“Therefore I ask that you not be discouraged by my tribulations for you, which are your glory.” How are Paul’s tribulations “for them”? How are they “their glory”? It is because God so loved them that he gave even the Son for them and afflicted his servants for them. Paul was in prison so that they might attain so many blessings. Surely this comes from God’s exceeding love toward them. It illustrates what God also says concerning the prophets, “I have slain them by the word of my mouth.” But why were they fainting through another’s affliction? He means they were troubled and distressed. Paul says the same things when writing to the Thessalonians: “that no one be moved by these afflictions.” For we should rejoice in afflictions rather than grieve in them. If you find consolation in being warned beforehand, we tell you that here we have tribulation. And why you ask? Because the Lord has ordered it so.
What, then, does Paul say here? The teachers’ trials trouble their disciples. Paul had fallen into many tribulations. He himself also says, that “Satan hindered us.” Paul adds immediately “both once” and “and again I would have come to you” and was not able, words that prove the depth of his struggle. And it was reasonable that this should trouble them, for they are not so much troubled at their own trials as at those of their teachers. Neither is the soldier so much troubled at his own struggles as when he sees his general wounded.
What then does he say here? Because the temptations of the teachers trouble their disciples, and he had then fallen into many temptations, as also he himself says, that Satan hindered us, always saying this; both once, he says, and again I would have come to you, and was not able, which was a proof of great violence. And it was reasonable that this should trouble them, for they are not so much troubled at their own temptations, as at those of their teachers; as neither is the soldier so much troubled at his own trials, as when he sees his general wounded. To establish you, he says; not that they were at all deficient in faith, nor that they required to learn anything.
