“Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it–I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while– yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us” (2 Corinthians 7:8-9 NIV).
Paul the Apostle took no pleasure from the thought of inflicting sorrow upon the members of the Corinthian church. But the prospect of hurting the Corinthian Christians was surely tempered by the knowledge that the church was headed for greater trouble if he failed to correct the issues that existed there. One commentator makes an important observation that warrants a lengthy excerpt in this regard…
“We do not show love to someone by withholding the truth. Paul said to the Galatians, ‘Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?’ (Gal. 4:16). We often let people go on and on in sin, saying we love them too much to hurt them, but nothing is more self-deceptive. What we usually mean by such a statement is that we do not want to hurt ourselves!
When a sinner is told the truth about his sins, he gets angry with the one who told him – no matter how sincere and loving the attempt to produce repentance. That hurts! No one likes rejection! Paul did not like it! But he was willing to endure it for the sake of the Corinthians. When we say, ‘Well, I just love him too much to hurt him,’ we are really kidding ourselves and saying we do not want to hurt ourselves.” (1)
Nevertheless, it is seldom easy to engage in loving confrontation with others. Paul acknowledged that reality by saying, “I knew you would be upset with my last letter, but I do not regret sending it. If there were times I did have second thoughts, it was because I could see that the letter did hurt you, even if only for a while. Now I am glad—not because it caused you grief but because you were moved to make a permanent change…” (Voice).
The permanent change referenced above encompasses the Biblical idea of “repentance.” It refers to a change of mind that results in a change of behavior. In this instance, their attitude of repentance was generated by what Paul will refer to as “godly sorrow” in the following verse. We’ll explore that concept in greater detail next.
(1) Paul T. Butler. The Bible Study Textbook Series, Studies In Second Corinthians (College Press) [p. 258] Copyright © 1988 College Press Publishing Company https://archive.org/stream/BibleStudyTextbookSeriesSecondCorinthians/132Corinthians-Butler_djvu.txt