THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
Most people do and undertake everything with the aim of earning the favor of rulers and of those more distinguished than themselves.
They value this favor highly and consider themselves happy when they attain what they desire.
But if it is so important to earn the favor of people like ourselves, what does it mean to obtain grace from God?
Therefore he always places such blessings at the beginning of his epistles and prays for this, knowing that where the grace of God is, no misfortune can have place.
However great our calamities may be, they will all cease.
To teach you this, consider the following. Joseph was in slavery. He was young, inexperienced, and simple-hearted.
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Suddenly the management of a house was entrusted to him, and he had to give account of this to an Egyptian nobleman.
You know what an irascible and difficult people this is. Since authority and power were joined to this, his anger, stirred by consciousness of his power, became still stronger.
This is clear from how he acted afterward. Joseph suffered because of his mistress's accusation, although the more probable supposition was that the one holding the garment had not been assaulted, but the one from whom it was taken.
Therefore one should have said to her: if you had raised your voice, he would have fled and, conscious of his guilt, would not have waited for the master's arrival.
But the Egyptian took none of this into account. Rather, carried away irrationally by anger, he cast Joseph into prison.
So unreasonable was this man. Although from other circumstances he could have drawn a conclusion about this man's good intention and prudence, in his extreme folly he considered none of it.
Thus, Joseph was under the power of so evil a master. The management of the whole house had been entrusted to him.
He was a stranger, alone and inexperienced. Yet after God richly poured His grace upon him, he endured all temptations as if they meant nothing.
He endured the slander of his mistress, the danger of death, and imprisonment. Finally, he came near to the royal throne.
Thus blessed Paul saw what the grace of God means, and for this reason he prays that it be sent down upon them.
However, he has something else in view here. He wishes to dispose them favorably toward what he intends to write in the epistle.
Then, even if he rebukes and reproves them, they will not turn away from him.
For this purpose, before everything else, he brings the grace of God to their remembrance and in this way softens their heart.
Thus, even if they experience some grief, they may remember the grace of God by which they were saved from greater evils.
They will not become despondent when suffering lesser ones, but will find consolation for themselves in that grace.
Similarly, in another epistle he writes: "For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life" (Rom 5:10).