Paul writes this second letter from Macedonia, not long after leaving Ephesus, and the opening tone is markedly different from the first letter to this same church. Something painful has happened between the two letters — a visit gone badly, a severe letter now lost to history, real anguish on both sides — and Paul opens not with correction but with comfort, tracing every ounce of it back to “the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort,” a comfort he has personally needed after a brush with death itself in Asia.
A study in 2 Corinthians 1 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 15 min read
The God Of All Comfort
“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia.”
2 Corinthians 1:1
Timothy’s name joins Paul’s own in the opening greeting, and the letter is now addressed beyond Corinth itself to “all the saints which are in all Achaia” — the whole surrounding province, not just the one congregation this letter will spend so much of its length addressing directly.
“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
“It was through suffering that Jesus obtained the ministry of consolation. In all the affliction of humanity He is afflicted; and ‘in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted.’ … In this ministry every soul that has entered into the fellowship of His sufferings is privileged to share.”
Ellen G. White · Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 13
Comfort, in Paul’s own account, was never meant to end with the person who first received it. “That we may be able to comfort them” describes a chain running from God to the sufferer to whoever the sufferer meets next, so that no affliction, painful as it is, is ever wasted. This study’s own source ties the whole principle back to Christ’s own experience first — His ministry of consolation was itself earned through real suffering, not granted apart from it, which is exactly the pattern this letter’s own author is about to describe in his own life.
“For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.”
2 Corinthians 1:5
Paul pairs “abound” with both halves of the sentence on purpose — not merely enough comfort to survive the suffering, but comfort that keeps pace with it, matching its own abundance measure for measure.
“And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.”
2 Corinthians 1:6
Paul frames both possible states, affliction and comfort alike, as ultimately serving the same purpose for the Corinthians. Nothing that happens to him in his ministry, on this reading, is simply wasted or purely personal; both halves of his own experience become resources for someone else’s endurance.
“And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.”
2 Corinthians 1:7
“Stedfast” is a strong word for hope resting on a church that has, across the last letter and whatever has happened since, given Paul genuine reason for concern. His confidence is not naive optimism about the Corinthians’ current condition; it is confidence in the same pattern already stated — wherever the sufferings reach them, the consolation will not lag behind.
We Despaired Even Of Life
“For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.”
2 Corinthians 1:8
Paul does not soften this admission for the sake of appearing invincible. Whatever happened in Asia — the letter never specifies exactly what, though a near-fatal illness, a mob, or an arena ordeal are all real possibilities given his other writings — it was severe enough that Paul himself, for a time, gave up hope of surviving it.
“But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.”
2 Corinthians 1:9-10
Paul reads a specific purpose into an experience that could easily have felt senseless — the “sentence of death” stripped away any remaining confidence he might have placed in his own strength, redirecting his trust entirely onto the God who raises the dead. Past deliverance, present deliverance, and future deliverance are named in the same breath, three tenses of the same settled trust.
“Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.”
2 Corinthians 1:11
Paul gives the Corinthians’ own prayers real, active credit in his deliverance — not a polite afterthought, but “helping together,” a genuine partnership between the apostle facing death in Asia and a congregation praying for him from Corinth, so that the thanksgiving afterward has many voices rather than one.
In Him Was Yea
“For our rejoicing is 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 conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.”
2 Corinthians 1:12
Paul is beginning, gently, to defend himself — the first hint in this letter of criticism apparently circulating against his character. His answer is not a boast about accomplishment but an appeal to conscience: plain sincerity, not clever manipulation, has governed his conduct toward the Corinthians specifically, “more abundantly” than toward anyone else.
“And in this confidence I was minded to come unto you before, that ye might have a second benefit; And to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come again out of Macedonia unto you, and of you to be brought on my way toward Judaea.”
2 Corinthians 1:15-16
Paul had apparently promised a double visit to Corinth that never happened as planned, and the Corinthians, or at least Paul’s critics among them, seem to have read the change as evidence of an unreliable, fickle character. Naming the original plan this specifically is itself part of Paul’s defense — he is not vague about what he said he would do, only honest about why it changed.
“When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea yea, and nay nay? But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay.”
2 Corinthians 1:17-18
Paul denies the specific charge behind the criticism — not simple inconsistency, but a deeper accusation that his word itself cannot be trusted, saying yes and no in the same breath depending on convenience. He answers by tying his own reliability directly to God’s own truthfulness, raising the stakes of the accusation considerably.
“For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.”
2 Corinthians 1:19-20
Paul lifts the whole question of his own reliability onto a far larger foundation. His personal consistency matters, but it matters because it reflects the character of the Christ he preaches, in whom every single promise of God finds its unwavering “yes” and its confirming “Amen” — the true and permanent standard his own occasional change of travel plans was never meant to threaten.
The Earnest Of The Spirit
“Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.”
2 Corinthians 1:21-22
Three images stack up in a single sentence — anointed, sealed, and given an “earnest,” a down payment guaranteeing a fuller payment still to come. All three describe something God has already done, in the present tense, not a future hope still waiting to be secured; the Spirit’s presence in a believer’s heart is itself the first installment of the inheritance chapter 5 of this same letter will go on to describe.
“Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth.”
2 Corinthians 1:23
Paul finally gives the real reason behind the changed travel plans, and it is the opposite of the fickleness he was accused of — he stayed away deliberately, to spare the Corinthians a visit that would have had to be painfully severe given where things stood between them. Calling God as witness to his own soul is about as serious an oath as Paul’s own vocabulary offers.
“Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand.”
2 Corinthians 1:24
The chapter’s closing verse quietly corrects any impression Paul’s authority claims earlier might have left. He does not position himself as ruler over the Corinthians’ faith, only as a helper of their joy — the same posture chapter 1 of the first letter to this church already insisted on, that no minister’s name is ever the actual foundation a believer’s own faith stands on.
