2 corinthians 1:3, 4

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 is Paul blessing the God who comforts, and saying what the comfort is for.“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”Praise be. Blessed be God. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Father of compassion, the Father of mercies. And the God of all comfort. All comfort. Not some. The source of every real comfort is named.Who comforts us in all our troubles. The comfort is not theoretical. It arrives in the troubles. All of them. Then the purpose. So that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. The comfort is received in order to be given. It does not stop with the one who was comforted. It equips that person to comfort others in any trouble, using the same comfort God supplied.Paul is writing after severe hardship in Asia, where he despaired of life. The opening blessing is not generic. The God who comforted him in that pressure is the God of all comfort, and the comfort has a forward direction. It makes the sufferer able to comfort the next sufferer. The teaching is that God’s comfort is both personal and transferable. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others with what we received.