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NASB | 2 Corinthians 1:5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 2 Corinthians 1:5 For just as Christ's sufferings are ours in abundance [as they overflow to His followers], so also our comfort [our reassurance, our encouragement, our consolation] is abundant through Christ [it is truly more than enough to endure what we must]. |
Subject: 2 Corinthians- What is 'suffering' |
Bible Note: "However, Jesus did not 'suffer' from sickness and desease...until He took ours." What verse says this? "You will also notice when you read this commentary that although Matthew Henry acknowledges that healing is part of the atonement, he 'issues a disclaimer' which had absolutely NO scriptural references to support the disclaimer. This disclaimer , and I agree, instructs the believer to search the scriptures regarding healing." Could you be more specific as to Henry's "disclaimer"? I read nothing at all which suggests that Henry's understanding of Isaiah 53 leaves any room for a promised "physical healing." http://www.apostolic-churches.net/bible/mhc/MHC23053.HTM Respectfully, I think you are locked into a misunderstanding of the general Christian perspective on sickness. I agree that Paul likely does not have the flu foremost in mind when he is talking about himself being afflicted for the sake of the gospel. However, that is a completely different argument than whether it is God's will that sickness exist or not. You have not made a compelling case at all for the view that all Christians on earth should be physically healthy. Obviously, God allows illness and injury and infirmity in his faithful children, and biblical examples such as Epaphroditus and Timothy demonstrate that lingering illness is not a result of a lack of faith. God can and often does heal, but that act of mercy is neither always promised nor always immediate. The "health-and-wealth gospel" is not a historic Christian doctrine, but rather is a 20th-century phenomenon (unless, of course, you count Christian Science, Unity, and other mind-science cults that started popping up in the 19th-century). In order to even make a case for this teaching, one has to begin with the presumption that it is true before going to Scripture. Then one proceeds to find texts such as 1 Peter 2:24, which contextually have nothing to do with disease, and forces a foreign understanding on them. It is a pernicious doctrine because it denies the sovereignty of God in allowing disease to exist for His glory (Romans 8:28). It also dishonors those who have suffered disease and agony in their service to God. Do you really presume to sit in judgment over pioneering Christian missionaries from ages past who died from malaria, scarlet fever, and the like because they refused to sit at home in comfort and relative safety? Do you really conclude that this doctrine, which was non-existent until the last century, really reflects Christianity? Did God really allow such an important, "MAJOR" element of His gospel to be absent from the church for century upon century until we "enlightened" couch-potato Christians suddenly figured it out? Not terribly likely, in my opinion. You can make all the emotional appeals as you would like, accusing people of "penciling things in" and of denying that Jesus ever healed anyone. When the heat subsides, however, one can step back and look to see that WOF doesn't have very much light at all. --Joe! |