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Paul in Ephesus
For two years, Paul preached the Christ in Ephesus. The port city, located in what was then called Asia (now Turkey), was known for its great religious diversity. There was an abundance of pagan temples, and idols could be found in almost every home.
Paul set himself against this status quo. He proclaimed the one, living God who had revealed himself in Jesus, his Son. Paul found success in his work. The Lord blessed it, and we read that “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul” (Acts 19:11). Things went so well that demand for idols began to decline. In Acts chapter 19, we hear how a leading silversmith in the city—a man named Demetrius—became so angry that he stirred up the people of the city. They gathered in the square and stood there for several hours shouting: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (19:28, 34). They threatened two men who were known companions of Paul, and when Paul himself intended to step forward, he was thankfully stopped (and saved). Eventually, someone representing the local authorities managed to quiet the crowd. Shortly after this, Paul fled from Ephesus.
Paul wrote his first letter to the church in Corinth while he was still in Ephesus. Toward the end of the letter, he tells his readers that “I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.” (1 Corinthians 16:8–9). Earlier in the same letter, he compares the struggle he has had with these adversaries to fighting wild beasts (15:32).
When Paul said farewell to the church leaders in Ephesus, following the events above, he described his ministry as “serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews” (Acts 20:19).
Finally, we can read Paul’s greeting to Priscilla and Aquila at the end of the letter to the Romans. This couple had worked alongside Paul in Ephesus but were now based in Rome. Of them, Paul writes: “[They] risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well.” (Romans 16:4)
They could do nothing but throw themselves upon God who, should the worst come to pass, is capable of raising the dead.
In other words, Paul’s time in Ephesus was both extraordinarily fruitful and extraordinarily challenging—indeed, life-threatening! It is important to know this when reading the passage this article is about.
Utterly Burdened
Paul begins his second letter to the church in Corinth by returning to his time in Ephesus and reflecting on what he had learned through these terrible events.
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 blessing granted us through the prayers of many. (2 Corinthians 1:8–11)
In Ephesus, Paul and his fellow workers were “utterly burdened beyond [their] strength” (v. 8). The situation looked so dire that they had “despaired of life itself” and ultimately concluded that they “had received the sentence of death” (v. 9). It was so hard, in other words, that they were convinced their final hour had come.
This moment was so desperate that they could do nothing but throw themselves upon God who, should the worst come to pass, is capable of raising the dead. That is to say, upon the living God who is stronger than death and therefore not limited by death. Whatever happens, it will be a victory over death.
But God rescued Paul and the others from the danger they were in. “He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.” (v. 10). Paul points here to the direct connection, or continuity, between the complete salvation that awaits all who believe in the risen Jesus, and the partial, temporary rescue that these same people experience in various ways in everyday life.
God’s Comfort
So what has Paul learned through being “utterly burdened”? We read about it in verses 3–7.
It is salvation that secures our access to God’s comfort.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 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.
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. (2 Corinthians 1:3–7)
The first thing Paul does is praise God. He gives thanks to God for these experiences and trials. That is remarkable in and of itself!
But why does he do that? Because they have caused him to experience the comfort that comes from the “Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” If we read closely what Paul says about this comfort, we see that he speaks of three kinds of comfort:
- God’s comfort: “the God of all comfort…”
- Our comfort: “… who comforts us in all our affliction …”
- Others’ comfort: “… so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction.”
Or one could put it a little more precisely: it is one and the same comfort—God’s comfort—which dwells in three different places:
- With God
- With us
- With others
It is important to note that before Paul refers to God as “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,” he calls God “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (3). This means that for God to be merciful and for us to enjoy his comfort, we must first acknowledge Jesus Christ, his Son, as our Lord. That is how God becomes our Father. And that is why God has compassion for us and comforts us.
It is salvation that secures our access to God’s comfort.
Three Comforts
Philosophers say that there are two kinds of evil in the world:
- Natural evil are things that somehow just happen—illness, accidents, natural disasters, and the like, which have no direct, personal cause.
- Moral evil, on the other hand, are things that do have a cause: physical and emotional cruelty and other wrongs that we humans do to one another.
Although what Paul experienced in Ephesus was an example of moral evil, what he says about God’s comfort also applies to God’s children who experience natural evil. Whether we are speaking of how illness, misfortune, or death touches us, or of the many varied ways people sin against one another, those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are comforted by God in their sufferings.
