2 Corinthians 7:7 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Titus’, says Paul, ‘was so uplifted and overjoyed by your repentance and transformation and your re-commitment to the mission to the Gentiles and to the work of the Lord.’ When the Corinthians had received Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, he told them how much he appreciated them and what a fine church they were, and he meant it. But there were problems. The first problem was that they had developed an immature party spirit. ‘Oh, I am a follower of this preacher. I am a follower of that preacher and so on.’ And so they were tending to form cliques representing who they supported, and perhaps that led to argument and unrest, and it certainly breached fellowship. That was a problem, but it was not the only problem. They also had a doctrinal problem. There was a minority of people, tolerated by the church, who denied and doubted the resurrection of the Lord and of God’s people too, in the future.Then there was the worst thing of all, they tolerated the case of the man who had chosen to live with, probably, his step-mother. The way the Scripture in 1 Corinthians describes it, it was unlikely to be his own mother but his father’s wife, indicating his step-mother. It was a terrible thing, an awful thing, a scandal that ruined the testimony of the church at Corinth even in the eyes of the Gentiles around, and they were lascivious enough. But they had tolerated it and lived with it, and they exercised no discipline. It may be said they accommodated themselves to this sin. And of course, it gave others a license to sin also.But they had repented. They had accepted 1 Corinthians which had much reproof in it for all these things. The Corinthians had not resented Paul and they had not said, ‘No, we are not having this. We are good people.’ So they were filled with earnest desire and mourning and a fervent mind.