So glad to be with you today. It is truly a pleasure to minister to and study with you.
Today we have an essential subject to discuss, so let’s seek the Lord and discover His way of walking in purity and freedom.
Today in our passage of Scripture, we are reading from a follow-up letter to the Corinthian church. From reading Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, we know that the church at Corinth was involved in numerous and open sins, even to the point of their approval of a young man who was living in adultery with his father’s wife. So Paul had written his first letter to admonish them, to rebuke them in love, and to encourage them to change.
It seems that Paul’s first letter was used by God to produce real sorrow over their sins and to enable dramatic change in the hearts and lives of the Corinthians, and so Paul writes this follow-up letter in 2 Corinthians to encourage their hearts and comfort them in the Lord. Let’s look at our passage for today.
Please read the following Scripture and answer the questions below:
2 Corinthians 7:8-11 NIV 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— (9) 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. (10) Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. (11) See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.
“I see that my letter hurt you.” It’s clear that Paul’s letter got through to the Corinthians, that they were woken up by it and that they came to their senses through it. Paul had hurt them through his loving rebuke, but “the wounds of a friend can be trusted” (Proverbs 27:6).
Our Friend, Jesus, was wounded on the cross for us, He was bruised and battered, beaten within an inch of His life, and His wounds can be trusted to provide salvation and freedom for all who believe. If Paul’s wounding of the Corinthians could be trusted to bring about godly sorrow over their sins, how much more should we see the wounds of Jesus, and repent?
Question 2. True or false: according to 2 Corinthians 7:9, God intended that the Corinthians become sorrowful.