What Does 2 Corinthians 1:11 Mean?

(11) **Ye also helping together by prayer . . .**—They too to whom he writes can help him as he helps them. Indirectly he asks their prayers for him, but he does so with a refined delicacy of feeling, by assuming that they are already praying, and that their prayers are helpful. **That for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons.**—The Greek word for “person” (*prosôpon*) is elsewhere throughout the New Testament translated “face” or “countenance,” or “person” in the sense of “outward appearance.” It has been suggested that that may be its meaning *even* here: *that thanksgiving may be offered from many upturned faces.* The use of the word *prosopopœia,* however, for “personifying,” and of *prosôpon* for the characters in a drama, indicates that the noun was beginning to be used in a different sense, and this must clearly have been well established when it came to be used in theological language for the three “persons” of the Godhead. It is interesting to note, however, as a fact in the history of language, that, if this be its meaning here, it is probably one of the earliest extant instances of its being so used. The “gift,” in this instance, is the deliverance from danger and suffering spoken of in the previous verse. Safety and health deserved the name not less truly than prophecy and the gift of tongues. He assumes, with the same subtle refinement as before, that they will be as ready to give thanks for his recovery or deliverance as they were to pray for it.