But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 6. Or whether we be exhorted, [1] for your exhortation and salvation. These words are not in the present Greek copies; the omission is not of moment, being in a manner a repetition of what is in the same verse: the sense is, that this happens to us for your instruction, and that you may be exhorted, or comforted by our example. This is also signified by the following words, which makes you bear (lit. which worketh the enduring) the like tribulations, as we suffer. Witham.—Whatever happens to us, it will always be to your advantage. And certainly it is the greatest comfort when the faithful are in affliction, to see their pastors preaching and planting the faith of Christ, in the midst of afflictions and persecutions. This gives them the greatest courage to bear patiently all adversity, being convinced after the example of their divine master, that by many tribulations we are to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Cajetan.