Many times I wish I could unsend some of the emails I have composed. I will send something and wish that I had not hit that “send” button. This often leads to sorrow and an apology I make to the person to whom I sent the email. Yet each time it happens, I feel I grow in my discernment about what should or shouldn’t be handled by email, and these sorrowful feelings and apologies happen much less often now than they used to occur years ago.
The apostle Paul felt the same way with one of the letters he sent to the believers in the city of Corinth. “For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10, NASB).[1]
The specific event that Paul is referring to here is the third letter that he wrote to the believers in the city of Corinth. That third letter was carried by Titus (2 Corinthians 7:8-12)[2] and was direct and severe in its criticism of the Corinthians. In that letter Paul rebuked the Corinthians for tolerating a sinning member in the congregation. After sending it, apparently Paul wished he had not sent it.
In 2 Corinthians 7:10 Paul tells his readers that the sorrow that the world feels is pointless while the sorrow that Christians feel has a purpose. When Christians make mistakes we have a purpose in our growth which is to become more like Christ each and everyday. “When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:4).
For Christians, the point of our sorrow is growth. Paul had learned how his letter hurt the Corinthians and as a result Paul grew through that experience. “If we want to succeed in life and to learn from our losses, we must be able to face reality and use it to create a foundation for growth”[3] We too, each day, have opportunities to grow in our faith. Sometimes it comes through our mistakes, but those mistakes bring sorrow that makes us grow more like Christ.
[1] Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.
[2] Paul wrote four letters to the believers in the city of Corinth. The first letter was lost and we do not have it (see 1 Corinthians 5:9). The second letter is what we often call “1 Corinthians” which Paul wrote from Ephesus (see 1 Corinthians 16:8). The third letter is this “sharp” letter that Paul wrote and which Titus delivered to the believers in Corinth (see 2 Corinthians 7:1-18). The fourth letter is what we often call “2 Corinthians” which Paul wrote seven months after 1 Corinthians.
[3] John C. Maxwell, Sometimes You Win—Sometimes You Learn (New York, NY: Hachette Book Group, 2013), 41.