And whether we be afflicted... — The better MSS. present some variations in the order of the clauses, some of them giving the words “and our hope of you is steadfast” after “which we also suffer” in this verse. The variation hardly affects the sense in any appreciable degree. That sense is that each stage of the Apostle’s experience, that of affliction no less than that of consolation, tended to make others sharers in the latter and not in the former.
For your consolation and salvation. — The latter word is added as presenting, in modern phrase, the objective side of the result of which St. Paul speaks, while the former gives prominence to the subjective. There was not only the sense of being comforted: there was also the actual deliverance from all real evil, expressed by the word “salvation.” But this deliverance is seen, not in a mere escape from, or avoidance of, sufferings, but in a patient, steadfast endurance of them.
Which is effectual. — Better, which worketh. The word is the same as in “faith working by love” in Galatians 5:6.
Which we also suffer. — What these are has not yet been specifically stated. It is assumed that the sufferings of all Christians have much in common. All have to suffer persecution from without (Acts 14:22). All have anxieties, sorrows, disappointments, which bring a keener pain than the ills that threaten the spoiling of goods or even life itself.