The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Corinthians — Section 9

Vers. 6-11.-Personal sufferings. "And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation," etc. The words suggest a few remarks concerning personal sufferings. I. TREY ARE OFTEN EXPERIENCED IN THE BEST OF ENTERPRISES. What a glorious enterprise Paul and his fellow-apostles were engaged in !-nothing less than the restoration of mankind to the knowledge, image, and friendship of the great God. Yet how great their sufferings_! "We were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life." l II. THEY ARE EVER NECESSARY FOB. THE RENDERING OF THE HIGHEST SERVICE TO MA.NKTh'D. "Whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the endurinc: of the same sulferingA which we also suffer." The apostle here teaches that his sufferings and those of his colleagues were vicarious. He and his co-labourers incurred them in their endeavours to extend the gospel, and they had the "consolations" which came to him, qualified him to sympathize with and administer comfort to all who were in the same trying condition. Paul could say to the sufferers at Corinth-We were in sufferings and were comforted; you are in sufferings and may participate in the same comfort. If you are partakers of the same kind of suffering, that is, suffering on account of yonr religion, you shall also be partakers of the same comfort. Suppose a man who had been restored from a certain disease by a certain specific were to meet another suffering under a complaint in all respects identical, and were to say to the man-I can not only sympathize with you, but I can assure you of that which will cure you, for it has cured me ;-this, perhaps, may serve as an illus- tration of the apostle's meaning here; and this every true Christian man who has llnfi'ered can say to all-I was in your condition, I was restored; I can sympathize with you, and I urge the same means of restoration. , IIL 'l'HEIR DETA.ILMENT PURELY FOB THE GOOD OF OTHERS IS JUSTIFIABLE, Paul says, "We would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble." There is a wonderful tendency in men to parade their sufferings and their trials, to spread them out before men, in order to enlist their sympathy and excite commiseration. This is belfi~h, is not justifiable. Christ--perhaps the greatest of all sufferers-;-nev~r did this: in this respect, "he opened not his mouth." But to declare sufferings lII order to ber.efit others, to give them courage and comfort, and to establish between you and them a holy unity in the Divine cause, this is right, this is what Paul does here. He does it that they may believe in his sympathy and seek the comfort which he himself experienced. IV. THEIR EXPERIENCE OFTEN PROVES A BLESSING TO Tim BUFFERER. They seem to J,ave done two things for Paul. 1. To have transferred his trust in liimself to trust in God. "We had th, sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourscl ves, but in God." Paul no doubt felt that he was brought uear unto death, to the 1 See a sketch of Paul's trials, eh. xi. 23, 29. oH. L 1-24.J THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORlN'fHIANS. 9