Notwithstanding ye have well done, that ye did communicate with my affliction.

People's New Testament

4:14 Ye have done well. Though Christ gave him strength to bear want, it was a good thing, a kind deed, that they supported him in his affliction.

Ye did communicate with my affliction. Had fellowship with (Revised Version); share.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. He here guards against their thinking from what he has just said, that he makes light of their bounty.

ye did communicate with my affliction-that is, ye made yourselves sharers with me in my present affliction, namely, by sympathy; of which sympathy your contribution is the proof.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:10-19 It is a good work to succour and help a good minister in trouble. The nature of true Christian sympathy, is not only to feel concern for our friends in their troubles, but to do what we can to help them. The apostle was often in bonds, imprisonments, and necessities; but in all, he learned to be content, to bring his mind to his condition, and make the best of it. Pride, unbelief, vain hankering after something we have not got, and fickle disrelish of present things, make men discontented even under favourable circumstances. Let us pray for patient submission and hope when we are abased; for humility and a heavenly mind when exalted. It is a special grace to have an equal temper of mind always. And in a low state not to lose our comfort in God, nor distrust his providence, nor take any wrong course for our own supply. In a prosperous condition not to be proud, or secure, or worldly. This is a harder lesson than the other; for the temptations of fulness and prosperity are more than those of affliction and want. The apostle had no design to urge them to give more, but to encourage such kindness as will meet a glorious reward hereafter. Through Christ we have grace to do what is good, and through him we must expect the reward; and as we have all things by him, let us do all things for him, and to his glory.