8We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
Paul's Change of Plans
12Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God's grace. 13For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, 14as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Dig Deeper
I couldn’t believe the scene I was observing during a volunteer workday, as I saw a young man constantly whine about all of his problems. He was complaining to an older man about how little sleep he had gotten the night before. It didn’t just stop there, though, he continued to lament about how much his back and shoulder hurt from playing basketball and how difficult this made it for him to work. The older man listened patiently, never telling the younger man that he was currently suffering from a debilitating disease that would eventually take his life. That’s the odd thing about suffering. Usually those that complain about it the loudest, haven’t really experienced it. Those who have truly suffered don’t often mention it much. Paul was a man that suffered greatly but didn’t talk about it much unless he had a specific point to make. He didn’t make a show out of his suffering, so when he does talk about it, we should sit up and take notice.
What exactly happened to Paul is a mystery. He never gives us the details, and it is highly unlikely, at this point, that we will ever discover them. Whatever happened, we know that Paul endured incredible suffering in Ephesus. Some of it may be described in Acts 19, during the riot in the theater. This may have simply been the alarm clock that awakened the people in Ephesus to what a threat Paul and his teaching could truly be. This may have opened Paul up to great persecution, as people don’t take kindly to something that they perceive as a threat to their way of life. To add to what was happening in Asia, Paul was dealing with the incredible difficulties that were arising in his relationship with the Corinthians. This all left Paul in a terrible mental state. He talks in terms like ‘despairing of life’, which in our world would get him classified as clinically depressed. Paul’s response to this is incredible, especially for us who live in a world where any hardships lead most to get angry at God and reject Christianity. Rather than seeing his great persecution and resulting mental state as a reason to be angry with God, Paul sees it as a reason to praise Him. God was using this situation to teach Paul to rely on Him. This is a startling realization considering that Paul had already taught that he owed everything he was able to do to the grace of God (1 Corinthians 15:10). What this shows us was that Paul still had some things to learn about relying on God and the meaning of the resurrection of Christ in the daily lives of Christians. Not only that, but Paul also believes he suffered but was not crushed because God delivered him.
Paul has a theology that is not extremely popular in our day of user-friendly Christianity that is all about living your best and most comfortable life possible. He absolutely believes that God will deliver him from any deadly and dangerous situations in his life, but God will not keep him from those situations. Paul knows of no such thing as a trouble-free life, despite what is taught in our day, and as we will see in this letter, what was also being taught in his day. God will not keep us from trials but He will deliver us through them as we learn to rely on Him alone.
Paul’s critics would have had great folly with his sufferings. For most people in the ancient world, suffering was a sign of God’s punishment and disfavor. Not so, says Paul. The suffering is not at all a sign of God’s disfavor, but rather a sign that He wants his child to trust Him more fully. This was not a common or very popular message in Paul’s day, anymore than it is in ours. Yet, he wants the Corinthians to understand that this is part of the world-changing message of the gospel.
Paul desires that they should pray for him. Prayer matters and Paul needs theirs. When many people pray for something and it comes to pass, the thanksgiving will be all the more. For Paul when people worship and give thanksgiving to God something in the universe is set right again. The world is out of whack in a way that only giving thanks to God will set right. Worship is the way things were meant to be, and so engaging in it is a sign of what the world will be like one day.
It is this God of whom Paul will boast. Not the one who gives Paul everything for which he could possibly imagine but the one who allows him to endure suffering so that he may learn all the more to rely on God. Paul will freely boast about the things he has endured and learned because it gives glory to God (see 1 Corinthians 1:31; 15:9; 2 Corinthians 10:17; Romans 5:2; 15:17; Galatians 6:4; Philippians 3:3). We tend to view any boasting as inappropriate, but for Paul, it is not the act of boasting that makes the determination of whether or not it is acceptable, it is the content.
Part of Paul’s boast is the work that he has done with the Corinthians and the way he has conducted himself with them. He has lived with all holiness and sincerity among them, but this is not a boast in himself, because his ability to do so comes from God. In his defense of his actions among them in verses 12-13, we begin to see some of the charges being leveled against Paul by his critics in Corinth. One charge must have been that Paul had something to hide, there was more to his conduct than met the eye. To that Paul responds that he has lived a life characterized not by shadows but by holiness and sincerity. Another charge against Paul was that he had hidden motives. To this charge, Paul answers that his conduct was not controlled by shrewdness or playing angles, but by God’s grace, given to him so freely. The third charge that Paul beings to answer is that he didn’t always say what he meant. Paul says, however, that everything he writes is straightforward, understandable, and exactly what he means. Paul’s conscience is clear, he has nothing to hide, and he wants, above all, the Corinthians to be able to fully trust in the message that he has for them.
Devotional Thought
To get to the point that we face our own death and actually despair of life is probably the lowest point to which anyone can get. Yet, the best thing anyone can do, is to get to that point and then realize that they must trust God. We need to realize that our sufferings are not a sign of God’s displeasure or a proof of his lack of his existence. They are a vehicle through which we can learn to trust more fully in our God and creator.
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