2 Corinthians1chapter 1

2 Corinthians 1:1-2

Paul opens by the will of God, the same phrase that opens Galatians and Ephesians, because the apostleship this letter must defend was never his own choosing. Timothy stands beside him as co-sender, not co-author, and the address reaches past Corinth itself to all the saints which are in all Achaia, so the letter that follows was written to travel. Grace and peace joins the Greek greeting to the Hebrew shalom, and from Paul's hand it becomes the standing salutation of nearly every New Testament epistle.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Blessed be God opens the paragraph as a doxology before it becomes an argument, and the double title, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, names the source before the gift is described. Verse 4 gives comfort its Greek verb, parakaleo, the word that will land ten times in five verses, comfort as calling alongside rather than a distant sympathy. Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them: the purpose clause is the paragraph's whole theology, comfort received becomes comfort Paul is now equipped to give, and the commentators read the verse as the pattern for every ministry of consolation since.

2 Corinthians 1:5-7

The sufferings of Christ abound in us: Paul names his own afflictions as sharing in Christ's, the same identification Colossians 1:24 makes, suffering for the gospel's sake as fellowship rather than accident. Whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation, and whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation: verse 6 turns Paul's own experience into the church's asset, his trouble and his comfort both spent for Corinth's sake. Our hope of you is stedfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation: the paragraph closes on a bond the commentators call the key to the whole letter, the church and its apostle bound in one economy of suffering and comfort.

2 Corinthians 1:8-9

Our trouble which came to us in Asia names a crisis Paul does not describe further, and the commentators list the candidates without settling one, the Ephesian riot of Acts 19, a grave illness, or a mortal danger otherwise unrecorded. Pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: whatever the event, its weight was real, not rhetorical, and Paul says so plainly rather than minimizing it. We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: verse 9 gives the crisis its purpose, a death sentence in Paul's own reckoning that taught him to rest his trust on the God who raises the dead rather than on his own resources.

2 Corinthians 1:10-11

Delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver, and will yet deliver: Paul states the same rescue in past, present and future tense in one breath, a pattern the commentators trace through his letters wherever he speaks of God's preserving hand. Ye also helping together by prayer for us: the deliverance is not Paul's alone to claim, the Corinthians' prayers are named as a real means God used, and the many who prayed become the many who will give thanks when the answer comes. The verse ties intercession directly to outcome without explaining the mechanism, and the bench lets the plain statement stand as Paul wrote it.

2 Corinthians 1:12-14

The testimony of our conscience: Paul's defense against the rival teachers begins here, not with credentials but with a clean conscience about how he has actually lived among them, in simplicity and godly sincerity rather than fleshly wisdom. We write none other things unto you, than what ye read or acknowledge: verse 13 answers a charge that his letters said one thing and meant another, and Paul insists the plain sense of his words is the whole of his meaning. Verse 14 reaches past the present dispute to the day of the Lord Jesus, when Paul and the Corinthians will be able to say of each other what neither can fully say yet, that each is the other's rejoicing.

2 Corinthians 1:15-17

Paul had planned a double visit, to come unto you before and again on the way back from Macedonia, a second benefit meant to bless Corinth twice over. The plan changed, and Paul knows the change looks bad, so verse 17 puts the accusation in his own words before his critics can, did I use lightness, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea yea, and nay nay. The commentators read the coming defense, running through verse 22, as Paul answering a charge of unreliability with an argument about God's own faithfulness rather than a mere excuse.

2 Corinthians 1:18-20

As God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay: Paul grounds his own consistency in God's character before he explains it further. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea: the gospel Paul preached at Corinth was no more double minded than God himself, since Christ is the standard by which every word of Paul's is finally measured. All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen: verse 20 states the doctrine the personal defense was leading to all along, that every promise God ever made finds its guarantee and its answering Amen in Christ alone, unto the glory of God by us.

2 Corinthians 1:21-22

He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God: the three verbs of verse 21, establishing and anointing, and in verse 22 sealing, all name God as the actor, not the believer's own effort. Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts: arrabon is a commercial term, a down payment that guarantees the full sum still to come, and Paul uses it again at 5:5 for the same gift. The commentators read the verse as foundational to the church's confidence that what God has begun in a believer he intends to finish, the Spirit himself standing as God's own pledge planted in the heart.

2 Corinthians 1:23-24

I call God for a record upon my soul: Paul swears to the true reason for the delayed visit under the weight of an oath, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth, a painful visit avoided for the church's own sake rather than from unreliability. Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: verse 24 draws the line the whole defense has been building toward, Paul's authority over Corinth is real but it is not lordship over conscience. For by faith ye stand: the church's standing rests on its own faith before God, not on Paul's control of it, and the commentators take the verse as Paul's own limit on apostolic authority, stated in his own words.