The following teaching was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, at the Friday night prayer and praise service held on January 27, 1984. The title is Comfort One Another. 

I have a very simple word tonight. It's one that you've heard many times before. We need to be reminded of this from time to time.

I want to read a passage, and I'm not going to tell you where it's from, because I just want you to listen to it, and I want to see if you can tell me what the theme of this passage is. In fact, this is the opening passage of one of the letters in the New Testament, and it turns out to give us the theme of the book. And just see if you can tell from this one paragraph what the book is going to be about.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we 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.

What's the passage about? Ten times in five verses, Paul uses the word comfort. And the passage is the first full paragraph of 2 Corinthians.

You might want to turn to it just briefly. And the trouble is that as we use that word in modern speech, the word comfort tends to connote a soft, cuddly, sort of a sedative, there-there kind of comfort. It's very feminine and maternal.

It's warm and cuddly and soft. And that is very far from the original meaning. You may know that our English word comfort is derived from Latin, from two Latin words, cum fortis, fortis, which means with strength.

With strength. The word fortitude comes from fortis. With strength.

So the English word comfort means to strengthen. To strengthen. And it's a very tough word.

And of course that, whether it be Latin or English, is a translation of the Greek. And interestingly enough, the Greek word that's used here is paraklesis. Which some of you may recognize as the root word of one of the titles of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, I will give to you, and we translate it, another comforter, which is a very interesting phrase when you stop and think about it. He says, another comforter, which is to say, I have been up to this point your comforter, your strengthener. I have been in my earthly ministry your source of strength.

And I'm about to go to the Father, but I will not leave you comfortless, strengthless, but I will send you another comforter, another one like myself. And the difference being that whereas I've only been able to be in one place at one time for three years of earthly ministry, He's going to be inside you. Wherever you go, He's going to be your source of strength.

The word paraclete literally means the one who comes alongside. Periclesis. Somebody who comes alongside to strengthen, to empower, to give us what we need to get through.

A few weeks ago we were meditating on the little phrase in 1 Samuel 30 that David strengthened himself in the Lord. And that's something David did. David rejoiced in the Lord.

He joyed in God. He let God fill his vision, fill his heart, blot out all of the incredibly devastating circumstances that were surrounding him at that time. He strengthened himself in the Lord but the only reason he could do that was that God is strength.

You see. And Jesus says while I've been with you I have been your strength and now I'm going to be with the Father but I won't leave you strengthless. I'm going to send one like myself who will live inside you and be your strength.

The one who comes alongside. And in an incredibly open honest laying bare of himself Paul is saying that's what we need we need strength we need comfort we need comfortis we need empowerment we are in devastating straits if you read the next paragraph verse 8 he says we do not want you to be ignorant brethren of the affliction we experienced in Asia this is the indomitable Saint Paul and listen to how he speaks of himself we were so utterly unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself while 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 so deadly a 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 in answer to many prayers.

Paul is saying we need strength. We are utterly crushed in the natural. And God is a source of our strength.

There's no question about that. We need and we know that God will meet our need, but we also need you to support us, to pray for us, to stand with us, to be a vehicle of empowering. And if you go on and read through the epistle, you'll find out very quickly that the problem is that instead of that, the Corinthians are, in fact, adding to the crushing, unbearable burden that is Paul's. They're nitpicking, they're criticizing, they're tearing him down, they're believing all manner of rumor about him, they're attacking his teaching, they're attacking his character, they're attacking his person, And rather than being a source of strength to him, they're actually complicating the problem.

It's a very tough epistle. A very, very tough epistle. Look toward the end of the epistle and he summarizes part of what he's been through in chapter 11.

People have been coming in and trying to discredit Paul by saying he's nothing. We are the super apostles. And they force Paul to recount his credentials and he really doesn't want to do it.

He says, but you forced me to do it. And I'm just going to break into the middle of this thing in verse 23. This is just a summary of part of what he's been through.

With far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings and often near death, five times I've received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes less one, 39 lashes with a cat and nine tails. Three times I have been beaten with rods. Once I was stoned and left for dead.

Three times I have been shipwrecked. A night and a day I have been adrift at sea on frequent journeys in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren, in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure, and apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. Back in 1 Corinthians, he talks about being in Ephesus and fighting wild beasts.

I don't think that's literal. I think that's a metaphor. It was like being in a den of lions.

I'm fighting wild animals. I was so unbearably, utterly crushed that I despaired of life itself. Do you picture Paul that way?

Not usually. But here's a very human Paul. Look at one more passage in chapter 2.

This may be one of the most remarkable things he ever wrote. Chapter 2, verse 12. He says, When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, a door was opened for me in the Lord, but my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there.