Can we look more closely at the three comforts Paul speaks of?
God’s Comfort
Love is nothing if it is not concrete.
We often say that God is love. What sometimes troubles me about how this truth is casually thrown about is how it fails to capture how concrete and specific God’s love actually is. It is easy to forget that love is nothing if it is not concrete. God’s love does not merely mean that he has good feelings toward us, or that he wishes us happiness in life. No, God’s love is concrete and active—first and foremost and at its foundation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, his Son. But also in the many ways God’s providence and care make themselves known in our everyday life.
We can therefore say that God’s mercy and comfort are examples of his love. They belong to a subcategory under the larger phenomenon which is his love. When God comforts us, he shows us his love.
A good father and a good mother love their children and feel such empathy with them when they are struggling that they comfort them. This says something about who they are and what kind of relationship they have with their children. In the same way, God’s mercy and comfort say something about who he is (he is love!) and what kind of relationship he has with us (he is our savior and father!).
Our Comfort
Paul says something profound in verse 5: For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
He points here to the deep and mysterious solidarity found in Jesus’ sufferings. The Bible says that on the cross, Jesus bore our sicknesses and sorrows (Isaiah 53:4). Our suffering becomes his suffering on the cross. First of all, this is how Jesus wins salvation for us. But it also means that when we experience suffering in our lives, it is in some sense his suffering!
In addition to keeping this solidarity in mind, we must not forget that the cross is not the final word. The empty tomb is also a sign that our story does not end with suffering and death. It ends with resurrection. Everything that is wrong will one day be made right.
…our story does not end with suffering and death. It ends with resurrection.
This gives us an entirely different and new perspective! It means that no suffering we can experience is meaningless. No suffering is hopeless. None of God’s children suffers alone. None of the many ways in which sin collides with our lives is the final word. The promise that the empty tomb represents will one day be completely fulfilled, but even now it can be experienced in part. This is God’s comfort, as it becomes ours.
Others’ Comfort
“Why do good things happen to bad people?” [1] someone once asked. Paul has an answer in verse 6:
“If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort…”
One of the reasons bad things happen to us is so that we can be there and comfort others who are also experiencing bad things. God lets us go through suffering and trials so that he can comfort us. He comforts us so that we learn to comfort others.
If there is solidarity between our sufferings and those of Christ, then there is also solidarity between our sufferings and those of others!
I remember when my father died—a few days after the funeral, it suddenly struck me how many other people had the exact same kind of grief as I did, because they too had lost someone in just the same way. I imagined a light dwelling inside the hearts of all the people I saw each day, and a thread of light connecting the light in my heart to the one in theirs. In this way, our suffering can bind us to others who also suffer, and empathy and comfort can flow between us.
Alone and Together
So how is God’s comfort seen in practice? The church is, and ought to be, the place where God’s comfort lives. We are to look after one another so that we “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
The church is, and ought to be, the place where God’s comfort lives.
This is something that elders, pastors and others in church leadership must attend to in a particular way—both informally and through organized ministries that care for and help people in various ways. Here I am thinking both of pastoral care and other concrete help, such as financial assistance.
But this comfort, at least in its informal, unorganized form, is something the whole congregation should be able to offer and extend. This looking-out-for and embracing of one another. Asking after each other and following up. Opening both heart and home. Praying for one another, both regularly and when something particular and especially difficult is at hand.
The congregation must not, however, set itself up against the welfare state and other support services available in society. Think of the Good Samaritan that Jesus tells about in Luke 10. The Samaritan helped the man who had fallen into the hands of robbers, yes. But he also found the man other help where his own abilities ended—the inn, which he himself paid for. Most congregations have people who can serve as bridges to other kinds of help (with awareness of so-called dual relationships).
God comforts us. But we should not keep this comfort to ourselves.
The needs are many and the ways of helping are many. But Paul’s point remains the same: when we as God’s children experience hardship and suffering, God comforts us. But we should not keep this comfort to ourselves. Jesus said that from the life of the one who believes in him, streams of living water shall flow (John 7:38). We suffer and are comforted, so that we can comfort others who suffer, with the very same comfort with which we were comforted: God’s comfort.
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[1] “That only happened once,” said R.C. Sproul, somewhat wryly, adding: “And he did it voluntarily.”
