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7:2 “Make room for us.” Paul’s touching appeal to the Corinthians raises questions for us. Do our communities make room for new teachers, new ways of doing things?
7:5 Paul continues to speak about his journey to Macedonia, picking up the thread which was left o at 2:13. The crisis was painful, but the resolution brought “godly sorrow” (7:10), a sorrow leading not to death but to joy, refreshment, encouragement. Con icts, resolved in love of Christ, can lead to deeper faith, hope, and love. Have you ever experienced this?
CHAPTER 7
d. [7:8] 2:2–4; Heb 12:11.
e. [7:12] 2:3, 9; 7:8.
f. [7:15] 2:9.
CHAPTER 8
a. [8:1] 11:9; Rom 15:26.
 CORINTHIANS -
also by the encouragement with which he was encouraged in regard to you, as he told us of your yearning, your lament, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced even more. 8* For even if I saddened you by my letter, I do not regret it; and if I did regret it ([for] I see that that letter saddened you, if only for a while),d 9I rejoice now, not because you were saddened, but because you were saddened into repentance; for you were saddened in a godly way, so that you did not su er loss in anything because of us. 10For godly sorrow produces a salutary repentance without regret, but worldly sorrow produces death. 11For behold what earnestness this godly sorrow has produced for you, as well as readiness for a defense, and indignation, and fear, and yearning, and zeal, and punishment. In every way you have shown yourselves to be innocent in the matter. 12So then even though I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did the wrong, or on account of the one who su ered the wrong, but in order that your concern for us might be made plain to you in the sight of God.e 13For this reason we are encouraged.
And besides our encouragement,* we rejoice even more because of the joy of Titus, since his spirit has been refreshed by all of you. 14For if I have boasted to him about you, I was not put to shame. No, just as everything we said to you was true, so our boasting before Titus proved to be the truth. 15And his heart goes out to you all the more, as he remembers the obedience of all of you, when you received him with fear and trembling.f 16I rejoice, because I have con dence in you in every respect.
III. THE COllECTION fOR JERUSAlEM*
8Generosity in Giving.
1* We want you to know, brothers,* of the grace of God* that has been given to the churches of Macedonia,a 2* for in a severe test of a iction, the abundance of their joy and their profound poverty
* [7:8–12] Paul looks back on the episode from the viewpoint of its ending. The goal of their common activity, promotion of their joy (2 Cor 1:24), has been achieved, despite and because of the sorrow they felt. That sorrow was God-given. Its salutary e ects are enumerated fully and impressively in 2 Cor 7:10– 11; not the least important of these is that it has revealed to them the attachment they have to Paul.
* [7:13–16] Paul summarizes the e ect of the experience on Titus: encouragement, joy, love, relief. Finally, he describes its e ects on himself: encouragement, joy, con dence, pride or “boasting” (i.e., the satisfaction resulting from a boast that proves well-founded; cf. 2 Cor 7:4; 1:12, 14).
* [8:1–9:15] Paul turns to a new topic, the collection for the church in Jerusalem. There is an early precedent for this project in the agreement mentioned in Gal 2:6–10. According to Acts, the church at Antioch had sent Saul and Barnabas to Jerusalem with relief (Acts 11:27–30). Subsequently Paul organized a project of relief for Jerusalem among his own churches. Our earliest evidence for it comes in 1 Cor 16:1–4— after it had already begun (see notes there); by the time Paul wrote Rom 15:25–28 the collection was completed and ready for delivery. 2 Cor 8–9 contain what appear to be two letters on the subject. In them Paul gives us his fullest exposition of the meaning he sees in the enterprise, presenting it as an act of Christian charity and as an expression of the unity of the church, both present and eschatological. These chapters are especially rich in the recurrence of key words, on which Paul
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plays; it is usually impossible to do justice to these wordplays in the translation.
[8:1–24] This is a letter of recommendation for Titus and two unnamed companions, written from Macedonia probably at least a year later than 1 Cor 16. The recommendation proper is prefaced by remarks about the ideals of sharing and equality within the Christian community (2 Cor 8:1–15). Phil 4:10–20 shows that Paul has re ected on his personal experience of need and relief in his relations with the community at Philippi; he now develops his re ections on the larger scale of relations between his Gentile churches and the mother church in Jerusalem. [8:1–5] The example of the Macedonians, a model of what ought to be happening at Corinth, provides Paul with the occasion for expounding his theology of “giving.”
[8:1] The grace of God: the fundamental theme is expressed by the Greek noun charis, which will be variously translated throughout these chapters as “grace” (2 Cor 8:1; 9:8, 14), “favor” (2 Cor 8:4), “gracious act” (2 Cor 8:6, 7, 9) or “gracious work” (2 Cor 8:19), to be compared to “gracious gift” (1 Cor 16:3). The related term, eucharistia, “thanksgiving,” also occurs at 2 Cor 9:11, 12. The wordplay is not super cial; various mutations of the same root signal inner connection between aspects of a single reality, and Paul consciously exploits the similarities in vocabulary to highlight that connection.
[8:2] Three more terms are now introduced. Test (dokimē): the same root is translated as “to test” (2 Cor 8:8) and “evidence” (2 Cor 9:13); it means to be tried and found