Robert Lowery

Years ago in Aberdeen, Scotland I found a copy of the beginnings of a translation of the New Testament by a British soldier who was fighting in the trenches of World War I. In between skirmishes in France, Gerald Barre Cornish (who was a lecturer in Greek at Manchester University before the Great War), had decided to do a translation of the New Testament. Unfortunately, he was killed before he could finish the project. He completed only an invigorating translation of I-II Corinthians and a portion of Ephesians. The manuscript was first published in October 1937 under the title St. Paul from the Trenches: A Rendering of the Epistles to the Corinthians and Ephesians done in France during the Great War (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd). It is really a combination of translation and paraphrase and his efforts reflect a man who had thought long and hard about the writings of Paul. (In the mid 1970s I had the privilege of studying under Dr. David Scholer at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He had told me about the translation by Cornish and I kept looking for it over the years and finally was able to purchase a copy in 1982. It has blessed me through the years. David died recently after a valiant battle against cancer and he would resonate with what I am sharing below!)

Recently I visited with a very dear friend whose wife is dying of cancer. I shared with him a passage from II Cor. 1:3ff. In my opinion, Cornish’s work captures the beauty of Paul’s profound writing on God’s comfort. I want to share it with you:

How good, how full of blessedness is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Comfort dwells with Him, in all ways His nature awakes the sense of compassion, and with it strength and comfort. I am comforted always in the great dangers and trials which now beset me, and that which upholds and sustains me continually throughout these buffetings serves also for your support and comfort. I know your trials, but God is comforting us. The sufferings of the Christ have this compensation; though all our lives are included in them and they abound in us, there goes along with them the same divine comfort and strength which comforted him; and just as his sufferings and even his death were not endured for any faults of his own, but because of others, because of those near him, because of all humanity, that is also the case with ours. If I suffer, I know that these sufferings are bringing our final victory and safety from evil nearer, and I know that I suffer for your good; and when God fills me with comfort and strength, that victory over my own sufferings enables me to assist you to the same victory over yours. Both you and I endure these sufferings, but out hope is absolutely sure. Patience and endurance only are required in order to win the predestined victory, for his comfort, his strength is mine, and is yours without fail, without fear.

When I read the above, I thought of what John wrote in Rev. 1:9 as he reminded his fellow disciples: “I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos, because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” I hear echoes of Paul in this verse.

For surely John and Paul (and David Scholer and the beloved wife of one of my former students who is losing her battle against cancer) would sing out: “Both you and I endure these sufferings, but our hope is absolutely sure. Patience and endurance only are required in order to win the predestined victory, for his comfort, his strength is mine, and is yours without fail, without fear.” Amen! To God be the glory!

Related posts:

1. Finding Comfort in the Trenches of Our Lives