So I took leave of them and went to Macedonia. A door was opened for me. There was an opportunity to preach the gospel at Troas.

But I was so upset, I was so beside myself that I couldn't walk through the door. I needed somebody to stand with me. And none of you were standing with me.

And I looked everywhere for Titus and I couldn't find him. And so I left. It's not how I usually picture Paul.

How about you? What he's saying, I believe, is that there's enough of a battle out there against the world, the flesh, and the devil that we really can do without the internecine warfare in the body of Christ. We need to be, to each other, comforters, strengtheners, strengtheners.

Very simple and very obvious point. I don't know if you've ever had the experience of, maybe you've gone to a conference and you met a bunch of shiny, wonderful, marvelous Christians and you said, oh, if only our fellowship could be like they are. Have you ever had that experience?

That's why we have conferences. You can be on your best behavior for two days and a half. but if you hung around them for another week you'd find out that they're just as miserable as the people back home you would because they are and I've been around enough truly great and I mean that truly great Christians that I've had the experience many many times of lusting to be included in the leadership I want to be part of that whatever that is I want to be there because those are the super Christians and then a few times I got to be part of that and I found out what a bunch of miserable people they were because you see God doesn't work with any other kind and if you get to know the Christians very well you'll find their faults and I just want to say three things about that first is that God has called you into fellowship with needy people he's called you into fellowship it may be in your shepherd group or it may be in some prayer group at your place of work or it may be in your neighborhood or whatever it is it may be this group right here whatever group he's called you into he's called you into a group of needy people Paul was needy if Paul was needy you don't really think you're going to find somebody who isn't and I've seen kids go off to college and they've looked for the InterVarsity group or the Campus Crusade group or whatever it was that was there and they got into that thing and they came home at Thanksgiving or Christmas break and they said what a bunch of obnoxious people that's right that's right, why do you think God called you to them?

You get to know them, that's the second point, you get to know them and you will become painfully aware of their failures. And the only way that you won't is if you play games. You know, we keep the mask up and we go around pretending we've got it all together.

I want to meet all those who've got it all together right after the service. Be a very small group. And the third and the most important point is that as that begins to happen and you begin to see my shortcoming or somebody else's, God never gives us insight into somebody else's problems so that we can gossip about it or criticize it or play spiritual one-upsmanship about it or pass judgment on it or tear that person down or even stand aloof and say, thank God I'm not like that.

When God gives us insight into somebody else's problem, it's so that we can be a comforter. And that's the only reason. So that we can become a source of strength.

If you see me failing, it's so that you can help me in the midst of that failure. And I don't want you to go away from this talk and try to figure out what specific thing it is that I'm talking about that has me all upset, because it's not. Not one specific thing.

It's just God has laid this theme on my heart over and over again. I've come back to it over and over again for eight years now, and he's brought it back again. That I think it is part of our human condition that we find it so easy to pass judgment.

So easy to accept a negative word about somebody. You know, just take that right in and pass it on to yet a third person. So easy to attribute the worst motives.

I mean, the thing may be true that you heard. Maybe I did that thing that you heard, but don't assume that you know why I did it. Maybe there was a reason that I did it.

Maybe it was a good reason, or at least I thought so. 1 Corinthians 13 says that love is not anxious to believe the worst. It's eager to believe the best, and yet how quickly we're willing to attribute bad motives to folks.

And we spiritualize the whole business of gossip by saying, let me share a prayer request. Bill Gothard says that gossip is sharing information with somebody else who is neither part of the problem nor part of the solution. If you're not part of the problem and you're not part of the solution, you don't need to know the details.

You say, you need to pray for John, but you don't need to know why unless you're part of the solution. I don't think we have a massive problem in this area as a matter of fact I think we're doing much better than most churches but I think we need this reminder always we need this reminder that God is calling us to be sources of strength to each other comforters supporters we got enough of a battle out there battling with each other. We sang a few minutes ago, lift high the banners of love and sound the trumpets of war.

And the military imagery brings always to mind that passage in Ephesians about the whole armor of God. And many people have remarked about the fact that everything is covered except our backs. And most people say that the reason that is is because Christians are never supposed to retreat.

And I think there's another reason. it's we're to protect each other's backs and the trouble is so often we do the opposite let's be strengtheners to each other let's be comforters to each other let's support each other and win that battle for Jesus sake let's bow our heads together Father, when we see a weakness or a failure or a shortcoming or even a personality quirk that we're tempted to judge and stand apart from, Lord, we ask that you'd melt us and make us lovers. And that rather than being like those Corinthians who added to Paul's anguish, that we wouldn't add to each other's difficulty.

We'd strengthen each other in the midst of the battle. Lord, cause us to be your army, protecting each other's backs and marching forward in the cause of Christ. For we ask it in his name.

Amen.