When All You Need Is a Word of Encouragement (2 Corinthians 1-2)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Are you feeling hurt and discouraged today?

If so, Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 1 will be a timely relief. The background from 2 Corinthians involves ongoing tensions between Paul and some church members who questioned his authority and teachings. After addressing various issues in his first letter (1 Corinthians) and making a painful visit to Corinth, Paul wrote this second letter to defend his apostleship, encourage reconciliation, emphasize generosity, and address concerns about false apostles influencing the community. He writes in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7,

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. ⁴ He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. ⁶ If we are afflicted, 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 that we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will also share in the comfort.

What was this affliction? Paul doesn’t say, but in 2 Corinthians 6:5, he notes that some of the afflictions the Corinthians endured include beatings, imprisonments, riots, sleepless nights, and times of hunger. “So far, God has delivered him from every peril. But when God delivers Paul from one distress, the apostle tumbles into another.”^[1]

Through this affliction, God provides comfort. The Greek word translated as comfort, paraklēsis, is used in 2 Corinthians 29 times—this out of the 59 times it’s used in the New Testament. As David Garland writes, “The comfort that Paul has in mind has nothing to do with a languorous feeling of contentment. It is not some tranquilizing dose of grace that only dulls pains but a stiffening agent that fortifies one in heart, mind, and soul.”^[2]

Murray Harris adds, “Throughout 2 Corinthians the ‘comfort’ Paul is depicting is a consolatory strengthening in the face of adversity that affords spiritual refreshment. It is much more than verbal solace or an expression of sympathy.”^[3]

A Meditation to PRAY

Praise | Heavenly Father, I praise you as the God of all comfort and the Father of mercies. You have been my refuge in times of affliction, and your compassion never fails. I glorify your name for your endless comfort, strengthening my heart, mind, and soul.

Repent | I confess that in moments of despair and discouragement, I have sometimes relied on my own strength instead of trusting in you. Forgive me for doubting your presence and forgetting that you are with me even in the darkest days.

Ask | I ask you now to fill me with your comforting Spirit. Just as you comforted Paul in his sufferings, comfort me in my afflictions so that I may also comfort others. Grant me the patience and endurance to face my challenges, and help me fully trust in you, knowing that you will deliver me.

Yield | I surrender my fears and burdens to you, Lord. I lean into your everlasting arms of comfort, trusting that you have not forgotten me. Guide me to trust not in myself but in you, the One who raises the dead and delivers us from every peril. I yield to your will and rest in the assurance of your eternal comfort.

A Challenge to Act Like Christ  

In John 14:16, Jesus uses this same Greek word translated as “comforter” and says that this comforter, the Holy Spirit, will be with us forever. The reality that we serve a God of comfort is a lifeline we can hold during dark days. Often, the warmth of the comforter’s presence is most felt when life gets darkest.