deliverance because they don't think he's an apostle at all, and they probably wish he would just go away. So behind Paul's words is this kind of wistful yearning. He longs for the Corinthians to see their relationship the way he sees it. And he's going to make that longing more explicit as we go through the letter. Now let's explore a couple of the ideas that come out of this passage. First, the big one is this idea of encouragement and passing encouragement from one person to another. The first question we should answer is what do we mean by encouragement? I think in this context, Paul has something like this in mind. Encouragement is the process by which the good news becomes real. This is one of the major themes in the New Testament. This is really what the Christian life is all about. The Christian life is this process by which the truths of God move from our head to our heart, to our gut, and to our will. They become more than abstract truths. They become the principles and the basis by which we live and breathe. And this movement happens through trials and tribulations. God tests the maturity of our faith through trials, and as we persevere in trials, our faith is matured, and those truths that we have been taught become real to us in a profound way. This language about encouragement in the midst of afflictions is another way of talking about this theme of trials, testing and maturing our faith. You can think of it kind of like weight training. When we want to strengthen our muscles, we work with weights and resistance bands and we strengthen our muscles by working against that resistance. Well, the trials of the world are like that weight, like that resistance. They push at us and weigh us down. When we face a hard choice or a tragedy or a suffering of some kind, we have to look deeply into the truths of God and ask questions like: Do I believe him? Do I really believe he's in control? Can I count on him? And the trial causes us to personally embrace those truths in response to the difficulty. We wrestle with them and we run to God. And then those truths are no longer abstract ideas, but they become something that we personally embrace and apply to our lives. We grow in personal belief that God is really good and that the promises of eternal life in the kingdom of God are very important. We recognize God's hand at work in our lives, and we have tangible experience that God is merciful to us. Trials make the truths of the gospel become very real and encourage us to continue to persevere and to pursue the things of God with obedience and sincerity. And Paul suggests that we find such encouragement not only by facing trials ourselves, but by seeing how other believers have faced trials. Seeing others turn to God in the midst of suffering can be very inspiring. Watching them, we can share in the joy when God showers down mercies on them. Now I don't know any perfect people, but I do know many people who have persevered in faith under great pressure. And those people have emerged with wisdom and compassion and strength, even though they're still sinners, and they are very inspiring. So, yes, Paul is talking specifically about himself as an apostle, but there's a sense in which this is true for all of us. When God gives one believer strength and perseverance in the midst of life's sufferings, it can multiply to provide encouragement for many others. Now, many letters in the New Testament talk about this, but I think what's unique here and what's interesting is Paul's emphasis that our encouragement can end up being an encouragement to someone else. And I know I have found that true in my own life. Now, the other thing I want to talk about is what Paul says at the end about prayer, because that raises an interesting question. Paul talks about the Corinthians joining him through their prayers, and how should we picture that? How do we help each other with prayer? Well, let me give you an analogy for one way we could understand what Paul means, and I'll tell you right up front, this is the wrong way. We should not think about prayer this way, in my opinion. Suppose Paul's car is stuck in the mud and he tries to push it out, but he can't do it. Eventually, one other person comes by and they both try to push the car out of the mud, but they're still not strong enough to accomplish this task. But then a crowd of people come by and they all get behind the car, and together they all start pushing, and this time the car becomes free because Paul needed a lot of help. Was that how we should think about prayer? Is that an appropriate analogy? When we pray for others, does it take a certain number of prayer warriors to secure an answer? Do our prayers have to reach some critical mass before God will act? I know a lot of people who view prayer that way, I don't think they'd explain it that way, but they act as if that's the picture of prayer. But I don't think that's what the Bible teaches. Let me give you a better analogy. Instead of thinking about prayer like a group trying to push a car in the that is stuck in the mud, think about it like a family. When a little child wakes up in the night from a bad dream, she runs to her parents for comfort. And when she does, her brothers and sisters might wake up and gather around her too. Not because the parents would refuse to help her without them, but because they love her too. They want to be there. They want to be alongside her and to say, you know, it was just a bad dream, you're not alone, we love you. I think that's a better picture of prayer and how prayer encourages each other. We turn to God because we trust him. We pray for each other because we care about each other, and we know that God is the one we should turn to. Our prayers don't convince God to do something that he doesn't want to do. We don't need to reach a critical mass to get God to act. We pray together because we trust God together, and we pray because we love each other enough to bring each other's needs to God in prayer. And when God answers, it's not just the one person who feels the joy. Everyone who shared in the prayer gets to celebrate. Look at how Paul describes his situation. Paul has put his trust in the God who can raise the dead. Paul believes that putting his trust in God is right and sufficient. He is invested. His hope is in the God who can raise the dead, and he trusts God will deliver him, and in fact God did. God is not going to ignore Paul because no one else prayed for him. The Bible never paints a picture of God waiting until enough people pray to act. He would act if no one prayed at all. He is the Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort. Now, does that mean there's no point in praying for each other? Should the Corinthians say to themselves, well, Paul's prayers are enough, he doesn't need ours? No, absolutely not. I think that's framing the question the wrong way. Prayer is not like a financial transaction. We don't say, hey Paul, I think you have enough prayer credits in your account, so you don't need any of mine. Or we don't say, oh wait, you've run out of prayer credits. Well, I've got extra this month, so I'll share some of mine. Prayer is not like that. Now, I know to be fair, no one would ever explain prayer like that. I'm using that analogy to make a point. I don't know anyone who would teach this concept of prayer credits, but while no one would explain it that way, we often act as if it works that way. We sometimes act as if God won't respond until we pray, or we act as if prayer is a kind of force. And the more people that pray, the more force is exerted, and the more force that is exerted, the more likely it is that what we want to happen will happen. Well in my opinion, the Bible never describes prayer like that. We pray because we trust God. Why does Paul ask God for deliverance? Because he's suffering and God is the one who can help him. He trusts God and he believes God is the one he can turn to. Why do the Corinthians ask God to deliver Paul? Because they care about Paul. They see Paul suffering and they want God to help him. They trust God and they think God is the one who is going to solve this problem. It's really that simple. They pray because they're concerned, they ask because they love God and they love Paul too, and so they ask God to help him. For Paul, it's significant that many people are praying for him, not because it makes it more likely that God will act, rather, it's significant because he sees they care about me and they trust God. And that's a good thing. People who care about Paul's situation enough to pray about it, that's a good thing. It means they love God and it means they love Paul as God's ambassador. If Paul by himself prays and God delivers him, then Paul experiences the gratitude of God heard me and rescued me. If many people pray for Paul's deliverance, then many have the opportunity to experience the gratitude of God heard us and delivered Paul. In short, prayer is our natural response to the God we believe. Prayer is turning to God the way a toddler turns to her parent and says, Pick me up. I need you. That's why Paul's thankful for the Corinthians' prayers. Not because he needed a certain number of prayer votes to tip the scales with God, but because their prayers showed they cared both about Paul and about God. Their prayers were an expression of their trust. And when God answered, all of them could see it and all of them could rejoice together. So prayer is not about putting pressure on God to act, it's about building relationships with God and with each other. It's an act of love, not leverage. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. The blog version of this podcast is on 2 Corinthians 1. You can hear all previous episodes in this series on my website, WednesdayandTheWord.com. There's no charge, no spam, and no ads. It's all free to help you improve your study skills and understanding of scripture. But if you've been blessed by this podcast, please follow the podcast and leave me a positive rating or review wherever you listen. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can find Reggie's music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.