<p>7:7 <i>And not by his coming only, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you-</i> The Corinthians are commended for comforting Titus who in turn passed on that comfort to Paul. This again is an attempt to make the situation a fulfilment of the principles of 1:3-6, where Paul states that God's comfort to believers is mediated through the comfort of others. On :6 I noted that there seems an element of forcing the situation with Titus to fit those requirements, when in reality there was not so much comfort at all from the Corinthians. For Paul has to go on to badger them to come up with the cash they have promised for his Jerusalem Poor Fund. It seems from 12:16-18 that the Corinthians accused Paul of using Titus to 'craftily... take advantage' of them. Yet here Paul wishes to give the impression that the Corinthians comforted Titus, who relayed that comfort to Paul, and thus Paul was deeply grateful to the Corinthians for comforting him. It seems Paul here in chapter 7 is exaggerating things in his own mind; see on :4 for an explanation of why.</p><p><i>While he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me. So that I rejoiced yet more</i>- Both before and after this section in chapter 7, Paul is dealing extensively with the cynicism and criticisms of the Corinthians against him. If indeed their love for Paul was so deep and credible, why does he have to state in 8:8: &quot;I am probing the sincerity of your love&quot;? If their love for him was so passionate, why in chapter 11 does he have to defend himself against their cynicism towards him, to the point that he even gets sarcastic with them: &quot;For if he that comes preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different gospel, which you did not accept- it seems you think you do well to go along with him&quot; (11:4). &quot;Forgive me this wrong&quot; (12:13) is another example of a sarcasm which would be inappropriate in a mutually loving and respectful relationship. Clearly they were forsaking Paul in order to follow his enemies. This was hardly &quot;your longing... your zeal for me&quot;. Zeal for him was what Paul subconsciously hoped for... and the news that they had been partially obedient to Paul on some point was perhaps wildly over-interpreted to mean they were zealous for him. The deep love for Paul which he likes to imagine as Titus gives him some news from Corinth is hardly for real, if he has to write to them: &quot;I have become foolish. You compelled me. For I ought to have been commended by you&quot; (12:11). He desperately gave them reason to respect him- when such reasons ought to have been forthcoming from them. But they were not. 12:15 certainly sounds like they were falling out of love with Paul, rather than the more in love with him: &quot;If I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less by you?&quot;. They directly accused him of dishonesty: &quot;You say I was crafty, and got the better of you by deceit&quot; (12:16), and &quot;you seek proof that Christ speaks in me&quot; (13:3). Is this really reconcilable with Paul's claim to have heard of &quot;your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me&quot;? Especially powerful is 12:19: &quot;You think all this time that we are excusing ourselves to you&quot;. &quot;All this time&quot; means that throughout their relationship over the course of the correspondence, the Corinthians didn't trust Paul and thought he was making excuses for having abused them through the visit of Titus and in other ways. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this exalting language of chapter 7 is either bitter sarcasm, or Paul being overly positive about them.</p><p>We hardly get the impression that they were longing for him, zealous for him and mourning their disobedience to him. If that were indeed the case, surely Paul would have put a red line through what he had previously written in 2 Corinthians, and then not written as he did in the rest of the letter. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Paul <i>interpreted </i>the report of Titus in terms of his deepest psychological hopes for the Corinthians. &quot;Mourning&quot; is an intense term, only used of the women weeping for their baby children who had been murdered (Mt. 2:18). Such deep lamentation is hard to square with the rest of the letter. &quot;So that I rejoiced <i>yet </i>more&quot; suggests Paul was already rejoicing over the Corinthians, and now he did so the more after the report from Titus. But he has earlier explained that he cancelled an intended visit to them because he knew they would give him sorrow rather than the rejoicing he hoped to have for them (2:3). He hoped to rejoice in them- and that psychological expectation was so deep in his subconscious that when Titus mentioned some potentially positive things about them, he found himself rejoicing, and imagining that even before that, he had been rejoicing. See my explanation and analogy offered on :4.</p><p>The words Paul uses for longing, mourning and zeal are found in essence in his description of their response to his command to separate from the immoral man (:11,12). Yet the terms can mean 'indignation' and can equally refer to their self-justification in explaining why they had not initially removed the immoral person. Paul likes to turn that around to mean they were zealous &quot;for me&quot;. But the rest of the letter shows that to be wishful thinking. These terms are also used by Paul in describing his longing, mourning and zeal for his brethren. It's as if he is subconsciously hoping that his feelings towards the Corinthians are theirs for him. He has explicitly stated that he hopes that his attitude of mind toward them will be theirs toward him (see on 6:11,13).</p><p>The language here in 7:7-11 is allusive to David's penitence, because Paul wished to interpret the news from Titus as meaning that the Corinthians had repented of their deep immorality: &quot;Ye were made sorry... ye sorrowed to repentance...ye were made sorry after a <i>Godly</i> manner (cp. &quot;every one that is <i>Godly.</i>..&quot;, Ps. 32:6)... for<i> Godly</i> sorrow worketh repentance to salvation... ye sorrowed after a <i>Godly</i> sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation (cp. David's in 2 Sam. 12:5)... what zeal... your mourning, your fervent mind&quot; (AV). Allusion after allusion to David is being piled up here. The eight references to their &quot;sorrow&quot; in four verses is surely a signpost back to David's intense sorrow for his sin with Bathsheba: &quot;My sin is ever before me (Ps. 51:3)... my sorrow is continually before me... I will be sorry for my sin... many sorrows shall be to the wicked&quot; who, unlike David, refused to repent (Ps. 38:17,18; 32:10). This association between sin and sorrow is a common one (Job 9:28; 1 Tim. 6:10; Ex. 4:31; Is. 35:10. The last two references show how Israel's sorrowing in Egypt was on account of their sinfulness). We must pause to ask whether our consciousness of sin leads us to a like sorrowing, whether our repentance features a similar depth of remorse. It would appear that Paul is likening Corinth to David. They too were guilty of sexual &quot;uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness&quot; (2 Cor. 12:21). As David's repentance was made in a &quot;day of salvation&quot;, so in 2 Cor. 6:2 Paul told Corinth that they were in a similar position to him; they too had the chance of repentance. Those who had heeded this call earlier had experienced the zeal and clear conscience which David did on his repentance (2 Cor. 7:9-11). In this case, Paul would be likening himself to Nathan the prophet. This zeal which was seen in both David and Corinth is a sure sign of clear conscience and a joyful openness with God. Again, we ask how much of our zeal is motivated by this, or is it just a continuation of a level of service which we set ourselves in more spiritual days, which we now struggle to maintain for appearances sake?&nbsp;</p>